My Levolor Expierence

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So after a considerable amount of shopping around we purchased a set of blinds by Levolor from Lowes. Ordering them is worth a thread of it’s own. Anyways, we picked them out, nice top-down/bottom-up blinds. We got them so that we can lower them to let light in, but keep the bottom down so the dogs don’t bark at every leaf that blows by. Then, when the baby’s running around we can raise the bottom to she doesn’t pull on them and ruin them.
So they finally show up, I install the brackets, hang them and try them out. Hmmm, that’s strange, I can get the bottom up, but the top dosen’t go down. They’re normal blinds. No biggie, just a mistake. I call up Levolor. They verify the order, apoligize for the mistake and tell me they’ll send out new ones in a few weeks when they get the fabric in. Okay, so that’s a bit of an inconvience, but whatever. What was odd*, was that they told me that when the new ones come in I can just throw out the old ones. Hey Great I thought. I think they might fit in some other windows around the house (too bad, they don’t, but I’m gonna see if Lowes can cut them down for me).
So a few weeks go by and I get the new blinds. Take the first one out of the box, hang it, try it…hmmm this one goes top down, but not bottom up. Well that sucks. Call up Levolor same old song and dance, they’ll send out new ones as soon as they can.
About two weeks later I get the new ones. Take down the old ones, hang the new ones PERFECT. They go top down/bottom up hey this is really nice. Since the baby was moving about we had the bottom up. Then the baby went for her nap, so I went to lower them. First one, okay, second one…hmmm…it’s about three inches short. Dammit, they screwed up again. Call up Levolor, tell them them that one of the blinds is too short. She asks which one. “Well they’re identical so it doesn’t really matter” I believe her exact response was “No their not, one of them is 64.5 inches and the other is 61.5 inc… :smack: I guess that’s the problem, we’ll get a new one sent out to you right away”
Well, the wife just called to say the new one was in, I can’t wait to see when surpirse this one holds.
So at home I now have:
A pair of ‘normal’ bottom up blinds
A pair of top down blinds
and one top down/bottom up blind that’s to short for the windows.
I’m not sure if I’m annoyed with them for screwing up so many times or if I’m happy with them for (attempting to) take care of the problem right away. And hey, now I have 5 spare blinds in case I ruin them…and then ruin them again…etc

I have to say, when I made the first call, I was really concerned I would hear one of two things.
A)Sorry you’re SOL
or
B)Lowes entered the order wrong, take it up with them.
I’m glad they where so easy to deal with, but that may be because it was their mistake and they couldn’t really deny that.
*Why was it odd that they told me to throw them away. Well, seems to me that if someone ever needs two sets of blinds that are identical, all they would have to do is order one, call and say it was wrong and they’ll get the second free. Not that I would do that, but I’m quite sure their are plenty of people that will. Also, you’d think they’d want them back just to make sure the person wasn’t operating it wrong. For example, if the other string had been tangled up in the head rail during installation.

PS I wonder what the markup is on these things. I’m guessing they lost money on this deal.

2

Sometimes the shipping costs (which they would have to pay) make it economically unfeasible to have you return them. So, it’s cheaper for them to tell you to throw them away.

And I know the guys that own the Levolor manufacturing plant. I don’t deal with them on the blinds, but with another product line (not home furnishings). Believe me, there is no way they would do anything that would cause them to lose money. They’ve got the cost/profit ratios for all of their products inscribed in their DNA. They can physically sense when they’re about to go into the red. Nice guys, but not loose with money.

3

How can they possibly forcast having to send out 7 blinds out to someone that ordered 2?
I mean, I can see their markup covering them so that they still make a decent margin in the first one is screwed up, but this was the first, second, and part of the third. I’m not saying they’re going to go under, but I’m willing to bet they arn’t making money on my specific order.

PS, as someone who ships stuff out, I know it’s not usually worthwhile to have a customer send something back. It was just the first thought that came to me. Hey, these’ll fit in other windows.

4

No, they may not be making money on your specific order, but look, you just posted your experience on this message board. Now thousands of people can (note I didn’t say “will”) read your thread and say “Hey, I can order blinds from Levolor and if they screw up, they’ll replace them”.

Now imagine a Pit thread titled “My Levolor Experience”-profanity optional. People would read that thread, and think “OK, I can order blinds from Levolor, but they probably will screw up my order, maybe multiple times, it will take monthes rather than weeks to get the blinds, hmm, who else makes blinds?”

5

I want those blinds. I’d tried to think of inventing them before but never figured out how to do it.