- Thread starter TropicalPaul
- Start date
Buying something online from IKEA - complete nightmare
I was thinking that same thing today.
Who here remembers when they opened? Their service was insane and they were climbing over each other to help their customers.
It's supervisors' and managers' jobs to motivate employees to do their best, and it sounds like somebody isn't doing their job.
It's a good idea. I know now never to go to IKEA for anything. Others may be just as reluctant.
This is a hysterical/ludicrous/absurd posting, and it is time that somebody calls the truth on this shite.
Let us begin with the highlighted postings above......
Imported luxury goods.....from IKEA or Alyss? Again, luxury? 😂🤣😂
Then, you wanted a discount, requested a discount, and demanded a discount.....and were properly denied.
You did ALL but say exactly, "Do you know who I am?"; "Do you know who I know?"......but you probably did.
Is there any quicker way to get shot down in the service industry than this? Any place, globally? Please, those within the service industry feel free to chime in.
The manager offered you a 3% discount, but that was not good enough for you. Yes, in this time of the Coronavirus Plandemic BS, SHOULD SHE HAVE JEOPARDIZED HER POSITION, HER JOB, HER LIVLIHOOD......FOR YOUR DISCOUNT????????
For this, I may go to this location and buy 10 of these chairs, and give this poor employee a Christmas tip on top for being a good reliable employee.
Be real man.
Wow, just wow.
As the FOREIGN BORN OWNER of a hotel within RD, I am safe to assume from your statements that you approve of your Dominican employees (if any) of offering discounts that you are not directly aware of, to those that ask, or demand of such????????
If you found a Dominican employee of yours (again, if there are any) giving away comps, freebies, bennies to "special people" without your consent, or magic keyswipe/code would you be acceptable of this behaviour?
Of course, as the hotel owner that you are.
This is a very interesting posting, and I will share why.
In my local Jumbo Market (Romana), I had one young gentleman who once worked as a cashier.
He would always wave me over to his queue when I was on my way out to purchase. I always thought it was because he wanted to help out the baggage handlers (which as well, he did), but he was also quite quick in ringing up the till. Easy in. Easy out.
Truth be it, in the Jumbo Romana, those checkout persons who were constantly top of the day with their checkout totals, were being placed in advancement for assistant managerial positions....depending on their daily punch in of $'s sold.
So here was this young man, who did a good job, built confidence in customers, assisted the baggage lads, and due to his vision......gained himself a new position.
He is now an Assistant Manager in Jumbo, and assists others on how to do a good job.
All is not lost.
Long ago, on the advice of one of my assistant managers in training, I once purchased IKEA products for an investment.
The manager lasted longer than the products purchased, but was properly redirected shortly thereafter.
To this day, we are still on good speaking terms, but she does not purchase IKEA products any longer. 😂 🤣😂
IKEA products are geared towards university students on a budget, and last 3-5 years, just as those students.
Call centers are a way of life, I guess. Yes, necessary evil.
Although, I must say, I have never received a Dominican operator (male/female) in any of my calls which required a central call center, in the last 30 years.
India, yes.
Timbuktu, yes.
RD, no.
Perhaps it is Chinese or Russian citizens who are redirected to RD to make phone inquiries.
It can be for both or either one. Its like you reply in post 27 your "Jumbo" cashier was motivated.
All I was saying is that without motivation most are not incline to give service and this we see here often. We see retail workers on their cell phone rather than giving service to their customers, this is a perfect example of lack of motivation from the worker and management/owners. I must admit retail work with the general population is not easy and you must like it to be motivated to start with.
Hope you are feeling better after getting all those comments off your chest. All I would say to you is please try owning a hotel in Dom Rep right now, and then when you have done that, you will understand why we are begging for discounts. Please also understand that a luxury good is a good that is outside the reach of people on a normal salary. A single small chair for RD$ 16,500 would be a luxury purchase for most Dominicans even if it isn't to your taste. And regarding IKEA, the owner was the third richest man in the world, and I don't think he made all that money selling furniture to students. In Europe I think you'd be hard pressed to find a house without something from IKEA in it.
Yes of course it would be acceptable. I only employ people I can trust and I always pay above market salaries. And I only employ Dominicans, not foreigners. My staff would only offer comps or discounts if there was a justifiable reason and I don't micromanage them. Usually I have the opposite problem, a guest has a problem and they refuse to give a discount. The day I can't trust someone, the day I find someone with their hand in the till, I just fire them they all know that. I used to run quite a big company and my specialism is HR so I think I know how to employ and manage people to get the best out of them.
Understood, but perhaps you should re-read your own hasty postings.
You did not address the dire needs of the hotel industry during these difficult economic times caused by the Chinese Virus, you attacked one particular employee who did not grant your stuffy demands for a discount, and then took it a step further assigning the discrepancies to possible cultural issues within RD.
Your angst should sit with the respective government bodies who may be in a position to provide the hotel industry as a whole (NOT JUST YOU) some economic support, or higher up the food chain of the establishment you desired to purchase from.....not the poor employee, who was just doing their job.
So, by all accounts within your own words, this poor employee/manager of the furniture store in question, was only doing their job.
Bravo to him/her.
While I partly agree with you, the thing that strikes to me here is the way the manager (not the employee, not their fault) behaved. So 45k+ DOP purchase with many items is not a small purchase. Whenever we've had large purchases, the manager always gets his shiny calculator and "sees what he can do"... I think 3 % (1485 DOP) would have been a bit small amount... Then again, IKEA just like any other larger chain here, even the managers might have more limited in the way what they can do for the customer, not so with smaller businesses.
Starting to speak with someone else while the customer is attempting to speak with you, I have had that many times... So speaking of the manager the OP spoke with, I would not find that appropriate behavior at all. Asking for discount and getting a decline is fine, but you just don't dismiss your customers... But as said, I've seen that happening A LOT here... with mobile phone, music, whatever...
To clarify. I didn't ask for a discount at IKEA as they were offering 10% on all purchases. I asked for one at Alyss mainly because the chair was vastly overpriced and even the sales guy said he thought the price was incorrect. They said they would call head office in Panama and let me know if a bigger discount could be offered. Promised to contact me yesterday and of course they didn't.
She was just rude. I didn't think she was a poor employee who was just doing her job. She was the manager of a large store she would be making maybe RD$80000 a month and had a really nasty attitude.
It’s called beta entitlement. It’s destroying most western societies at the moment. They feel as if the world revolves around them, and that their emotions and feelings matter more than anything (there’s billions of people with feelings mind you).
Who asks for a discount anyway in a corporate owned business? This guy owns a hotel but shops like a street dealer/hustler? Delusions of grandeur.
Maybe some of them need to take more pride in how they carry themselves when shopping. Most Dominicans see us expats and foreigners as cheap/not really rich people trying to escape our countries; living backwards to them as many of them move abroad for “better” lives. No, they don’t look at us at rich or wealthy unless you carry yourselves as such, just like in any other country.
If he wanted the special treatment and large discount, he should have drove up in his Rolls Royce, choose his options, then have his personal assistant take it from there. She would have seen him as a possible long term prospect and offered him a discount with rapid delivery, empanadas, and coffee. (Grandeur story to fit his state of mind). Lmao
Nobody wants to waste time on someone who looks and acts like a cheapskate. Especially when begging for discounts in a “poorer” country. Delusional...
I think you are right. I have never been in IKEA RD, but the kitchen items are of reasonable quality. We have a construction company in our family and with every reconstruction or new build they (I am not part of it) put always IKEA kitchens . Cheap, easy to install and last forever.
The furniture is not everyone’s (not mine) cup of tea. Quality? I don’t know. A lot of playwood is my impression. Not wood. A bit like the bedroom walls in American houses...speaking of quality 😉.