Sam Levitz answers spike in complaints

Last year, customers filed 117 complaints with the local Better Business Bureau against Sam Levitz Furniture, making it the most complained-about firm in Tucson. That was up from 29 in 2004.

The wave of complaints, primarily about problems with customer service or deliveries, triggered a meeting between the company and bureau officials last August to come up with an action plan. Failure to address the problem could have resulted in Sam Levitz Furniture's losing its Better Business Bureau membership, said Tom Collier, president of the Better Business Bureau of Tucson and Southern Arizona.

"We took what happened last year very seriously," said Kris Lancaster, human resources manager and spokeswoman for Sam Levitz Furniture.

After the jump in complaints, the company accepted an offer of customer-service training by the Better Business Bureau, said company Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Eric Creson.

"They're making a conscientious effort to resolve the problem," Collier said.

Among other changes, Sam Levitz doubled its staff of delivery drivers, added customer-service managers and created bonuses for workers who earn high ratings from customers, Creson said.

Said Collier: "If they had not reacted the way they did, it could have cost them their membership."

The bureau expelled three companies in 2005. Nature's Art Florists and Roof Options LLC lost their memberships for failure to answer consumer complaints, Collier said. Aufmuth Motors lost its membership after the Arizona attorney general filed a lawsuit claiming the company's advertising misled consumers, he said.

Pace of complaints slows

Creson looks at the customer service numbers and sees an unqualified success story. The number of BBB complaints last year was a tiny fraction of the company's enormous sales volume, Creson said. From 100,000 orders picked up or delivered last year, he noted, only 117 customers complained to the bureau.

The company's service was already excellent, Creson said, and it's getting better. "Superior customer service is our number-one goal," Creson said.

Indeed, this year complaints are arriving at a slower pace — 38 through June, a number that would result in a 35 percent drop if the same pace keeps up through December.

Still, that's the second-highest number of complaints made about any business to the bureau this year, second to VIP Travel Incentives Inc., a local company that markets nationally its "free" vacation packages with many restrictions and limitations on their use.

And Better Business Bureau statistics don't measure a company's true number of unhappy consumers. Since Jan. 1, 2005, five customers have sued Sam Levitz Furniture in Pima County's small-claims court. Three others interviewed by the Star said they tried to resolve their problems by dealing directly with the company and weren't happy with the results.

Curtis and Tamera Lucas are among them. The Lucases, who said their families have shopped at Sam Levitz Furniture for decades, said they spent five months dealing with the company over problems with furniture they bought in February.

The Lucases were newlyweds when they spent about $5,000 to furnish the kitchen, living room and bedroom of their North Side home.

Their coffee table was delivered damaged, but Sam Levitz Furniture refused to replace it or give them a refund, they said. Their entertainment center's doors and hinges were misaligned by company assemblers, they said. The Lucases refused the company's offer to replace the entertainment center with an armoire.

The bed frame that Levitz workers delivered was too large for the Lucases' bed, but the company has not replaced it, they said. Chests of drawers for the bedroom were assembled without gliders, so drawers didn't open or close correctly. One shipment of furniture was unexpectedly delivered to the Lucases at 11 p.m.

The Lucases said they had a two-day return guarantee if they had problems, but five months later, they're still waiting for help. "We got nothing but grief," Curtis Lucas said. "It was unbelievable."

Creson, of Sam Levitz Furniture, declined to comment about the Lucases' situation, saying the customers will be taken care of, but that he preferred not to involve a newspaper while resolving complaints.

"We will not rest until every customer is satisfied," Creson said. "We are working hard at achieving 100 percent first-time customer satisfaction, and will keep working at it, even though we recognize that staff members do make mistakes occasionally."

Established market leader

Founded in Tucson in 1953, Sam Levitz Furniture Co. is the nation's 86th-largest furniture retailer, with annual revenues totaling about $76 million, according to Furniture Today, a trade publication. Founder Sam A. Levitz died in December. His son, Sam R. Levitz, has been running the business since 1990.

Its major local competitor is Albuquerque-based American Home Furnishings Inc., which ranked 61st, with revenues totaling about $123 million. American Home has 10 stores, including three in Tucson, while Sam Levitz Furniture has only its three Tucson stores.

Sam Levitz Furniture is the leading seller of furniture in town, and its goal is 50 percent market share in Southern Arizona, Creson said.

The years 2004 and 2005 brought huge sales growth for the company, he said. That growth was accompanied by the sharp increase in Better Business Bureau complaints to 117 last year. That led to a meeting with the Better Business Bureau, which alerted the company after it detected a pattern in the increased complaints, mostly with delivery problems, said bureau president Collier.

Only one other local business received 100 or more complaints in any 12-month period during the three years that ended May 31. That company was Intuit Inc., which has a customer service center in Tucson. Intuit had 104 in the 12-month period ending May 31, 2005 and 128 in the 12-month period ending May 31, 2004. Intuit's figures come with a caveat: Complaints from across the country about Intuit are sent to Tucson's Better Business Bureau.

The retail furniture business presents a challenge, Creson said, because each piece requires extensive, hands-on work before it reaches a customer's home. Every piece that's purchased must be taken from storage, assembled, inspected, moved to a loading area and delivered, he said.

Taking it to court

Beyond customers who complained to the bureau or directly to the company were a handful like Pablo and Cynthia Garcia, who took their complaints to small-claims court last year.

The Garcias said workers damaged a custom-made, wrought-iron door while delivering a sofa to their South Side home, and a judge ordered the company to pay $300 toward repairs.

Pablo Garcia said they also had problems with the dining room table they ordered. Sam Levitz Furniture delivered a damaged table three times, then the Garcias canceled their order, he said.

Delivery workers said the claims department could reimburse him for the damaged door, said Pablo Garcia, 35, a city of Tucson employee. He talked to six employees by phone and called the company for a month, he said, but he never spoke to a representative of the claims department or received a response from that department.

That's when the Garcias decided they had to sue.

Creson declined to comment, except to say that the Garcias' purchase coincided with last year's peak in delivery trouble, which has been addressed.

"July 2005 was when we had the most problems," Creson said.

Levitz: Changes paying off

In the past year, Creson said, Sam Levitz Furniture has made changes designed to improve its customer-service procedures. Beyond increasing the number of delivery drivers and adding incentives for good service to their pay, the company hired three new managers to pinpoint and solve customer-service problems, Creson said.

The company hired a new delivery manager, and instead of one customer-service manager, the company now has three.

Boosting pay also has helped it retain good drivers, Creson said. Sam Levitz has long faced a labor market lacking delivery workers that meet the company's standards, he said.

"We don't like to put just anyone in somebody's home," Creson said.

Sam Levitz sets a goal of following up with every customer after a sale, Creson said. Managers can identify who works on an order, and track their overall rating from customers.

For June, customers gave 100 percent satisfaction ratings to three of 22 delivery teams, Creson said. Overall, the customer-satisfaction rate for deliveries is up 18 percent since last year, he said.

"We all live and work here," Creson said. "The people we deliver to are basically our friends and neighbors."

● Pending and closed complaints about Sam Levitz Furniture Co. at the Better Business Bureau of Tucson and Southern Arizona:

June-December 2003: 30

2004: 29

2005: 117

January-June 2006 38

Source: Better Business Bureau of Tucson and Southern Arizona.