In this day and age, shopping for furniture isn’t what it used to be. The shopping experience has to be better than “build it yourself” options; and must offer quality that doesn’t require you to drive 12 hours to “furniture country” to save a few bucks. On top of the quest to find the right type of quality furniture, you also have to find a brand that offers an array of services. Besides standard options like delivery and furniture protection plans; you look for a company that has grown with technology, offers online care, free design services and you want a company that invests in social & global good.
When I went looking for such a company, my options were few and far between. What I was surprised to find is that the type of brand I was looking for was in my own back yard, so to speak. I searched around several sites via google searches and sought out reviews and comments about furniture companies, and what I found was Raymour & Flanigan. Raymour & Flanigan has been around since 1947, with their first store in downtown Syracuse, NY. They grew with the times, opening new stores all over the northeast, and now service customers coast to coast with select items from their ever growing catalog. On top of being a premium retailer for dozens of top furniture lines like Bernhardt, Broyhill, and La-Z-Boy, they have become a national influencer on design and style with their social media influence on multiple platforms! They also offer an amazing design service, that unlike a designer, is FREE to use via their online design center! (Talk about huge design resource!)
The next thing that I discovered about Raymour & Flanigan was their customer service options. Besides the standard customer service options that most companies have these days (i.e. email & phone) they also have online chat services. This service not only serves as an option for the hearing impaired community, but also serves as an option for those technophiles, like myself, who prefer the short and sweet of online conversation; without ever worrying about being put on hold or waiting in a line.
So what did I go shopping for you may ask? Well, my sectional sofa certainly had its hay day but it was time to replace it. I used Raymour & Flanigans website to shop around their different sofa and sectional offerings and narrowed it down to a small handful of what I thought would work for my needs. I was able to use the design center to make sure that the items I picked out would fit in the space I needed and the delivery guide to make sure it would fit up my stairwell.
Once I found my ideal candidates I was able to head to my local store on 66th St & Broadway in Manhattan to see it in person. This beautiful showroom has every type of design element anyone shopping would look for. Not only do they have Bedroom, Dining Room, and Living Room furniture; they carry everything you need to go with it like lamps, rugs, accessories, and more! I had the pleasure of working with my own personal furniture expert, Elena. She was able to take me right to the sectional I wanted, and show me all the options I had for it. Not only did I get to pick my color and configuration that best worked for me, but I was able to get a 3 day delivery!
So that moment had arrived where I had figured out the items I wanted and it was time to pay. Elena went over my payment options and she advised me about the financing offers they had which were actually far better than my credit card. I worked with Elena to quickly finish going over finishing touches of the transaction and gave her my information for contact and delivery (I was happy to see I just had to put it into the computer instead of using paper, which is part of their impressive Green Initiative). She went over my warranty of the furniture and the details of the additional warranty services I purchased that would protect my furniture investment for the next 5 years (I host a lot of parties and have a few of “those friends”, like we all do, so the coverage was a no brainer). She went on to advise of a few different days that were available to deliver and told me that I would be receiving a call later in the day to confirm the exact window they would be delivering my purchase. We finished up the purchase and when I arrived home a couple hours later I got a call from Elena personally to let me know my deliver time (which was a surprise since I totally just expected some burly warehouse worker to call with info).
My delivery day had arrived and I couldn’t be more excited as I had already ditched my old sectional in anticipation of the new arrival. As comfy as my side chairs are, there is nothing like being able to spread out on your sofa. The delivery guys had shown up right in the middle of the window they had promised and began to unload the sectional and rug I purchased, all wrapped up like it was Christmas morning. They quickly were able to bring the pieces up to my apartment and set them up as I wanted it arranged. I was really impressed how quickly the two guys were able to unload, set up, and deliver a finished product!
So now came to time to relax and enjoy my new purchase but it of course couldn’t be quite that simple. I noticed that the cording at the base of one of the pieces was a little loose. I hadn’t noticed this minor imperfection at first but I remembered that I had multiple customer care options to reach out to Raymour & Flanigan. I used the online chat service to let them know of the situation and they reached out to me and scheduled a technician to come out and repair my furniture. Two days later the technician arrived as scheduled and was able to fix the issue in under 15 minutes. He was super polite and advised it was a simple issue to fix and was probably a minor issue that happened in transit. It was so great to see a company that would so quickly stand behind their product like they did!
When I reached out to Raymour & Flanigan about writing this post they were happy to work with me and my blog to help offer someone else to have an experience like mine! I’m happy to announce an awesome giveaway for my blog and followers courtesy of Raymour & Flanigan!
Click here for a chance to win a $500 gift card from Raymour & Flanigan!
Disclosure: I was compensated by Raymour & Flanigan for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
A Geek's Perspective 