Empire Today - Chicago

It was a good experience. The crew was really good. They were very professional and on time. They did what they said they were going to do. I have used them before in the past. They stayed on top of the order. They did exactly what was needed.

This national company has been around quite a while and is accredited by the Better Business Bureau. I think the problem arose with the South Florida affiliate that was assigned the project. The salesperson was professional and arrived at my home within the prescribed time frame. I was shown a variety of products and selected a higher-grade laminate flooring that was called Canadian Maple. I had shopped around and the pricing was consistent with other estimates that I received. This project took three full days and the finished product did not look like a professional installation. I called Empire's Customer Service Department on several occasions during this project. Although the customer service representatives were polite, little was done to insure that the project would proceed to my satisfaction. I had paid for this installation by credit card and it was only after I contacted the credit card company and disputed the charge, was anything done about my complaints concerning the installation. The problems arose when the installers arrived at my home the first day. One English-speaking gentleman and two helpers. The English-speaking gentleman did not stay on the job. He left two obviously inexperienced and non-English speaking individuals to demo the tile, pull up the carpeting and put down the underlayment of the flooring. They spent most of their time on their cell phones so demo went into the second day. The next day the same two individuals arrived. After they finished what should have been done on Day One, they began to install the flooring. One of the two did nothing but stand around and watch the other try to figure out the proper cuts for the flooring. On the third day, the more experienced individual came back to my home to finish the installation with one helper. The result was terrible. The finish trim was uneven and pieced. The thresholds were uneven and a tripping hazard. One of the thresholds was an entirely different color than the flooring. I complained to Empire, who initially wanted to send the same installer back to correct the problems. As stated, it was only after I contacted my credit card company and disputed the payment, was another installer sent to inspect and correct as much of this installation as they could. I never received any communication from Empire apologizing for the time and trouble this ordeal has caused me. My above ratings are based upon the finished installation of the flooring, and the time and trouble I had with this project. When all the salient factors are taken into consideration, the price became prohibitive.

Not well...blinds were not nearly the quality (though very similar type) but considerably more $ than we had in previous house. Lifetime warranty touted, but ooops, labor costs $75 for them to come out. Thankyouverymuch. I don't anticipate Empire selling us anything in the future.

It was very unpleasant. The bed room was fine. When they came out the installer actually ripped the floor and just glued it down but you could see the rip in the floor, then the floor was very lumpy. I was told they were going to remove the old vinyl tiles and put the new tiles which he did not do. They didn't follow any of the instructions and I kept calling them about it. They sent someone out to replace the floor and he took the old floor out but instead he cut it and I can actually see the dents coming out. At this point I am so frustrated and tired of fighting. It was a horrible experience.

They did a really good job. The guy in charge explained everything to me and told me how long it would take. He delivered the services on time.

The floors are only one year old and if anything is dropped on the floor it dents very easily. The floors are terrible to clean and they scratch easily. I was very specific in stating that I wanted and quot;realand quot; wood floors. These floors will be replaced. I'm disappointed.

Having read the Angie's list reviews, I was worried about using this vendor. However, I noticed all the negative reviews were about the sales people. The reviews that covered installations were enthusiastic about the actual installation of the carpeting. I had already met and liked the salesman, Mike Klein. So we decided to go ahead. We got a good competitive price on the carpeting. They did a good job installing it. It looks nice. We had one problem. The new carpet plus the padding was too thick for our front door. It rubbed on the bottom so hard, it was very difficult to open the door. They came back and removed the padding from that entryway section and now the door opens easily. It was a good experience with them.

Felt like a car salesman pitch. Started off with a really high price, when we said we had lower ones, called his manager to get the price down. Showed us lower quality carpet to get the price down to the same level as competitiors. Tried to dissuade us from using other providers and force us to make a quick decision. Talked us into setting up an installation without a deposit and then when we cancelled a few hours later they didn't cancel it from their end, luckily they called to confirm before they showed up. Wasted a bunch of our time between the measurement and sales pitch (about an hour) and then the cancellation procedures (20 minutes). Found local companies were cheaper. Their up side is that they came out quickly and could install immediately so if you're in a rush they may be the best option, although I ended up able to talk a local company into coming out within days - the local company was cheaper and had better quality.

Although the sales rep was on time for the original appt, Friday, 7/18/14 - he forgot the hardwood floor samples. He stated he lived close and could be back in an hour with the samples. I agreed. A little more than hour later I received a call from an 800# rep stating the appt needed to be rescheduled. The 800# rep connected me to the sales rep, who apologized. We agreed to meet on Monday, 7/21/14 afternoon. Today is Monday, 7/21/14, early evening, no calls, no show. I have not had much luck lately with contractors keeping their word or scheduled appt times - frustrating.

Used their online tool to schedule a sales call. Scheduled it on Monday, appointment was Friday. Appointment confirmed via their email notice. They gave me a 2 hour window. (5PM-7PM) The sales person was a no-show and did not call or otherwise communicate with us. Over 30 minutes after our appointment window he finally showed up. But without the courtesy to call and let us know he was running late, and after wasting 2 hours of my time, I will not do business with them. Bottom line: If you can't show up to get the work I don't trust that you'll show up to do the work. Update: You'll notice the company did not apologize in their response. I was very clear in my message above that I had no interest in doing business with them, but they called me more than 10 times trying to reschedule. I felt harassed.

This was very bad experience i had recently. I though Empire is a professional company but it turns out it is not. 1. First i schedule a meeting for estimate on Saturday after noon between 1 and 3. They never called me and updated when they are coming. I waited till 2 and called them they said that they will be coming around 3. At 3:30 i called them again and then they say that there is a delay and will be there in 30 min. At 5 i need to call again and they say 30 min. I turned down that time and they scheduled another one. 2. Nile one of the sales rep came the 2nd scheduled time. He sounded friendly at first and even suggested not to remove tile as it will get wet during winter and spoil the carpet.we selected the color of the hardwood and order is placed. He never told us during the conversation that they will be putting a bumpy wood patch between the floors. I never had experience installing the floors and i expected that it will same as my other floor. Today the installation guy came and place a big bump across my living room stating that is how he patch between two different floors. This is looking very ugly in the middle of my living room. They made two bumpy patches over all. If Nile had told me that they will be putting these bumps i would have never changed my floor.

Nile, our sales rep, was very professional and punctual when he stopped out to find out what we needed and to show us carpet samples.. Nile tried to close us for the carpet order that day but we were waiting on one additional carpet quote so I put him off. He took this quite well. After meeting with another carpet company I called Nile back the next day to schedule installation. We were able to get the install the next day which was important to us as our house is currently for sale. The installation crew showed up and did a great job. They moved furniture to do the install. We were worried that they might break something but they did a great job and the only issue was that the furniture was "re-arranged" in one of the bedrooms which was quickly rectified. They vacuumed up most of the loose fibers from the install and over ail they did a great job. There was some minor scratches to the trim. This is unavoidable when installing carpet but it was easily fixed with a bottle of Old English and a rag. The bedrooms were recently painted and I saw no scuffs or scratches on the paint from the install. Nile called the next day to ask if we were happy with the carpet install. We were very happy with the whole experience and we let him know.

Empire offered a ridiculous price on flooring. Couldn't offer the 50% deal, which would still be absurd. Repeatedly made mistakes in calculations and not in the consumer's favor. They had no selection in carpet. Used the buzz words of and quot;Big Joband quot;, when in fact the job was small. Also would tell you it's a and quot;Special Order.and quot; When I'm treated like an fool, I lose any respect for the sales person and the company. Don't waste your time with these people.

It went fine, but I was disappointed in the price. It was so expensive. You always see their ads on television about their special deals but when you find the carpet you want, it's not on special. It was easy for them to come to the home so that made it a lot easier and they did a good job in putting down the carpet. They moved the furniture and everything which was really good. The only thing negative I have to say about them was the price, and they got their specials sort of high.

Without a doubt, this was the most aggravating and unprofessional experience my wife and I have ever experienced. We called Empire without checking out the reviews here and we have certainly learned our lesson. It started out on November 13th when we had a carpet salesman come to our home. Marvin was our salesperson and at first we liked him. He was personable and after much deliberation, we chose a special order carpet. Little did we know, and Marvin never told us, that special order carpets can be delayed by the manufacturer. We told Marvin that we needed the carpet installed by Wednesday, November 27th. We had 15 guests arriving at our house for Thanksgiving and they were all staying. Many of them in our basement. He assured us the carpet would be installed by then. On Tuesday, November 26th, Marvin called to tell us our order had never been placed! He said that he made a mistake on the order and the carpet was never made! As you can imagine, I was very upset. I told Marvin that I wanted all my carpet free or at a big discount. Marvin had the gaul to argue with me and tell me I was being unreasonable! Now, I may have been making an unreasonable request, but when you screw up, you fall on the sword and take your beating like a man. He finally called back later that day and asked if we would look at some carpet they had in stock and if we liked one of those carpets, we could get it for 20% less than what we had originally paid. We asked if the salesperson could come by around 8 that evening. The guy didn't show up until 11:15pm that night! No apologies, nothing. He showed us a bunch of crappy samples and out of exhaustion and desperation, we chose one. It arrived the next day and it looked like crap. We had them take it away. The installers were giving us a hard time because they had already laid some padding. I called Empire and I told Dave the sales manager I wanted the original carpet that I ordered. He assured me the carpet would be made on December 7th and would be installed no later than a week later. On December 12th I CALLED Dave and he informed me that our carpet was not made! Every time I needed information from Dave, I had to call him. I understand why Dave is now a sales manager. As a sales person, his lack of professionalism probably p***** off a lot of customers. So, following the peter principal, they promote him. Dave then told me our carpet would be made on December 21 and I told him to CALL ME when it was made. On December 27th, I CALLED Dave again! Dave in his wisdom decided to pass the buck to a customer service rep. Dave didn't have the guts to call me himself and instead had a customer service take the bullet. True to Empire's form, the customer service rep was unprepared and had no idea what he was walking into. After I gave him a polite lesson in how to perform his duties, he hung up on me! Unbelievable! Finally on December 30th, a customer service manager called me and told me that our carpet was going to be made on January 4th. I politely asked him to lean on the manufacturer to get the carpet shipped express so we could get it installed right away. On Monday, January 6th, I CALLED Empire and found out the order was made and it was going to arrive in Chicago on Tuesday, January, 7th. I was told someone would call me to set up a delivery time. WRONG! No one called again! I called them and finally got a call back. They were going to install the carpet on January 8th and were going to try for a morning install. They told me that someone would call me in the morning to let me know the delivery time window. WRONG!!! Today the installers just showed up around 11am. I am not kidding! No call, no warning! Finally we have our carpet installed. The installers did a good job and the carpet we picked looks great. I believe Empire built their company and reputation on good products and good service. However, those values are long gone. Everyone we came in contact with at Empire did a lousy job. No one ever took responsibility or took a leadership role and made sure I was taken care of. This whole experience could have gone entirely different if someone would have stepped up and acted like a competent professional. I can forgive mistakes and delays. Things happen. We are all human. I am a very loyal customer and will pay a little extra for good service. Be good to me and you will have a customer for life. If you want cheap carpet, sold by poorly trained sales people, and incompetent management, Empire Today is your kind of vendor. Please do not pick them if you want special order, nice carpet, with people who will be make sure you are happy.

Everything went great. They were able to get what I wanted done and hauled away the old carpet. They came to my home to give me the different options on carpet to choose from which I really liked. It took about 3 and a half hours to complete everything and the results are great.

They were not very good. I didn't like their company. They didn't honor their warranty. I had the whole basement redone with half of new vinyl and half of brand new carpeting on my basement floor. It hasn't been a year. It was still 11 months. I had still the warranty. It should be covered but they didn't honor my warranty at all. I still had the warranty and the paper work. The workmanship was okay. The guys who actually did the laying out of the carpet was really good. They were on time when they did come.

He said for how much. And kept yelling and quot; what are you looking for?' I don't know whether he was drunk or just angry, but I opened t the door and told him to leave. I was afraid and not much scares me. I called main office and all I got is we will make a note of it. Not very concerned.

It went perfectly. We had several calls ahead of time from Empire reminding us when they would be out to do the work. They were to be here at 9:00 a.m., and they were here on time. It was one of those hot, humid days, and the two men who came out worked their butts off. The salesman is Noble at 630-607-2115, and he is terrific, helpful, and worked very hard to get us to a price we could afford. The installer, who are employees of Empire, were very careful with our furniture, and managed to get every single piece of furniture, lights, TV, beds, etc. exactly in the same please as where they were before. What memories they both had! I have never seen two men work as hard as the two who came out...when we do our next rooms, we want to deal only with Noble, and only with the two installers who were out here. I am 70 years old, and it's hard to impress me. But believe me, I was overwhelmed to say the least, at how the entire operation came together....thanks to Noble and the two installers. What a great company, all the way down to the lady who answers the phones.

I called them because I knew them and I've used them a long time ago. I used to live in Chicago and I like the service people there. If they did something wrong or made a mistake, I call them up and talk to the manager and he's so nice. He had them come back to fix it and to clean it up. He was leaving for the Thanksgiving and he gave me a coupon for a turkey. I like their service once I reported what had happened. When the people came out, they were really nice. I didn't know what shade I wanted for the carpet for the basement and they were so helpful. They were the ones who suggested the shade and I love the shade. I always look at what people do, when they are nice because they wanted to, or they know what they're talking about. Overall, the service was good. I thought their price was a little high but sometimes you pay for what you get. I was pleased with what they did. I love the carpet and I got a lot of comments about it. When I had some problems with the basement and the water came in, I called them and they came right in. I didn't have to wait around. They came in almost like the next day and that's what I like about them. I think they do that to everyone, too. They provide quick service. They also gave me good advice.

The were very nice. We didn't end up going with them just because of a company that was offering the same product but it was a little bit of lower-priced. Their workers were very friendly. They were very professional and very knowledgeable about their product. Probably, the fast thing was their usage of light stencils and stuff and having that available for us to look and see. The worst part of the experience was they were a little bit more pushy than we would have liked. It was their job and we do understand that but that was the most challenging part of the interaction.

The significant problem was with their customer service after installation. The salesperson came to my home with a bunch of samples. I selected what I liked and he came up with a price. I had gotten two estimates from other vendors and had planned to get one more and told him so. That's when the pressure started. He lowered his price, better than the other two, and gave me a hard sell. Given that he was promising installation sooner than the others and I had limited time to get this done before an event, I went for his pitch. The installers arrived as scheduled and did a fine job. They moved my furniture with no issues. It was evident that they took pride in their work. They worked a long day in order to not have to come back the next day. The floor looks great. However, it soon became evident that there was some sort of problem. There was a loud creaking when walking across the living room. I called the customer service department and someone came out. This was shortly after the installation and he said it was likely that the floor would settle and the creaking would lessen. That seemed like a reasonable explanation. Unfortunately it did not work out that way. Months later the creaking continued. I called customer service again on a Saturday and was promised a follow up call within three business days to schedule an inspection. By the following Thursday, after their promised response time, I had not received a call so I had to call again. I finally received a call on Friday and scheduled an inspection for the following Monday. They could only offer me a mid-day five hour window, so I had to take off work to be home. The inspector arrived and did not look very experienced. She barely looked around. I had to suggest to her that she go to the basement below to look from the bottom. I was not optimistic. She told me I would get a call from someone else in a week. With all the hand offs between people, I felt like I was getting a run around. And why it took so long to make a decision, I have no idea. The following Monday, more than two weeks after my initial call, I started calling to find out what they were going to do. I left a message and did not get any follow up. In the following days I called multiple times each day, left multiple messages for multiple people and no one called me back. At one point I got ahold of someone who put me on hold and after 30 minutes I hung up. Finally, on Friday of that week, a day shy of three weeks after my initial call, I got ahold of an installation manager who was actually fairly helpful. He explained that and quot;official findingsand quot; were still pending, but preliminarily he said Empire would not take responsibility. They were blaming the subfloor. Interestingly, for the seven years prior that I lived in the house with carpeting in that room, there was no issue. The installation manager offered some helpful explanations and provided advice at my request as to how I might fix the problem. Exasperated and convinced that I was not going to get any help from Empire, I looked into fixing the problem myself. I was able to insert wood shims between the joists and a metal support beam, below the floor, and that solved the problem. The solution was not what the installation manager suggested, which was much more involved (bracing the joists). Whether or not this was an installation issue or a preexisting issue, others with more expertise can judge. (But remember there was no creaking before the hardwood floor was installed.) What is extremely disappointing was that Empire was so reluctant to stand behind its installation job and make sure I was satisfied. Not returning calls and not following up within the time promised are huge problems. I will never use Empire again and I eagerly share this negative experience with any friend or relative that is considering new flooring.

I don't like laminate as well as hardwood, I was not satisfied with the work, and it was a shotty job.

The experience was quick and easy. The only negative was the time the install took. The actual time was about 6 times longer than I was told to expect. Outside of that, it was well done and a good overall experience.

I thought they were excellent. The price that they sent out worked with our budget. They gave us what we needed in a timely fashion. The work was implemented within that week and we didn't have any problems with them at all. It was a very good job. They sent people out to put the floors in in a timely fashion. It was done; everything was cleared up and cleaned up. It was the same thing with the blinds. We had three sets of blinds put into the family room. It is excellent quality so far and we didn't have any problems with the billing. Everything was done in a satisfactory way. I think their price was reasonable. We were satisfied.