Customer Service and Jordan's Furniture

My wife and I tend to shop at Jordan's when we need furniture. And no, it's not just because of the fresh cinnamon donuts from the fascinating little machine in the foyer, but I must admit I have now permanently associated couches with fresh-baked pastries. And yes, I know that's probably not a good thing. At least not for my waistline.

Anyway, Jordan's always had a good selection, which is certainly a big part of why we go there, but, really, when you get right down to it, it's the service that keeps me coming back.

Recently we had an example of this that kind of blew me away, and I'm expecting good service from them to begin with, so that's something to note. Therefore, this blog post.

My wife and I purchased a chair and couch to replace a couple pieces in the family room that were so bad that we were embarrassed to have people visit. The chair, alone, had been shredded to near oblivion by my cats and I had been forced to replace all the feet with stacks of screwed-together two-by-fours. Let's just say "it was time".

We selected and purchased the new pieces, they showed up- on time, of course, the men who delivered it very nicely agreed to move my old furniture out to the garage as long as I wouldn't mind talking to their supervisor real quick so he can just make sure I understand they'll do their best not to smash a door down, but can't be liable if something goes wrong- totally understandable, and nice that they have a system in place to allow them to help me even though it's likely been a problem for them in the past. Everything went great and the furniture was delivered.

Then my wife sat down. And the look on her face was... indescribable. That's saying something for me, because I'm an author. I want to say "she looked like she just sat on a milk crate of drunken weasels", but that seems a little extreme, so let's just go with "surprised". I doubted her reaction, so I sat down next to her... and confirmed her dairy-farm-packed intoxicated weasel colony conclusions. I gave Jordan's a call.

They were very understanding on the phone, and, despite my worries about not being able to return custom furniture, allayed my fears and said that there were a variety of options available. But before we took any more extreme steps, they suggested a few things we could try, including putting the cushions on the floor and jumping on them a bit. I kid you not. They said it was totally normal- and yes, it actually helped... but not enough. So they suggested the next logical step would be to "dispatch an experienced technician" to come have a look.

He arrived... on time, of course. He took off his shoes before coming in, followed me to the couch, sat down, and for all the world looked like he had just sat on a crate full of weasels. (You know I said I wasn't going to use that, and here I've done it three times. What can I say? I can't help myself.)  After scratching his head a bit, and being very forthright that he was surprised by the way the couch felt, he spent some time trying to work in the cushions, being certain to acknowledge that he knew I had done this before but was so surprised that he wanted to just be extra sure. After a while, he shook his head and asked if we wouldn't mind him calling into the office. He pulled out his cell, called, and talked to them for a bit.

It turns out that we had, in our zeal in wanting furniture that would hold up longer, purchased better cushions. These cushions would take longer to break in, but would last much longer than our prior ones had. But even with that, the technician was a bit surprised, noting that he'd been doing this for any number of years, and rarely did anyone call in reporting a couch being "too firm". and he had personally not experienced one as firm as ours. He went over a number of options- we could replace the fill, or he could remove some of it to "tone the couch down a bit". and was happy to do whatever we would like, but his personal feeling was that maybe we should sit on the couch for a few months, see how it breaks in, and then decide what to do.

That seemed totally reasonable to me, and I felt especially okay with delaying a bit, because I felt very much like Jordan's had my back on this. My wife did as well, and that's- again- saying something. To say my wife is not big on change would be... well... it would be like ignoring the fact that the new couch and chair were exactly the same color as the old one, and the couch essentially looked like we took the old one out, pumped it up with a bicycle pump, and then brought it back.

So the technician left, and I figured that was probably it for now, and all was right with the world- or at least as right with the world as it can be with me having spent a few thousand dollars on furniture that I wasn't so sure that I was all that pleased with.

Then, about four hours later, I got a phone call. It was the technician from earlier that day. He said he had driven up to the Nashua store where we had purchased the couch (we live about 45 minutes away, in Massachusetts), found the sales person who sold it to us, and the two of them went to investigate the couches we had sat on at the store to decide what cushions to buy. He said he probably sat on fifteen different couches. He was careful to point out that the cushions in the store see a lot of activity, so they do get broken in, but that his conclusion was that the couches with the cushions that we purchased were much more comfortable than what we had. He reassured us again that he could do whatever we liked as far as replacing or altering the cushions, but it was bothering him that we were not happy with our choice and he wanted to have a better sense of what they might be like in a few months or more.

I was floored.

After he explained everything, I said "Hey, um... I want to thank you. Going up there, going through all that, and taking the time to call me... it's really going above and beyond."

He responded, and I could almost hear a note of confusion in his voice over my compliment. "No, sir, not at all. It's just what I do. It's what we do. If it were my couch, I'd expect no less."

It was just a brilliant example of the genuine kind of customer service - the kind that comes from people actually caring about other people - that makes me feel good enough to not only continue shopping there, but to give Jordan's another call to specifically put in a good word for the technician, and take some of my personal time on a Sunday to write this blog.

Thumbs-up, Jordan's Furniture. Way up!