Complaints.com

From: Message Author
Date: Saturday, 31-Mar-07 15:29:47 CDT

Business Info

Feb 2007, My husband and I went to the local Savannah, GA LazBoy store to purchase a sofa to match 2 recliners I have purchased the year before. (LazBoy, 8880 Abercorn St, Savannah, GA). My husband and I liked the Melanie model. We were told by the salesgirl, Kristi Kapolka that the sofa was only available in that fabric and there were 2 colors available other then the red shown on the floor model. She provided swatches of the fabrics. When asked if she had them available for purchase, she checked her computer and said there weren’t any in the warehouse, but she could get us one in blue in approximately 6 weeks.

My husband returned a couple weeks later and ordered the blue version of the sofa. March 31, 2007 the sofa was delivered and it is not anything like it was represented by the fabric swatch. We returned to the store and tried to discuss a resolution with the staff. Quickly we were turned over to the store manager, Kimberly Hawk who produced a store copy of our order. She showed it to us and said that it was proof that we special ordered a sofa and according to the policy stated on the order the sofa was nonrefundable. Two interesting things were immediately apparent – their store copy of the order had hand written notation “S/O” which is not on our copy of the receipt. Second, the box with the information about special orders specifically states that all special orders require 50% deposit, something we were not required to do. When I pointed that out the manager she stated they don’t worry about that, yet they do follow the nonrefundable/non-cancelable part! Also, they had marked out the first digit of the color of the item. And, as I tried to explain, money was not an object when we purchased the sofa, so if we could have special ordered the fabric to match our existing chairs we would have happily spent whatever necessary to do that. An option we were specifically told by the salesperson that was not available.

To make the problem worse, the manager was extremely unprofessional and rude. She doesn’t appear to have any inkling of what customer service or satisfaction is. She abruptly ended the any further conversation by stating that she “didn’t have time for me” and I “could just contact Corporate”. As we were leaving the store she quickly and none too quietly grabbed our original salesgirl who had just returned from lunch and began coaching her on what to say and what the complaint was, while steering her into a back, private area. She was very obvious in her manipulation of the situation to ensure we were unable to talk to the salesgirl and verify our version of the story before. A possibility, I know is lost now.

Ultimately we are left with a $1200.00 sofa we don’t like and did not intend to order and a very good lesson on why we will never deal with the LazBoy in Savannah again.

Stephanie Coy

Savannah, GA

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