Can anyone recommend a good muebles store in Higuey?
Or a competent and honest furniture carpenter in the Higuey / Punta Cana / Bavaro area?
I live and work in Punta Cana for the past three years, and I recently moved into a new home and I am in furniture buying mode for the past several months, looking for just the right pieces, of good quality.
I just cannot take any more of Ilumel Punta Cana's "customer service" (CS). As another poster earlier said, "CS -- to Dominican store clerks -- means to be completely indifferent and apathetic to customers, and if you feel any obligation to display any emotion at all to a customer, then merely give the customer a disinterested glance, and act like YOU are doing the customer a favor to LET them purchase anything from you."
I laughed at that definition of Dominican CS, as if it were a joke, until I realized that it pretty accurately summarized what I received from the Ilumel sales staff this year. And then it wasn't so funny anymore.
They smile when I enter the store, but it's a cold, insincere smile (like a catatonic Wal-Mart greeter near the end of their exhausting 8-hour work shift, muttering a required but tired and mechanical "hello").
And then they act like it's an inconvenience to them to get out of their chairs to help customers. "Come back here to the reception desk where the staff all sits and chats, and tell me if there's anything you want." Oh, yeah. And when you do, we'll react sluggishly to furtively communicate to you that you are an unwelcome interruption of our chat.
And after spending around RD$ 400,000 at Ilumel in Punta Cana in the past 6 months, they still stubbornly refuse to give even the smallest "repeat customer" courtesy discount on additional purchases I want to make there. Look, I have enjoyed frequent flyer-type treatment and preferred customer discounts in many stores INCLUDING ones here in Punta Cana and Bavaro, and I can testify that numerous stores here routinely accept my reasonable "offer" price which is less than their posted prices, especially when I am buying more than just 1 or 2 items.
But Ilumel's clerks openly admit that they have no special regard for "preferred customers" because people come in there daily and pay them whatever they demand (or so they say). However, although I've been a good customer for them, and they know that my shopping list still has plenty of items on it, they still treat me with cold indifference. They say their posted prices already reflect the discount (cough, cough, choke). Each tag has an absurdly ridiculous high price, and then a "half price" -- the real price -- which is STILL way too high. I'm not fooled at all by the tactic. Frankly, I've taken enough of their CS, so I am voting with my feet and looking for someplace else to spend the rest of my furniture budget.
I had a horrible experience with Crafto Furniture in Punta Cana Village -- I spent RD$ 125,000 and got only something vaguely similar to what I custom-ordered (and lacking features that I had paid extra for), and then they never delivered on the promised "repairs" after the delivery. They took all my money and reneged on all of their promises after that. I cannot trust them again. I'm never buying there again.
And there's just no furniture at IKEA that I want.
So now I am looking for a list of 3 or 4 or 5 customer-recommended furniture muebles stores in Higuey. Can anyone recommend any? Or can you recommend a furniture maker that does decent work at a reasonable price, and can be relied on for honesty in delivering what was actually purchased?
Or a competent and honest furniture carpenter in the Higuey / Punta Cana / Bavaro area?
I live and work in Punta Cana for the past three years, and I recently moved into a new home and I am in furniture buying mode for the past several months, looking for just the right pieces, of good quality.
I just cannot take any more of Ilumel Punta Cana's "customer service" (CS). As another poster earlier said, "CS -- to Dominican store clerks -- means to be completely indifferent and apathetic to customers, and if you feel any obligation to display any emotion at all to a customer, then merely give the customer a disinterested glance, and act like YOU are doing the customer a favor to LET them purchase anything from you."
I laughed at that definition of Dominican CS, as if it were a joke, until I realized that it pretty accurately summarized what I received from the Ilumel sales staff this year. And then it wasn't so funny anymore.
They smile when I enter the store, but it's a cold, insincere smile (like a catatonic Wal-Mart greeter near the end of their exhausting 8-hour work shift, muttering a required but tired and mechanical "hello").
And then they act like it's an inconvenience to them to get out of their chairs to help customers. "Come back here to the reception desk where the staff all sits and chats, and tell me if there's anything you want." Oh, yeah. And when you do, we'll react sluggishly to furtively communicate to you that you are an unwelcome interruption of our chat.
And after spending around RD$ 400,000 at Ilumel in Punta Cana in the past 6 months, they still stubbornly refuse to give even the smallest "repeat customer" courtesy discount on additional purchases I want to make there. Look, I have enjoyed frequent flyer-type treatment and preferred customer discounts in many stores INCLUDING ones here in Punta Cana and Bavaro, and I can testify that numerous stores here routinely accept my reasonable "offer" price which is less than their posted prices, especially when I am buying more than just 1 or 2 items.
But Ilumel's clerks openly admit that they have no special regard for "preferred customers" because people come in there daily and pay them whatever they demand (or so they say). However, although I've been a good customer for them, and they know that my shopping list still has plenty of items on it, they still treat me with cold indifference. They say their posted prices already reflect the discount (cough, cough, choke). Each tag has an absurdly ridiculous high price, and then a "half price" -- the real price -- which is STILL way too high. I'm not fooled at all by the tactic. Frankly, I've taken enough of their CS, so I am voting with my feet and looking for someplace else to spend the rest of my furniture budget.
I had a horrible experience with Crafto Furniture in Punta Cana Village -- I spent RD$ 125,000 and got only something vaguely similar to what I custom-ordered (and lacking features that I had paid extra for), and then they never delivered on the promised "repairs" after the delivery. They took all my money and reneged on all of their promises after that. I cannot trust them again. I'm never buying there again.
And there's just no furniture at IKEA that I want.
So now I am looking for a list of 3 or 4 or 5 customer-recommended furniture muebles stores in Higuey. Can anyone recommend any? Or can you recommend a furniture maker that does decent work at a reasonable price, and can be relied on for honesty in delivering what was actually purchased?
