IKEA is surprisingly easy and difficult all the same time
- IKEA is amazing wonderful and utterly frustrating. The customer service is surprisingly good as long as you stick with one sales channel. I've called them a few times to check on cabinet dimensions and they actually pick up the phone and try their best to find the information. One phone customer service rep even called the store and asked them to measure something for me while I was on hold. I've asked them questions over email and they usually respond within a day.
- Similarly, the in-store experience is pretty good. Both times they patiently answered my questions and checked my order a few times. Some kitchen specialists are better than others, but they were all helpful. Jenni, who helped me on Monday, was awesome about checking all my colors, asking me lots of detailed questions and editing the order so I didn't order too many extra toe kicks, doors, shelves and hinges.
Don't try to cross sales channels. There's no integration across the two experiences.
- In the beginning, I wanted to use their in home kitchen design and measuring service that's operated out of their stores. I couldn't schedule the appointment over the phone or online. They asked me to drive to the store to make an appointment in person for someone from the store to drive to my house to measure my kitchen. Makes no sense for the customer especially a car free family like ours so our contractor helped us measure and I did the design myself.
- I wanted to change my delivery date so I tried calling yesterday. The automated system literally hung up on me multiple times when it was supposed to transfer me to someone at the store. I emailed IKEA trying to change my delivery date and received a response that I needed to either call the store (who keeps accidentally hanging up on me) or drive to the store to make the delivery date change in person. I'm resigned to keep my original delivery date.
Take full advantage of their online planning tools, but don't trust it blindly.
- The IKEA 3D kitchen planner can be a bit buggy, but is good enough. Basically, you enter the dimensions for the room layout and you can drag and drop cabinets. I obsessively used this tool for both kitchens making edits along the way. It's kinda addictive like Candy Crush is for Adam. Sometimes the kitchen planner doesn't let you do what you want and you just have to remember it's not you. The kitchen planner program can be wonky, naughty and petulant...you're not the crazy one.
- The kitchen planner program is like a bad version of Microsoft Word. Like Word, the kitchen planner will want to "format" your order with the best of intentions yet totally gets it wrong. For both my orders, the kitchen planner tried to calculate the number of accessories I needed and both times, it made major errors like undercounting the number of cabinet legs I needed or overestimating the amount of material I needed. Triple check it all and assuming nothing is accurate. This is where the in store staff's expertise is very helpful.
- The kitchen planner lacks common sense because it's a not super bright computer program. I almost ordered extra cabinets because I found wayward extra cabinets hidden inside obstacles and walls. I couldn't see it visually, but the extra unexpected cabinets appeared on the order list so I had to hunt them down and delete them.
- The kitchen planner is also a bit color blind which is how I accidentally ordered a birch cabinet for plasticmom's all white kitchen. I almost ordered the off white parts for my white kitchen based on the kitchen planner's recommendation. Off white is a default setting that was mascara ding as an expert recommendation.
Be prepared to be prepared
- Because I'd spent two months working with the kitchen planner and my contractor creating dozens of iterations, I thought I was prepared. I knew the cabinet configurations and dimensions IKEA offered in and out. I had checked my item list about 10 times and made corrections with each version before our store visit. It still took me over an hour with the kitchen specialist to place my order. I got about it 95% right and 5% wrong even with all my obsessive preparation. Granted none of the minor mistakes were tragic, but I needed their in store help to get it as accurate as possible if I wanted to avoid another trip to IKEA for missing parts.
- Even with all the preparation, I felt low level anxiety during the ordering process because there were so many details to tend to. I was totally flabbergasted that other customers were literally planning their kitchens from start to finish at the store. The couple across from me was having an animated conversation about corner cabinets. Turns out many people spend the day at IKEA planning their kitchens using the IKEA computers. Some even come in an hour before the store closes expecting to order a kitchen before dinner. I can't even imagine! I'm not laid back enough to wing designing a kitchen in one day with a lunch break for Swedish Meatballs.
- Check the order obsessively, but expect some minor mistakes because minor mistakes are part of life. I accidentally ordered plasticmom a brown birch sink cabinet and I accidentally bought her 40 cabinet pulls when I only needed 20. Thankfully, I returned the cabinet pulls and you can't see the birch cabinet with the white doors.
- Also be prepared to take delivery of hundreds of little boxes and parts. I had over a hundred items to inventory plasticmom's kitchen and it took me 2 hours to inventory the items with their 8 digit SKU numbers. My kitchen will be about three times more parts so I'm blocking out an entire day next week to get organized after they deliver.
Get a good night's sleep and remember to eat
- Eat lots of snacks...that's just a life philosophy of mine
- Take bio breaks
- Wear comfy shoes and cross body bags for all your gear
Get the IKEA family card upfront and use it for all your purchases
- The IKEA family card is free and it's actually great. I used it to get 20% off our kitchen cabinets which is a nice chunk of change. The kitchen promotion is running through end of April and they run the promotion a few times a year.
- They'll also price adjust any purchases up to 90 days so had I bought my cabinets before the promotion, I could have gone into the store and received the discount on past purchases as long as I used the IKEA family card.
- You get free coffee and free tea at the cafe.
- Key takeaway: no IKEA family card, no price adjustment, no promotions and no free coffee.
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