Back to Muskan. She felt awful, just awful, that I had received a dented Tjena
When you call customer service, you know that you’ll have to wait on hold for quite some time, listening to annoying elevator music. Should you start on your dishes or is this really going to be a “momentary wait?” You err on the side of experience.
When you finally get through to a real, live person, you toss down the sponge and grope with slippery, soapy fingers to turn off the speaker button. Your heart sinks when you realize that the real, live person has a real, live accent, which makes communication supremely difficult. You have to ask him to frequently repeat himself, which is just as frustrating for you as it is for him.
Sometimes the rep isn’t sympathetic to your cause. Sometimes you can’t prove that you didn’t mistreat the product and it broke or ripped through no fault of your own. The conversation usually doesn’t end well, but at least you know you tried to get your $2.67 back for that defective egg slicer.
I knew what to expect when I looked up the number for Ikea’s customer service. I had received a dented Tjena box and was olycklig about it. (That’s Swedish for unhappy.) I was stuck at home, my plans canceled due to an unexpected downpour. I thought that I might as well eat the frog and get this unappealing task off my to-do list. I braced myself for what I knew would be an uncomfortable conversation. I chose to do a customer service live typing chat so at least I’d be able to munch on some cookies as I dealt with the situation.
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