Our latest customer survey results show that 98% of our customers were very satisfied with their Vermont Woods Studios experience and would purchase from us again.

You have many choices when it comes to purchasing fine furniture online.  We know if we're going to continue to grow Vermont Woods Studios and accomplish our mission we need to provide you with the best furniture selection, value, quality, shipping, delivery and customer service available.  So we're always working on that and measuring our progress. 

Our latest customer survey results show that 98% of our customers were very satisfied (rating us excellent or very good) with their Vermont Woods Studios experience and would purchase from us again. Industry experts are extremely impressed with these results.  As far as I can tell, we are leading the industry although most companies do not publish their results so I can't be sure.

You can scroll through the Customer Review section of this blog, or visit our Testimonials page (where you will find links to independent third party reviews as well) or our Facebook page to find additional details and customer ratings.  We are striving for 100% customer satisfaction ratings as well as transparency in our reporting. 

Have questions about buying furniture online?  Please feel free to contact us or visit our showroom in Vernon, Vermont.  We're here to make your furniture purchasing experience enjoyable and worry-free.  We want you to join the 98% Club!

The post 98% Customer Satisfaction Rating for Vermont Made Furniture appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

Sitejabber provides user-generated, consumer reviews of Vermont Made Furniture along with opinions on thousands of other businesses

If you're reading this blog, chances are you're either a friend of ours or you're researching Vermont Woods Studios Fine Furniture to see if we're a legitimate business before you plunk down your hard earned money for our handmade furniture.

I get that.  We're a small company so we're not reviewed on every online consumer review site, but many of our customers have taken the time to review us and on several online venues.  You'll find links to these independent reviews on our Testimonials page.

One online review site that I just discovered last week is Sitejabber and they have 3 independent review of our Vermont Made Furniture.  I think it's a pretty good site.  It was named one of the Top 100 Websites of 2010 by PC Magazine.  Here's how they describe themselves:  "SiteJabber is a consumer protection service which helps people avoid fraudulent websites and find ones they will love."  They've had a lot of positive press from media outlets like USA Today, The LA Times, Readers Digest and many others.  The challenge for Sitejabber and other user-operated review sites is filtering out the spam that website owners and their rivals often write, while posing as consumers.  That is certainly annoying when you're trying to find honest reviews.

At Vermont Woods Studios, we realize that investing in fine furniture is a decision you need to research thoroughly thus we try to post as much information as we can to help you understand our company and the committment we have to our customers and their complete satisfaction.   Recently compiled customer feedback statistics are published here.  Check out the section of my blog that provides additional customer reviews and statistics and give us a call to discuss your questions.  If you cannot travel to Vermont to visit us personally, we are happy to try to find an existing customer in your area who would be willing to speak with you about their furniture and their purchasing experience.

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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.

The post Copeland’s American Made Bedroom Furniture – Customer Reviews appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

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!

The post Furniture Reviews: Customer Ratings For Quality appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

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.

The post Online Furniture Shopping: Customer Reviews, Ratings and Complaints Drive Continuous Improvement appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

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!

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