Buyer Beware: Mattress Warehouse
A lot has been written about Mattress Warehouse, and how they do business. For better or worse, they have been the selling party in thousands upon thousands of new bed and mattress sales across the US for a number of years now. A simple search online for “mattress factory” will yield many results. And many of these stories come from customers who left feeling less than impressed with this chain.
Complaints have stemmed from a number of issues related to purchases made at numerous mattress warehouses, not just a single bad-apple store. As you might expect, the problems all stem from a faulty, or otherwise insufficient product that a customer is somehow unsatisfied with… not at all uncommon for a retail outlet of any kind to encounter. After all, faulty products get sold all the time, this is not specific to that mattress industry, or even to mattress warehouse. What is notable, however, is that manner by which these problems have been resolved. In nearly every case (mine included… why else would I be writing this article), management has failed to properly address a customer’s concern.
One horror story discusses a customer’s trials and tribulations in returning a mattress three times after receiving delivery of a product that he did not order. Another issue involved the company’s refusal to accept for return a mattress that had a protruding lump in the middle. Yet another came from a woman who was told she was approved for financing and instead billed for the total amount. It’s a wonder these folks stay in business! Many other complaints filed describe Mattress Warehouse as unwilling to acknowledge clearly faulty mattresses and issue refunds. One woman even described being insulted and harassed by an employee of the company.
Maybe this is the case with all discount mattress warehouse-type stores, but that is hard to believe. There appear to be some very fundamental flaws that exist in the customer service handbook that clearly does not exist at this company’s corporate headquarters. My own story isn’t nearly as bad as some of these online reviews suggest, but it still ranks as one of the crappier consumer experiences I have had to date. Given that we’re talking about an item that costs in the thousands of dollars, I’m relatively certain that this should not be the case.
I bought a Serta mattress from Mattress Warehouse a couple of years ago. A nice mattress I thought at the time, that I spent $1,500 on, not the top of the line, but certainly not too shabby. About a week into having the mattress, I noticed an uncomfortable bulge in the middle of the bed. I took the entire bed apart looking for what might be causing it, and finally realized that it must be the mattress itself. I figured I was lucky because I had noticed this within the 30 day window during which I could return my purchase ‘no questions asked’ and headed back down to the store. They agreed to send someone out to take a look, who agreed with me that there was a defect in the mattress. He told me that he would then issue his report and that I could expect a new mattress as soon as said report was processed. After waiting for a couple of weeks, I contacted the local store, and the person on the other end of the phone looked up my complaint, and informed me that the case had been closed with the finding being that there was no defect in the mattress. To say that this was a bit frustrating on my end would be an understatement. I can’t for the life of me figure out how companies expect people to just roll over and die and accept garbage like that. Long story short, I would have had a better overall experience buying an inflatable mattress from a camping store.
I knew I’d win this battle, and I eventually did, but not without a bunch of needlessly expended effort. In the end, I got my money back and took my business elsewhere. And the salesman seemed bewildered that I didn’t want to simply exchange for a different model he had on the floor after all of that. Treat your customers well, and you will have them for life. Take the opposite road, and you won’t even get their exchange business. I will say that I learned a lesson, too, though. These furniture and mattress warehouse stores can be appealing from a certain perspective, but you shouldn’t trust a business with a big purchase before you know a little bit about them. I think the mattress warehouse outlet road might be one I take in the future, but only for the purpose of price comparison. If possible, I’m taking my business to Costco, or another store that I know treats customers right. Just my two cents.
Related posts: