How Technology Could Solve One of IKEA's Worst Customer Service Issues 
If you were IKEA, how would you deal with the prevailing public opinion that you have poor customer service … all the while keeping prices low? IKEA in the US has recently rolled out iSell, an internal inventory and merchandising system that has the potential to vastly improve the customer experience in the store, at home and in dealings with IKEA co-workers, even while maintaining IKEA’s essentially ‘hands-off’ approach to customer service and low-price promise to customers worldwide.
Automatic Selling
IKEA’s business model is based on the idea of ‘Automatic Selling.’ Imagine a great big vending machine for home furnishings; the limited store employee contact and intervention required reduces costs overall, allowing IKEA to offer products at a much reduced price. Not only is ‘Some Assembly Required,’ but, ‘Some Self-Service is Required.’ In order to keep prices low, IKEA has invested in systems that allow the customer to help themselves as much as possible – the IKEA Home Planner is one such example.
The new iSell system relies heavily on the customer-facing iTower which is essentially a semi-self-serve kiosk in-store which allows a customer to do everything from schedule a delivery date, to review a shopping list, to print-out a bar-coded sheet with which you can check out at the (self-serve) cash lanes. An IKEA co-worker remarks,
It’s all done with one co-worker. At the iTower…at the moment you see something you like in the showroom. You get confirmation, you have one contact that you deal with.
iSell Streamlines Order Process
According to IKEAFANS member and IKEA Co-Worker, supafresh,
iSell provides for an even stronger connection between customers, store visits, home browsing & preferences. The “fpf” file saved on the customer’s home computer or flash drive can be imported by our iSell software to help facilitate automatic shopping lists stored and archived for each individual customer and over time, accessible nationally from store to store, etc.
No longer is a customer “required” to create a login or profile on IKEA’s site in order to save their data. They can save it to their home computer, attach it to an email to their chosen co-worker or planner, and even receive emailed shopping lists, delivery scheduling, self serve picking locations, etc.
iSell Allows Customers to Track Shopping Lists and Purchases
IKEAFANS member karen.j.cosme has already had a positive experience with iSell at the Boston location of IKEA in Stoughton:
An ikean did that for me with the island/craft table i’m creating (bit by bit). I’m in the system for a completed order, but i can process at my own pace with no rehashing. That is a good thing.
Again, from Supafresh:
Now you can go into IKEA Brooklyn, find a few items you like for your move to Tampa, have a coworker create you in our customer file then go to Denver (IKEA Centennial opening soon!) to visit your parents, where they can access your item list, add a few for you and then when you’ve decided your list is complete, we can email you a copy of the list, the picking locations for the items (aisle/bin) at the store of your choice regardless of where you are at that moment in time. When you get to Tampa, just give them your name, they’ll pull you up, pick a delivery date with you right there at the iTower in the showroom, hand you a paper for the register….which you take to the self checkout….scan the barcode, swipe your card, and bam. walk out the door.
Supafresh isn’t shy about iSell,
I love iSell, if you couldn’t tell. It’s efficient, it’s time-saving, it’s complete, and it’s flexible enough to fit your needs…and most of all, it’s personal. It helps bridge customers who visit different stores…it makes IKEA more unified, and makes your life easier, better.
iSell Around the World
IKEA has launched iSell in many diverse markets around the world: China, Austria, Germany, France.
According to our IKEA insider, Hadirajan,
Austria uses the iSell selling system. So if you’re able to get a hold of customer service, either local at the store or in a central place, they’ll be able to transfer a drawing you have to the selling system and see if everything is in stock at the store you’re going to visit. They also have the possibility to create a picking list that is valid during the same day.
The system is coming online now in IKEA USA stores. Is iSell online in your local store? Tell us about it in the comments!
Wow. Sounds like a hacker’s dream…
I used it for my kitchen. Well, I tried, but something didn’t work I think it was their database. So I reconstructed it quickly because it wasn’t much.
The idea is nice, you download one of their software pieces and puzzle together what you need, you can then save it online and have it loaded in the store. No more printing it out (and forgetting the print-out at home or the office)
Ikea has more issues with customer service then @ point of sale. I have shopped @ Ikea for 15 years from New York, Chicago, & Minniapolis. If you by chance get an item with missing pc’s, that you want to return OR try to order on line….don’t expect this process to be smooth. 1. Bought product from Chicago store, this was close to 10 years ago when you bought items and then waited for them to pull them from the back for you and bring them to you in a waiting area. We got all the way home to Omaha, NE and realized they forgot 1 of 3 boxes for a dresser. Their fault, they pulled the items for you…I spend 2 weeks on the phone with customer service and if I wanted the box I either had to pay myself to have it shipped or get in my car and drive back to Chicago to pick it up. 2. Purchased $2000.00+ of product on line, their credit card system was down and didn’t process my card properly, so the order never went through yet I have a scheduled ship date, I called back 2+ times to try and straighten things out again after 2+ weeks of speaking to a young women in customer service, we finally straigtened out the issue and my product was shipped & received. Part of the issue is their customer service is so bogged down that you have to hold on the line for 30+ minutes before getting a person to talk too, and once you do most of them speak broken english so it’s difficult to understand and none of them have any authority to make an decision to help you. 3. Purchased bed & headboard in Minniapolis want to exchange headboard for night stand & dresser, but we are unable to find the receipt (I question if we got it) but we put it on our credit card and we have it on the bill. Called the store customer service and waited on the phone for 20mins got a young kid on the phone who told me that to return I must have the original receipt (ok thats fair) but it’s up to the store manager to exchange and I would have to come to the store in person to find out. So… I live in Omaha…Minniapolis is 6+ hours away, I also don’t know the store managers schedule so if I make plans to drive all the way there to exchange my “all in the original packaging” product how do I know there will even be someone there to talk too? 15 years ago when I 1st started shopping at the store in New York, I couldn’t say enough about the store, their products were much nicer and you could get someone on the phone in the store who was more then willing to ask questions. Now their attitude is that people are going to come shop in their store no matter how nasty they are and until people stop I don’t think Ikea will take customer service seriously. I have spent thousands of dollars there over the years..I was even told one year when I tried to get a catalog on line that they don’t send catalogs to zip codes where they don’t have stores!! So I never got a catalog…