Author: Sara

Reunited with her friend she thought was lost forever.

For the many years that I worked in retail it was repeatedly drilled in to our heads that a person who had a bad customer service experience would tell twice as many people about it than they would when they had a good experience. Today I am going to tell a lot of people about a good experience I had this weekend at Ikea. On Friday we made a quick trip to there to pick up some bedding because we were having guests and while we have lots of sheets, we are quite slim in the blankets/duvet area. Merle brought her favourite stuffed animal, a chipmunk she named I.T. Bone with her. She brings him everywhere. Everywhere. So it was bound to happen right? After 4 years of bringing him everywhere we were bound to lose him at some point and that point was Friday.

I don’t know if it was because it was wasn’t as busy as usual on Friday morning or because shopping at Ikea brings out the part of you that wants to run in to every fake room setup and try out all the closets, bathrooms, and kitchens. Whatever the reason  at some point as I was  following the arrows to the designated area I wanted to go, and the girls were weaving in and out of places looking at everything like they haven’t been out of the house before, and we lost him. I didn’t realize until we reached the warehouse part so when we tried to retrace our steps it was pretty much impossible to remember every nook and cranny that they passed through. I  knew looking was pointless but I thought that maybe someone had found him on the floor and placed him up where he could easily be spotted. I was hoping anyway. Nope. This is when reality set in for Merle and she realized he might be gone forever and she got really quiet and cried. We went through a few more times, but when I realized that searching was futile I checked out our purchases and made a stop at the lost and found on the way by just in case someone turned him in, but to no avail.

Tom works near that Ikea and promised her that he would stop by daily to check the lost and found since the guy who helped us said that sometimes it takes a few days for things to show up and be brought down there. I was kind of feeling powerless which seems like and over reaction over a stuffed animal but when it’s your child and it’s something they treasure the most in the world you do what you can so I went on Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t know which one was the best avenue so I posted a similar post to each (well, twitter has a character limit but I got the gist across) I tagged Ikea Canada in my Twitter post and then posted to the Ikea Canada Facebook page. I received a response via Twitter really quickly letting me know that they had contacted the store where we lost it and they will be in touch once they hear back. They said it probably wouldn’t be until Monday but I heard back today (Saturday) at noon that he had been found and was in the customer service office waiting for us. I messaged back with the time we would be there to pick him up and we did. When we got there everyone was polite, courteous, and seemed happy that they found him for her. This meant a lot to us.

While this may not seem like a huge deal to some people this was huge to a 5-year-old little girl who felt like she lost her best friend on Friday.

So thank you Ikea for going above and beyond what I was expecting. Thank you for helping ease her heart that day. We won’t forget.

Your loyal customer before, and now even more so,

Sara