Seattle Lighting

This has nothing to do with the nice man who politely waited on me today. The issue is the incredibly SLOW service I always experience when I shop here.
If you are solely looking for a special light bulb you will wait, while standing up, for 30 minutes while all three customer assistants are helping customers that take up to a half hour ordering or seeking information on products.
There are no express lanes for the lightbulb customer.
While I like having an old established store downtown for merchandise like this, the owners could easily develop a model that is better designed for small purchase customers.

This old brick and mortar store has gone bad! I visited the 2^nd Avenue store recently with the intent to purchase parts to build a new pendant lamp. I spoke with one of the guys upon entering, explained the situation and his response was SILENCE and began fumbling through a catalog… silently. I told him I would look around and check back with him. Then I went around to the «parts/​service desk» where the other worker was on a personal phone call. I looked around and went back to the first guy who was now eating and on the phone. Didn’t even look up. What a waste of time. I found helpful service and parts to be readily available at a nearby business! Good luck Seattle Lighting! Many years ago, you were a fine place to shop!

I walked into Seattle Lighting prepared to purchase a new lighting fixture for a master bathroom. I spoke with Andy Newsome, Assistant Manager and instead of selling me a brand new product, he gave me the part I needed to repair the existing light fixture for free. I have always found Seattle Lighting to be all about the customer and not the sale.

I’ve visited this store numerous times having remodeled several homes in Seatle over the past decade. My wife’s visit yesterday was largely a waste of time. Despite the fact that the service people were told that we are doing a new home construction they couldn’t be bothered to provide any help.
I will amend this to say that a young man was very helpful a few weeks ago but yesterday”s visit was apalling. Their lighting and fixtures are adequate, really no better than other well stocked stores. It is their service that lacks. Unfortunate, they got such a fun location.
From reading many other reviews it sounds like incompetent sales people is their MO.

I went there one Saturday afternoon (it being the only decent place within a reasonable distance from where we live that had a large selection of lights that is not Home Depot quality) to hopefully purchase some lights for a bathroom and living room remodel, and found two that I liked almost immediately.
Next thing that happened was an episode of excruciating waiting game which lasted for about half an hour. Granted, the shop was quite busy, but seeing employees exchanging light bulbs and putting up one additional display unit while displaying an utter lack of interest in customers, or another one picking up her lunch sandwich at the counter (from a delivery person) and digging into it while there’s four or five people waiting to be served (and presumably wanting to spend money there) was just wrong and rude. Where’s their customer obsession?
So they had one of the lights I wanted in stock and I paid, and they put me on a list for the other two (pricey ones I have to add!) and said they’d call me back on Monday to confirm a date when I could pick them up.
I then had to go to their outlet space in Sodo to pick up the lights they did have. First time they gave me the wrong ones. Fortunately I noticed that before I left.
I never did hear back from them regarding the other lights. Guess they didn’t want my almost 600 bucks for those.
I have to say that the person I did end up talking to regarding my order was nice and courteous, but apparently something went wrong somewhere for them to drop my other order. Their loss.

Do the staff judge the clientele when they come in the door, and decide if it is worth their while to talk to them?
Recommended by friends (in the building trade) and contractors. But we experienced a bunch of well manicured salespeople sitting behind their desks, not even stepping out to check in with us, see if we could be helped, ask what our project is. Went to Restoration Hardware afterwards, and their staff were fantastic.

Completely incompetent would be a soft way of describing the people who work here. Unable to answer even the most basic questions with confidence. Every item we wanted was back ordered (until May?) Are you effing kidding me?
This is why we have Amazon. Places like Seattle Lighting are short for this earth.
And that’s a good thing.

THE place to get lighting.

My husband and I are remodeling our home and had never shopped for lighting fixtures for bathrooms, hallway, or dining room. Beth was so helpful — within 10 minutes we’d been schooled in the basics, she provided great recommendations and considerations, printed out our list of considerations, and we even made one purchase on the spot.
They had an incredible selection for indoor and outdoor and was surprised that they had a larger range of price points than I’d expected, many comparable to Home Depot or Lowe’s, but much nicer. Will definitely return and recommend to friends and family!

I brought a specific led bulb in last week to find specific track lighting for my new home. Beth helped me out with several different options. With her and the help of two other employees I found what I needed and exactly how I’m going to install it. I was reading the previous reviews about customer service and thought that I would add that my experience was great.

The selection is great and the sales staff is super helpful happy to make a sale.
But this is where the trouble started. I ordered three if the same item. One was in their Tacoma warehouse and they could have it shipped in a week. The other two were on back order for three weeks.
Ok, sure. We don’t need these items for 15 weeks, let’s do it!
Well, five weeks go by and I call them up. What’s the status? Surely they forgot to call me or something.
No, the item we need now is out of stock and back ordered until «mid summer»! And there is now a waiting list that we would be at the back of.
What? What about the three week back order date? Why wouldn’t we be at the front of the line? Why didn’t you guys call to tell me?
Their answers were (I am not kidding):
*We never legally agreed to anything with you as a customer to deliver what you bought
*Weather patterns and acts of god can change delivery dates (by almost an order of magnitude? Really?)
*You can call the CEO and he will tell you I am right and you as a customer are wrong
*We don’t call a customer until their order is complete
So, they would have waited two years to call if that’s how long the terrible freak snowstorms in coastal China kept up (sarcasm) even though this order was prepaid.
What a poor customer experience. I thought I was buying from a reputable local company but I was dead wrong. If they don’t have what you want in stock, avoid, but I would avoid anyway and I definitely recommend everyone stay away from Seattle Lighting.

I am blown away that someone at SL doesn’t look at these reviews and make efforts to improve their customer service. Every time I go in, I vow that I will not return because their service is the worst. There is no service. No one ever acknowledges you — not when you walk in; not if they pass you in the store. If you ask for help, there is a definite sense, literally with everyone that works there, that you are putting them out. The reviews pointing this out, go back a few years. They, clearly, do not give a «blank.» I was there today, and it was just as bad, if not worse. I truly vowed, today, that I will never step foot in there again.

We’ve been frequent customers of Seattle Lighting over the years but never again. We went in this afternoon and it was deserted. There were a number of staff working on renovations and one guy behind the counter playing on his cell phone. No one approached us and no one could be bothered to help us, so we walked.

I was down in Seattle shopping for my bathroom renovation in Vancouver, BC. They didn’t have the specific LED light fixture I was looking for, but they special ordered it for me at a very reasonable price and held it for me until I could get back down to pick it up again. Smooth, easy, and pleasant. And, they have dedicated parking.

The woman I just spoke to on the phone made it sound like I had done her a terrible inconvenience for calling and asking about replacing an appliance bulb.
I had bulbs in both my fridge and my range go out within the same week. I found the replacements online, but was about to run an errand in the International District, and thought I’d try and support a local business. I called in advance to ask whether they had a suitable replacement. A woman picked up on the first ring, and I explained that I needed a couple unusual bulbs. I read her the first model (brand, volts, watts, part number), and she impatiently said, «That means nothing to me. And we don’t carry GE bulbs. You have to look it up online and figure out what it IS.» I told her I was looking at it online right now. She sounded extremely irritated with my lack of lightbulb knowledge: «I would need to know what TYPE it is. Like, is it C7, S6, R12???» I didn’t see any additional labels on the bulb, the label on the range, or on the Amazon page, and she sounded so exasperated that I said, «Okay, I’ll just buy it online. «At that point she said, «Okay» and hung up before I could even ask her about the second bulb.

I’ve been in your store for over 30 minutes looking at lamps. Nobody has offered to help me with my purchase. I’ll shop elsewhere. Crappy service

My daughter (21) and I went here today to get a ceiling light fixture for her bedroom. Even though it was a Saturday afternoon with lots of people in the store, someone greeted us right away and asked how she could help. She asked us a few questions and then walked us to 2 different parts of the store to show us various options, explaining as she went and asking us questions. They have a HUGE selection and it’s all displayed really well. After we chose something we liked, which happened to be one of the least expensive choices, she asked us if we needed bulbs and walked us through our various bulb options, explaining how we could get a warmer-​looking light that was still ecologically better than traditional light bulbs.
She told us we’d have to pick our order up at their warehouse, 2 miles south, but gave us a printed-​out map that explained super-​clearly where it was and also would allow you to avoid the trains in the area (an important tip). It took only a few minutes to get to the warehouse, and the lamp and bulbs were already packed up for us when we arrived, so the whole process added maybe 10 minutes and was easy.
A great experience in every way. I remember going there once before, a few years ago, and having a similarly-​good experience. They KNOW lighting!

This review is for lights that we purchased and service that we received. We’ve been doing business with Seattle Lighting for more than a decade. Most recently, we bought a houseful of lights for our new house.
They had the goods! And they had people who knew what they were talking about.
Enormous bonus: More than a year later, one of our ceiling fan /​lights gave up the ghost. Seattle Lighting’s Bethany Kikuta wrangled the fan company — Kichler, they make a great product, but are a little shy on customer service — on our behalf, got us a set of replacement controllers at no charge and we were on our way.
Great job! We recognize that Seattle Lighting’s primary business is selling to contractors, businesses and volume customers — and they definitely have the best selection from moderately pricey to very high end, yet they have consistently been able to prioritize our «retail» needs and deliver great products with good service, on our budget.

My review of SL is only for their service and parts. Their fixtures are pretty awesome-​looking, but are mostly out of my price range.
I dropped into SL during my lunch break. The purpose of this trip was NOT to browse, but only to find a strange light bulb that needed to replace a burned-​out one in my condo.
The guy at the service desk was extremely helpful and patient. He also offered to store the part number under my profile in their database. When another bulb goes out, I can simply drop my name. Nice.

Like other reviewers here, I felt like their selection is 5 star and their customer service is 1 star. It’s not that the people are unfriendly — the few I dealt with were helpful — it’s just that their process is designed terribly. It’s like they’re trying to make the most frustrating customer experience possible.
It takes forever to get in and out of here on the weekends. They’re always swamped. But «swamped» is only like 8 customers! The problem is that they only have 3 or 4 sales agents, and you have to get your name on a list to see them, and there’s only one queue — so someone who needs to be hand-​held through a 15 minute discussion of what lighting fixtures they should get holds up the line for someone who just wants to buy a lightbulb or pick up an order that was shipped there.
So it takes 30 minutes just to pick up an order you already paid for. This is really bad service when you have a lot of errands you need to run or other stores to visit.
They don’t have a cashier — only sales agents — so the only way to buy something from them is to get your name on the waiting list. Also, they only have one computer that they can bill your order on, so when they’re busy, another line forms just to use their cashier station. The computer they use for this is apparently old and slow and they often struggle simply to ring up your order.
It would be so simple for them to improve their customer service — just hire a cashier on the weekends, who can help with quick tasks like selling lightbulbs or basic lighting fixtures when the customer already knows what they want and doesn’t have any questions. Also, they could invest in a new computer. I don’t know any other business that takes 5 minutes to ring up an order on a credit card.