Very Poor Customer Service
Complaint
Caryleena Heinz
Country: Canada
My experience with Ashley furniture is somewhat bitter sweet. Walking around the showroom and dealing with the salesperson was a very pleasant, if not enjoyable experience, however, my follow up experiences (yes! very much plural) with Customer Service has been deplorable, to say the least. I had purchased an entire bedroom suite. My headboard and dresser mirror were damaged upon delivery (which to my thinking, should be replaced. Period.) There should be no question to the extent of damage, product that I had purchased, new, should be delivered in good condition. I had purchased my suite from Ashley Furniture because they have a certain reputation for quality product. I had purchased this good quality furniture with the expectation that this would be what I would receive. To have anything less is unacceptable and should be this company's mantra. I very much love what I purchased, however, because of the very poor Customer Service (does this even exist at this company), I will never again purchase anything from Ashley Furniture.
Comments
After much research and shopping for Living Room furniture I can say that Ashley is not considered quality furniture. It is considered on the lower end of furniture. They do have other lines that are supposed to be of higher quality. But you would probably be better off looking for furniture Made in the USA. E.g. England, La-Z-Boy and Flexsteel would be considered more mid-level quality. But even some of their furniture is made in China. Many of the leather products from Flexsteel and La-Z-Boy are made in China. Look for the models that are made in the USA. I recently purchased a sofa by England for a local furniture retailer. Since I needed a sofa quickly I needed to get a floor model or in-stock model. Their premium brand is Flexsteel and they swear by it. If I had the time to order one I probably would have purchased Flexsteel if I wanted to purchase from a store. If I was OK with ordering online, which I am because of the great deals you can get on more premium brands like Palliser (Canada), Barcalounger (USA), Klaussner (USA) and Bradington-Young (USA) . You can order these and choose your style and fabric/leather and you receive the order direct from the manufacturer. These are sold from official manufacturer dealers and have a full warranty. In the process you can save 30-40%, so you are able to get a premium brand for the price of a mid-level brand. I realize purchasing online is not for everybody.
I received my England sofa today and I will give updates as I spend more time on it. Especially since the number of negative reviews on here about England (I will post this in that thread also). As far as I can tell the make good quality mid-priced furniture. They are also the only manufacturer I know of that offers a 10 year warranty on cushions (lifetime on frame). Check out their website for some of good information on their company and manufacturing process. This link appears to give a good rating profile for furniture manufacturers. Yes they do sell furniture also, but the rating seems consistence with other research I have done (http://leathershoppes.com/manufacturer_rank.html#.Uq-aNfRDuaQ).
I am anxious to see how my England sofa holds up, especially since I do sleep on my sofa (supposedly bad for sofas). Since I did a lot of research on the brands I was looking at and found a number of negative reviews on them (Flexsteel, La-Z-Boy & England) I have come to my own conclusion on the negative reviews: Yes there are people that have issues with all brands of furniture and this can be helpful information but I also feel that these negatives reviews represent such a small percentage of the total sales for these manufactures that you cannot take them as a true reflection of a manufacturers quality. Customer service, maybe, but not to discourage you from buying that brand. If you choose a model made in China you are probably more likely to have quality issues but if you stick with Made in USA models you will have a better quality product. Other thoughts; I think when you decide to get leather or reclining furniture you have greatly complicated the process. High quality leather is expensive. Reclining sofas are much more complex and will have more issues than a stationary sofa. A stationary sofa is one piece of furniture, built to function as a single piece of furniture. A reclining sofa is essentially 3 separate pieces of furniture attached together, which is fine but expect to spend more money to get a high quality reclining sofa (nothing less than a La-Z-Boy or Flexsteel). If I was to purchase a leather or reclining sofa I would prefer a Palliser, Barcalounger or Klaussner and if I was willing to go into the 3k range then Bradington-Young.
These are just my thoughts and information after doing a lot of shopping and research. There are certainly many other good brands out there and would appreciate other's opinions and experiences.