I have been a ridiculously loyal customer of Pottery Barn since I moved into my first apartment. My sofa, my coffee and side tables, my entire bedroom set, every single one of my light fixtures, my towels (and more)… all Pottery Barn. We registered there for our wedding four years ago. When I want good furniture that fits my style, that’s where I immediately go. So when I got pregnant, Pottery Barn Kids was the first place I looked at for baby furniture. And we ordered everything from there, from the Madison crib to the Kendall dresser to the bookcase to the crib sheets (and more). We again registered there. It was my stupidity to think that the quality would be comparable to the quality of what I’ve purchased from Pottery Barn.
The dresser is flimsy. The drawers don’t open well and are unfinished and splintery on the inside. There’s a crack in the back of the dresser which I didn’t see until today since the delivery people brought it in and immediately put it against a wall. But I could have actually lived with all that. The problem came when I tried to attach the Kendall changing table topper to the Kendall dresser. The instructions made it look easy and said all I needed was a Philips head screwdriver. All I had to do was screw two metal plates into pre-drilled holes on each side. So I looked for the holes and found that there were no holes whatsoever on the changing table topper. Nor were there any holes in the back of the dresser. WTF?!?!?
So I called customer service. I was told that they would have pre-drilled the holes in the dresser if I’d ordered the topper and the dresser together. Well, they were all purchased in the same order, so to me that would be the definition of “together”. They said they had no idea why the topper had no holes in it and that it should have them. They said they’d be happy to replace that, but that I’d have to pay to exchange the dresser. They suggested that the best thing I could do is just drill the holes myself into the dresser. I was truly flabbergasted that they weren’t willing to replace it for me for free.
So now I have to drill the holes myself, hoping that this flimsy piece of junk doesn’t fall apart in the process. I am deeply disappointed by the furniture and the customer service response.
The crib I ordered is on backorder and tonight I plan to decide whether to cancel that part of the order completely. We’re planning on putting the baby in the Amby Baby Hammock in our room for the first few months and I guess I’ll just figure out what to do after that. It was really the only crib I liked, but I’m worried that there will be more quality problems with this piece as well. Considering that poor crib quality can kill a child, I’m seriously leaning towards canceling the order.
I had planned to buy a new coffee table since mine seems like a disaster for kids (very pointy edges). I was going to purchase new slip covers for my sofa since they’re getting a bit ratty. I was going to order some cute toy storage. I was going to order it all from Pottery Barn. Not anymore. Not if they were the last furniture seller on Earth.
Pottery Barn, you just lost an extremely loyal customer who likely would have spent tens of thousands of dollars on your furniture over the course of my life. Maybe you should consider putting the same attention to detail into your children’s furniture as you do into your regular PB furniture, because you likely will lose a lot more customers this way.
Tags: baby furniture, pb, pottery barn, pottery barn kids
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:44 am
I’m surprised at Pottery Barn! This doesn’t seem like their usual good service. Send a copy of this blog entry to their website. I have seen Pottery Barn go out of their way for customers (including me). I would think they would remedy this situation just based on safety.
I’m really sorry this happened to you.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Uh-oh. Allen just got started on our crib (a low-end one from Kids Town [who would have known?]), and now I’m REALLY nervous about the power tool sounds I hear coming from the baby’s room. Time to check on the assembly process…
January 8th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Our crib came from Room & Board – it turned out to be a re-badged Legacy crib (made by Child Craft), which was fine, because when the time came to get the toddler bed conversion we had to go to the local baby furniture shop to get it.
If I had it to do over, I think I’d buy a crib through a local baby place instead of on-line. Not Babies R Us, but a small specialty shop. It would cost more, but having someone to go to for questions and service was nice. Better service makes the sale!
January 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Did you ever get any feedback from Pottery Barn?
January 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Never heard from them, but I continued to pursue some sort of satisfaction with them. You can see the resolution here http://meredith.wolfwater.com/.....art-deux/.
January 24th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Meredith
I’m sorry to hear about your problem.
Unfortunately I found about it researching my own issue.
We recently purchased a new toddler table (42″ round, it’s wonderful).
Unfortunately the box was mishandled. It has warnings all over it to only store on it’s side but their are footprints all over the thing. It was laid down and walked on by someone with very dirty boots.
While asembling the table we found there to be a large 5″+ gauge in the top of the table.
We called PB customer service. They will address the issue, but they want the item shiped back to them, for verification, then IF they agree the table is damaged they will ship out a replacement.
Ideally I would just like them to send out a replacement table top or allow “cross shipping” of the broken and new table. Two weeks tableless may not seem like a big deal but tell that to my 3 year old who absolutely loves the thing.
Another disappointment in the same shipment was the $70 chair. You would expect paying that much for a kids chair it would be perfect but their is a corner on the top front and center with no paint. Again, they want it shipped back for “verificaiton”.
If anyone has tips on how to deal with PB we would love to hear them!
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
Hi All,
You may be interested to know that on January 14th Williams-Sonoma (the parent company of Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, etc.) suddenly closed the call center in Camp Hill, PA, that had handled Pottery Barn Kids phone calls. W-S formerly had 3 call centers, each dedicated to certain catalogs.
The PBK calls are now being handled at one of the other call centers in Oklahoma City or Las Vegas, and I unerstand that the employes there were not trained in advance on the PBK products.
Our call center closing was secret until 11:45 am on the 14th, when the employees were told to gather their personal belongings and leave in 15 minutes. I guess W-S didn’t want to tip their hand about closing our call center by training another center’s employes on the PBK products. We had more than 300 employes–I don’t know how many people work at the other call centers.
At our call center, at least, return policies were constantly changing during the past year, and it was a struggle to keep up with the latest edition, but I never heard of sending a defective product back for verification before issuing a replacement. Perhaps this is a change since January 14th, or it could be something that the other call centers were doing all along for a different catalog.
The drastic changes at Williams-Sonoma might help explain some of the customer service issues.
FormerlyPBK Customer Service
February 21st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
My daughters room is filled with PBKids.Now we consider it a danger zone.She has the loft bed and desk.As she was sitting doing her homework the other night the keyboard draw fell off the desk and fell on her feet.(very heavy)It missed our cat by inches.I have called and written PB and NO response.They installed it and they are responsible.They take no action and think it is our responsibility. I think they never heard of customer service.So very disappointed and no longer a customer of PB.Of course this after spending 8,000.Thank God my daughter was not hurt
August 24th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I too, a loyal PB customer but in 12/09 purchased a 9×12 Patchwork natural fiber rug. The rug left a black/green powdery discharge everywhere! It has sunk down into my floorboards and to this day we can still pull the “material” out from in between our floorboards. Returned the rug at no charge to us but left with a big clean up mess and wondering what the “stuff” is. PB had no answers and offered $50 for our troubles. Didn’t quite seem right with all of the mess and the unknown still lingering in our home. Patchwork rug was recently discontinued with no explanation as to why from PB. Anyone else have a problem like this?
October 14th, 2010 at 10:23 am
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Pottery Barn furniture = nice design + poor workmanship + poor material
We purchased a bedroom set for our daughter and the quality of furniture is SUBSTANDARD. The same can bas said for the packaging. If you can STAY AWAY FROM POTTERY BARN furniture (well, unless you like to see your UPS delivery person come to your house over and over again)! You will not be sorry.
I will be calling them in a few minutes and request another shipment, a massive discount or full refund. I am even tempted to charge for my time.
Pottery Barn does not give a “cookie” about their customers.
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