Vermont Woods Studios - Eco Furniture Blog

Copeland's American Made Bedroom Furniture - Customer Reviews

Copeland Furniture's Monterey Bed is Made in America

We've been offering Copeland's American made (actually Vermont made) bedroom furniture for over 2 months now.  Because each piece is hand made to order, it's taken awhile to get the furniture crafted, shipped and installed in our customers' homes.  But the first several bedroom sets are being delivered and customers are starting to contact Shannon with their reactions:

"BEAUTIFUL! It is extremely well made, extremely easy to put together and is a stunning addition to my home. My handyman, who has put furniture together for more than 20 years, couldn't stop commenting on how beautiful the bed was and how amazingly simple it was to put together. I love the bed and I love that it was made in America!"

~Barbara F, NJ

Thanks Barbara! We're extremely happy to hear this kind of positive review from our customers and are delighted to know they are sleeping better on their new handmade American furniture from Vermont Woods Studios.

 

 

 

Pets On The Furniture

 

 

Our customers Neil and Jennifer M. from MA sent this cute photo of their pooch trying out the new bedroom set, from our Contemporary Craftsman Collection. 

Thanks Neil and Jennifer! 

They generously sent before and after photos of the set and posted them on Flickr.  Nice transformation :)   You inspired us to create a board called Animals on the Furniture on Pinterest. 

Tell us what you think.

Anyone else have funny photos of your pets on the furniture?  Send them in. We'll get Shannon to gin up a prize for the best photo.  Stay tuned for details.

 

 

Top 10 Reasons To Buy Fine Wood Furniture From Vermont

 

Why Buy Furniture From Vermont Woods?

Last week I wrote a blog about Copeland Furniture and why Vermont Woods Studios is the best place to buy it.  Rebecca thought it was helpful and asked if I would write something similar for the rest of our furniture.  So, here you have it: The Top 10 Reasons To Buy Fine Wood Furniture From Us.

 

We know you can buy your furniture just about anywhere, including the grocery store.  We're not the cheapest or the fastest deal out there.  But what we can offer is the very best VALUE in terms of quality, price and longevity.  Our furniture is designed to last forever and we back that with a lifetime guarantee.

Check out the other reasons to buy from us.

Furniture Reviews: Customer Ratings For Quality

 

Last month we posted the results of our most recent Vermont Woods Studios Furniture customer satisfaction survey.  We received reviews and ratings from 69 of the 130 customers we surveyed (a response rate of 53%).  The questions we asked customers assessed the: quality of our furniture, ease of ordering online, shipping and delivery experience, price and response of customer sevice personnel. 

We also asked overall questions:  Would you purchase from Vermont Woods Studios Furniture again and What complaints do you have?

My previous post focused on customer reviews of our shipping and delivery performance, including a recent complaint and how we handled it.

 

 

Today I wanted to share customer feedback about the quality of our Vermont made furniture. When asked to rate "Quality of Furniture" our customers responded:
   *    Excellent or very good - 94.03%
   *    Neutral - 1.49%
   *    Needs improvement - 0%
   *    Unsatisfactory - 0%
   *    No answer or not applicable - 4.48%

So these numbers are good, but our goal is to have 97-100% of responses in the excellent to very good range so this 3% deficit is going to bother me.   We’ll be working on identifying the cause of this shortfall and fixing existing systems or implementing new systems to continuously improve. 

One positive thing is that there were no responses in the “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” categories.  But 1.49% were neutral and 4.48% either did not answer the questions or said quality was not applicable.  Hmmm? 

I wonder if some people are just uncomfortable rating the quality of fine, handmade furniture.  It’s kind of a science, really.  And an art.  I’ve written a number of posts recently about defining fine furniture.  There’s a big difference (quality and price-wise) between made to order furniture, customized furniture, custom wood furniture and custom artisan furniture.  It all depends on the type of wood used, styles of craftsmanship, sustainability and more. 

So it's complicated and maybe that's why a few people declined to answer that one.  I'm not sure. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.  Please feel free to post below in the comments, or on our Vermont Furniture Facebook or email me directly at peggy@VermontWoodsStudios.com.  Thanks!

Online Furniture Shopping: Customer Reviews, Ratings and Complaints Drive Continuous Improvement

 As fate would have it, a customer called Vermont Woods Studios today with a serious and urgent problem, just as I was in the middle of writing this blog about customer reviews and ratings.  Although our ratings are generally excellent (see yesterday's customer review ratings) occasionally something goes awry.  So we constantly push ourselves, our craftsmen, our shippers and our vendors to do better and avoid future errors.

I thought today's issue might be a good illustration of what can go wrong with furniture deliveries and what our process is for resolving customer complaints.  Here's what happened:  a customer in Arizona ordered a king size Vermont Shaker Moon bed.  The next day a customer in Sacramento ordered the same bed in California king size.  Somehow, the beds were switched and today the CA king bed was delivered to the wrong customer... clearly a huge mistake on our part.

So getting the beds un-switched and delivered to the corrrect customer is the (relatively) easy part for us.  The hard part of resolving this issue is compensating the customers for their time, frustration and inconvenience.  People often have to take time off work to accept and inspect deliveries. Understandably they can get angry over this kind of mistake. 

Since every issue is different, we try very hard to understand each customer's situation and needs as we're seeking a resolution they'll be happy with.  Today, after discussing options with the customer we offered an immediate full refund if the customer wanted to return the bed or a cash payment of $400 to compensate for the inconvenience of having to wait for the correct bed to be delivered.  The customer  thought it over and decided to return the bed for a full refund. 

We're now working with our shippers and craftspeople to fine tune our systems and make sure this error doesn't happen again.

I'd be interested to get your feedback, either in the comments below or on our Vermont Furniture Facebook.  You can see from our customer reviews and ratings that Shipping and Delivery are our greatest challenges.  This is true not just for us, but for the furniture industry as a whole.  What I can say, is that even though there are occasional shipping issues, we'll do almost anything the customer asks to make things right.  That includes complete replacement, repair, refund, cash compensation and a bunch of other things that customers have requested.  I think that's reflected in the results for this question:  Would you purchase from Vermont Woods Studios Furniture again?  98.53% of customers said yes.  We're trying to improve that too.

 

 

Online Furniture Shopping: 2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey Results

Yesterday I mentioned our Vermont Woods Studios Furniture Customer Satisfaction Survey.  As far as I know we are the only company in the furniture industry that's willing to publish candid customer reviews and survey rating results. 

 

It's not all perfect and I'll admit, I'm more than a bit uncomfortable publishing it.  Not because we're doing badly (we're actually doing great and getting better every day), but because there is much discussion needed to interpret the results. 

 

I'll be writing a number of additional posts over the next few weeks to discuss the details behind the numbers as well as our plans for improving them as we move forward.  I have to ask you to read the whole series of posts or you won't have an accurate picture of our customer reviews, and how they fit in with the broader context of the furniture industry.

 

I welcome your comments and suggestions throughout the process.  You can post them in the comments section below or on our Vermont Furniture Facebook.  To all of those customers who contributed to this assessment, we say thanks as we continue to work through implementing your input.

 

So... here's how customers rated our performance in the following areas:

   *   Would you purchase from Vermont Woods Studios Furniture again?

1. Yes - 98.53%
2. No - 0%
3. No answer or not applicable - 1.47%

   *  Ease of ordering

1. Excellent or very good - 97.1%
2. Neutral - 2.9%
3. Needs improvement - 1.45%
4. Unsatisfactory - 0%
5. No answer or not applicable - 0%

   *  Quality of furniture

1. Excellent or very good - 94.03%
2. Neutral - 1.49%
3. Needs improvement - 0%
4. Unsatisfactory - 0%
5. No answer or not applicable - 4.48%

   *  Shipping and delivery

1. Excellent or very good - 89.55%
2. Neutral - 2.99%
3. Needs improvement - 4.48%
4. Unsatisfactory - 2.99%
5. No answer or not applicable - 0%

   *  Response of customer sevice personnel

1. Excellent or very good - 86.95% (many online orders require no interaction with customer service personnel, thus the 13% response for NA)
2. Neutral - 0%
3. Needs improvement - 0%
4. Unsatisfactory - 0%
5. No answer or not applicable - 13.04%

So there you have it-- the good, the bad and the ugly of our customer satisfaction survey results.  Please check in over the next few weeks to see further details about what's behind the numbers and how we're working to continuously improve them.

Online Furniture Shopping: 2011 Customer Reviews, Complaints and Performance Metrics

If I'm investing a lot of money in something-- say a new car, I spend a significant amount of time researching my options.  Then when I've made a decision on a particular car I continue to research everything about that model and the company that makes it. 

Well, I figure the same is true for people when they're investing in high end, handmade furniture.  But unfortunately not much performance data is available from furniture companies.  Either they don't do customer satisfaction surveys or they choose not to publish their results.  Why is that?

Although we're a small company, we've been surveying our customers since we started our business 6 years ago.  I thought I would share some of our results and performance metrics with you over the next couple weeks.  These results are taken from a survey of 130 customers who just received their new furniture over the last few months.  We received 69 customer responses for a pretty decent response rate of 53%.  The questions we asked them included:

 

Please rate our performance in the following areas

*  Quality of furniture
*  Ease of ordering
*  Shipping and delivery
*  Response of customer sevice personnel
*  Would you purchase from Vermont Woods Studios Furniture again?

 

Here's the link to follow the results of our customer reviews, complaints and satisfaction survey as they emerge.  Check back in now and then over the next few weeks to see what our customers are saying about their furniture.

Vermont Handmade Furniture: Independent Reviews and Opinions

How would you feel about buying expensive, high end handmade Vermont furniture over the Internet?  Scared?  If so, you're not alone.  Quite honestly, most of our customers at Vermont Woods Studios who are first-time buyers are nervous about it. 

We're always working hard to improve our website, add photos that show the details of construction, quality, joinery and such but let's face it-- a website simply cannot convey the quality of handmade solid wood furniture.  You really have to see it to appreciate it. 

 

While we work through the growing pains of getting a bigger showroom, we want to express our gratitude to the customers who have posted opinions and independent reviews of our furniture at various places online.  It is so helpful to new customers and it's essential for us to grow our business and fulfill our mission.  Thank you!  (We do have a testimonials page on our website, but most times new customers are understandably looking for an independent opinion.)

 

GreenPeople.org is one place customers have posted their candid opinions about our furniture and our customer service.  GreenPeople.org provides an independent, unaffiliated website for opinions and reviews of all kinds of businesses.  We thank Steve Urow and honor his mission of promting honesty, fairness and justice in business. We recommend his site for posting reviews of any products or services you may be purchasing online or in person.  Best of luck to Steve and crew!

What Would it Take to Get Your Help?

Help us brainstorm ways to entice you to get onboard The Green Train and help us spread the word about our eco friendly furniture.  If you know people who are shopping for a new dining table & Chairs or bed or media center, we want you to send them to our website. And we want to reward you for that. So let us know what it would take. Currrently we offer a 5% reward to customers who refer their friends to us and we're extending that to you too. So for example, if you refer a friend and that person purchases $5000 in furniture, you receive a check for $250. The cool thing is that you can either take the cash or donate it to one of a number of non-profits that are working to save the rainforest.  Tell us what you think about it and tell us what else we can do to get you on board The Green Train!  The clock is ticking...there's no time to lose.

What We’re Doing…The Best Furniture, Service, Price, and Overall Experience

Of course these have to be the foundation of our efforts for without these basics our time and yours would be wasted. We’re not aiming for “superior”, at Vermont Woods Studios we’ll settle for nothing less than the best. We don’t want you to just be happy with your purchase, we want you to become raving fans! We need you to refer your friends and family to us and come back to us the next time you need furniture, so you will see that we are obsessed with making sure everything is just right. Check out our Testimonials page and see what I mean.