Wayfair - You’ve Got Nothing I Need (Customer Experience is King)

Y’all, Kelly Clarkson can’t save Wayfair… 

McDonalds and Taco Bell are not known for their magical customer experience. And, most people don’t go to Burger King to actually have it their way. But, there is a baseline customer experience threshold most big brands need to maintain, or they’ll become small…eventually dead brands.

Wayfair is the furniture industry equivalent to a fast food brand…selling cheap, and mass market home products. There are a bunch of similar companies - Ikea being the most prominent, and pervasive. Although the types of furniture are generally similar, the customer experience is not. 

Ikea is notorious for their ridiculous assembly process, surprisingly good food, and their retail store mazes. While the furniture is not built to last a lifetime, or even a move or two, it’s consistently decent (for the price point), and their customer experience is reliable. I’ve also never had a major assembly issue (other than taking a lot of time) for 30+ pieces of furniture from Ikea or Target. On the other hand, Wayfair’s product quality is (from my experience) subpar – and their customer experience is equally terrible. 

The perfect example is very recent - my wife ordered a big rattan piece of furniture for our entryway, and I was charged with assembling it. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I spent 1.5 hours trying to jam the thing together – and there was no way to assemble it. I figured Wayfair would just refund the defective furniture, and tell me to dispose of the pieces. But, after 30 minutes of back and forth, the best they could do was to provide a refund, and mandate that I box it all back up then schlep it to Fedex. After spending two frustrating hours dealing with a defective product and response, you can guess how I felt. Add in the fact that my wife is now 9 months pregnant, the to-do list feels endless, and this entire experience was a massive waste.

I will never, ever buy anything from Wayfair - and I will tell everyone I know to stay away. This is not an isolated situation - basically every product we’ve ever ordered from them (across 7-8 years) has arrived broken or un-assemblable. Every time we think they’ll get their act together, they never do. So, given the shoddy product quality (even with low expectations for the price point), and abysmal customer experience - they’ve created someone who detests their brand.

This newsletter is not a Wayfair rant - it’s a clear illustration for founders (and funds) that customer experience is not something to shortcut (or ignore). Your existing clients can be an asset, or a liability - with plenty of gray area in between. Your raving fans can create a client referral machine, easy upsells, and social proof. Your worst churned clients can either fade away, or create very tangible issues. 

Your product(s) are hopefully providing a real ROI, and driving outcomes for clients. But, there will be times when your product falls short - especially for certain use cases or clients. Ideally, you want to solve issues before there is churn - but sometimes things just happen (including mergers, champions leaving, etc). Managing this churn effectively and efficiently will pay dividends – or at least avoid future pitfalls. If nothing else, investors will ask why each client churned (for enterprise deals) - and occasionally want to talk to some of these former customers, If the customer experience was bad enough, it could sink the round - and trigger cascading issues downstream (with other funds). 

Wayfair could have said OK, basically everything we’ve sent you cannot be assembled -we’ll refund you immediately, and please dispose of the broken product. They could have asked what they could do to make it better. I’m not sure I would have even asked for anything - but if the tone of the conversation had gone like this from the jump - and had been resolved in a minute or two (vs, 30 minutes), it’d be a different story. I would have been frustrated by the product, taken all the crap to the trash room, cleaned up, and moved on. This interaction would not have given me back the time/energy, but I would have felt like they stood behind their crappy products. 

If you combine a bad product with a bad customer experience, you’ll have huge problems. While it can take time for these problems to percolate into actual results, it’s a bit like trying to outrun something you can’t ever leave behind. And, once you have enough baggage following you around, it gets to the point where you have to blow it all up and start over. Everything you’ve built is lost - and the worst part is that the issues are partially self-inflicted.

Companies can use a very positive customer experience to turn a bad product experience around – or have a bad experience dig themselves into a deeper hole. Don’t be like Wayfair, and don’t gloss over your customer experience (including churned customers). It could come back to haunt you – or you could turn a liability into an asset. Wayfair could very easily go bankrupt in 12-24 months – and most of their coming misery will come from their own decision making.