Shades of frustration

A Multichannel Merchant staffer in February, ordered seven custom roman shades from the Smith+Noble Website. The site was very helpful in walking her through the selection, measuring and ordering process, and several weeks later the shades arrived. The staffer was delighted with the quality of the shades, but during installation she discovered that the fleur-de-lis cleat and tassel sets ordered were missing from one shade.

So she placed a call to Smith+Noble customer service. The agent apologized and said the missing parts would arrive in a few days. Weeks later, no delivery, so she placed a second call to the customer service department. Again, an apology and assurance the parts would be shipped.

An envelope finally arrives, and inside is a basic cleat, no tassel — not what was ordered. A third call brings another apology and promise to make it right. Several days later another package arrives from the merchant’s warehouse — with the wrong style tassel and cleat inside.

After call number four, a package arrives with two different sets of tassels and cleats — neither one matching the original order. The staffer then photographed both the recent delivery and what was already installed before calling customer service again.

After e-mailing the photos as instructed, she did receive an e-mail response and later a call. A rep named Carol said that this problem was reported to the manager and the warehouse would be contacted. At last! The correct parts arrived…in May.

Guess a picture really is worth a thousand words — and $100 worth of mismatched window shade cleat sets.

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