A short while ago I was on Facebook scanning the news feed and I saw that my cousin’s wife had posted a sad experience about having their van broken into, and of all things, HALF of an Ikea table, still in the brown non-descript box, was taken.  Did the thieves know what they were taking?  Probably not.  They probably just grabbed something they could carry, as it would have taken two of them to carry the heavy awkward box, just to ‘be cool’ or ‘be wannabe thugs’ or whatever ‘street cred’ they were after.  So my poor cousin and his wife were not only feeling violated by being the victims of a break and enter on their van, but they were then left with one of two boxes of an Ikea table, that incidentally wasn’t even something they were purchasing for their own use!  What to do?  What would you do?

I read this post on Facebook by my cousin’s wife yesterday:
“So I went to Ikea to see if they could refund me half my table back or let me just buy box 1 of 2… I know, long shot right?! Well not only did they do just that, they did one better, they gave me a gift card for the full amount so I could purchase another table!!! Ikea, you rock!!! Great customer service is still out there, as well as good people…. Karma;)”

I was thrilled to read this positive result from such an ugly event.  Now I don’t know if the Ikea employees were following a standard protocol, or felt sorry for her and empathized with her sad story, or succumbed to her charismatic story-telling, but whatever the reason, Ikea not only made her and her family happy, but got some great word-of-mouth advertising on the world’s largest social media platform (and now here too!).   This goes to show you that truly great customer service is about listening, empathy, genuine care for your customer, and two-way trust and loyalty.
Ikea – Swedish for Good Karma!