Pottery Barn Customer Service

You've probably had an experience with customer service where you've talked to two or more reps, both very attentive and helpful, but got two or more very different worlds of service.  That was my experience with Pottery Barn not too long ago.

About a month ago, my wife and I purchased the Cynthia Storage Bed from Pottery Barn through its website.  It took several weeks of debate. The bed is beautiful mahogany and functional with six spacious drawers underneath (three on each side).  But it's quite pricey at around $2400. However, we had accumulated around $700 in gift cards and decided that it was a good long-term purchase.  

Fast forward to December 3rd: I was browsing my employer's, ABC Network, discount page and I found a 20% discount for Pottery Barn that applied to designer studio furniture, which includes the Cynthia bed. Twenty percent would take approximately $450 more off the cost. But we had to purchase the bed through a particular store near ABC with a Visa card and make the purchase by December 7th.

I immediately called Pottery Barn customer service and asked if I could cancel the internet order, get our entire gift-card value returned as well as the shipping returned, and then apply the returned gift card retroactively to the subsequent in-store purchase (assuming it would take a week or so to receive the gift card in the mail).  

The customer service rep was very attentive and helpful.  After several minutes of discussion, he concluded that I could accomplish all the things I wanted.  I then called the store and confirmed the same.  So, I again called customer service and cancelled my Internet order.  The next day I went to the store and made the purchase with my VISA to get the extra 20% off.  

Several days later, we get a call from Pottery Barn's delivery company informing us that the original order is ready for delivery! This was a fun moment realizing that I now owned two Cynthia beds.  I called customer service, this time speaking with another person who informed me that the original order was never cancelled. She also informed me that the order could not have been cancelled because the bed had been prepped for shipping.  She further informed me that I did not have to go through the hoops that I had gone through.  She said that the first time around, customer service should have applied the 20% discount to the original order even though the original order was not made with a VISA card.  

With a little further investigation, she found out that the store order had not yet gone through, so that would be easy to cancel.  Then working through the 20% discount calculations, she determined that my wife's AMEX card should get approximately $480 credited back, which happened to be a few dollars more than the discount would have come out to if the store purchase went through!

All in all, the experience was more time consuming than anything because it ended well!  Although the first customer service person I spoke with was very attentive, pleasant and helpful, he ended up not being able to provide the optimum service.  The customer service women who cleared all this up was also attentive, pleasant and helpful, but was able to provide the optimum service.  The difference? Perhaps the woman had more authority to make such decisions. Perhaps the woman had more experience with Pottery Barn's rules and guidelines for such situations. Regardless, both customer service reps should have come to the same conclusion.     

It's a lesson to consumers to be persistent and insistent, and to constantly follow up! There's almost always a solution to your problem, you just have to find the person who can make it happen!