IKEA Thailand Treats its Customers with Contempt

Bangkok, Thailand. November 16, 2012. At the beginning of this year, I made the long trip from central Bangkok to visit the new Ikea store in the Bangkok suburb of Bagna, Ikea's first store in Asia. While there, I purchased a floor lamp (see picture) and assembled it at home. After about six months, the on-off switch broke, rendering the lamp useless as I can't turn it on. The switch is not repairable. Since I paid cash and didn't have a receipt, I wanted to know if Ikea would either replace the lamp or give me a credit for the purchase price, but I didn't want to carry the heavy and tall lamp out to the store on the Skytrain and bus, without first knowing that I would be successful. Simply put, I wanted to know Ikea's policy.

Using the email form on Ikea's web site, I presented my inquiry to them. No acknowledgement and no response. A week later, I sent a second, similar email. This time I received an acknowledgement, but with the admonition not to contact Ikea, that Ikea would contact me. It didn't. So, I sent a third email, and again received an acknowledgement, but, contrary to its promise, it didn't contact me.

I thought the Swede's were better than this, so I wrote a letter (an actual physical letter of the sort that the post office handles) to Lars Boström, the Managing Director of Ikea Thailand, at the company's
corporate headquarters in Bangkok. Silly me. No answer has ever been received to my letter, a copy of which is attached.

As Woody Allen says: "Cheap is cheap."

October 1, 2012

Mr. Lars Boström, Managing Director

IKEA Trading (Thailand) Ltd.

16th Floor, SSP Tower

555 Sukhumwit 63,

Bangkok 10110

Dear Mr. Bostrom:

            The purpose of this letter is to bring to your attention, a serious service deficiency within Ikea Bangna, which deserves to receive you personal attention.

            About six months ago, I bought a floor lamp at Ikea Bangna.  After some use, the lamp became defective, and, using your Web site, I provided Ikea with the details of my purchase and the problem, and asked that it be rectified.  My first email was not acknowledged.  A week later, I sent a second, similar email, this one being acknowledged by a form message telling me that Ikea would contact me, but no one from you company did so.  A week later, I wrote to Ikea for the third time, with identical results: an acknowledgement and a promise to contact me, but no response has ever been received.

            I do not believe that I have been singled out by Ikea for mistreatment.  Rather, there is something very wrong within an organization that provides a method for communicating with it, and then, in spite of repeated attempts, ignores its customers.  I’m sure that I am not alone in being so neglected, and I assume that you are unaware of this deficiency within Ikea Bagna; otherwise, you surely already would have corrected it.

           

I am enclosing copies of the emails I sent to Ikea, which will provide you with the details of my purchase and the action I requested Ikea take.  I am asking you, just as politely and as firmly as I can, to rectify the inaction of your company to date, to contact me, and to take care of my problem with Ikea, in a way I find satisfactory.   Of course, what you choose to do within your company, is a decision only you can make.

                                                                                    Sincerely yours,

                                                                                    Howard N. Singer