I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right (second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

"rrh" wrote in message
...
I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the
kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right
(second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day
of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a
call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their
jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

You wouldn't go to Wickes or Ikea - so where would you go?

rrh wrote:

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Actually I was going to recommend Ikea, mainly because wickes / MFI use the
same delivery firm and we had endless problems with them, all 4 orders we
had from wickes/MFI had missing part, damaged bits,didn't turn up etc. The
service we had from Ikea was delightful in comparison, although our kitchen
was stocked in store we opted to have it delivered, in total there were over
200 bits, and all arrived, and every thing fitted with no damage, the
delivery guys even spent about an hour with me checking all the bits were
present before signing for it (I think the cups of tea helped!). The only
problems we had we that I drilled the holes in the wrong places on a door,
which as each unit is modular resulted in me sending the wife to the store
to get a new door front. Took the weekend to fit the main units and are
delighted with the results.

Jon

In article ,
"Jonathan Pearson" writes:
rrh wrote:

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Actually I was going to recommend Ikea, mainly because wickes / MFI use the
same delivery firm and we had endless problems with them, all 4 orders we
had from wickes/MFI had missing part, damaged bits,didn't turn up etc. The
service we had from Ikea was delightful in comparison, although our kitchen
was stocked in store we opted to have it delivered, in total there were over
200 bits, and all arrived, and every thing fitted with no damage, the
delivery guys even spent about an hour with me checking all the bits were
present before signing for it (I think the cups of tea helped!). The only
problems we had we that I drilled the holes in the wrong places on a door,
which as each unit is modular resulted in me sending the wife to the store
to get a new door front. Took the weekend to fit the main units and are
delighted with the results.

I would back up the quality of the IKEA stuff. I order it up from
the store which is the painful part, but once you get it, I found
it all fits perfectly, nothing damaged, and I've never had any need
to adjust anything, although there are lots of adjusters on hinges,
drawer fronts, etc.

If I could order it on the Web and pick it up directly from the
warehouse without the pain of having to go into the store and dealing
with the staff, queues, etc, they would be on to a real winner.

--
Andrew Gabriel
Consultant Software Engineer

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:00:36 GMT, "rrh"
wrote:

I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right (second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?



Absolutely not. By now I would have cancelled the transaction with
the credit card company and told them that they can come and collect
it.


..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

"rrh" wrote in message
...
I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the
kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.

You need to hassle them on this. If you've got another one of the same item
just say it's damaged and you move to the front of the queue.


- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right
(second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).

Never had this. All replacements were correct, though they did lose the
order for one replacement bit.


Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their
jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

They are dreadfully overloaded. I think they have been more successful in
selling kitchens than they expected (must be really - if they relied on
sales of small items in our store they'ed have gone out of business years
ago)


Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Possibly - but definitely unacceptable. SHOUT LOUDER !!!!!!

"rrh" wrote in message ...
I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right (second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Yes you are. But in my experience I think this is now the norm when
dealing with any of these types of companies. Their systems and
processes are designed to cope with 'perfect' deliveries. As soon as
anything goes wrong their exception handing just isnt in place.

I purchased my current kitchen cabinets from BandQ. Very happy with
the product, it looks good and performs well - but I made sure that
every item I wanted was stocked in my local store so I could examine
it in store and take it home with me. I opened every box in store and
checked for damage. There was no way I would order anything from then
and expect them to deliver it correctly and undamaged. I 'know' it
just wont happen. Sad.

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:00:36 +0000, rrh wrote:

snip

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

My experience on around 5 IKEA kitchens is that they deliver everything
you ordered intact, also there is never any bits missing.
Have I been fortunate?

--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

On 30 Jun 2004 13:09:01 -0700,
(William Joones) wrote:

"rrh" wrote in message ...


Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Yes you are. But in my experience I think this is now the norm when
dealing with any of these types of companies.

No he isn't at all. All the time that people accept this kind of
poor quality service, damaged goods, lack of a system to correct
things expeditiously and are willing to waste hours on trying to help
the supplier fix their broken systems and products, nothing will
change.

The only way to start to address this is for them to suffer the loss
of revenue of cancelled orders, having to explain cancelled
transactions to credit card companies and the cost and inconvenience
to them of having to collect goods.

If sufficient people do this, then eventually they will get the
message and do something. Sadly there is a British disease of
putting up with poor and damaged product and even worse service
without complaint or compensation.

THere needs to be an attitude change all around here.


..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

In article .uk,
Ed Sirett wrote:
My experience on around 5 IKEA kitchens is that they deliver everything
you ordered intact, also there is never any bits missing.
Have I been fortunate?

I've not bought much from IKEA as I hate the shopping 'experience' there,
but one thing I did buy was a computer workstation in pine for the
workshop. And the runners for the keyboard shelf were missing.
The time taken to go through their returns procedure just to get
replacements put me off them for ever - I've not been back since.

--
*I can see your point, but I still think you're full of ****.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:

Absolutely not. By now I would have cancelled the transaction with
the credit card company and told them that they can come and collect
it.

Well, true to a point. Still leaves him with the problem of time booked
off for a job and no kitchen. And the whole process then has to start
again with someone else who may not be any better anyway...

Darren

"rrh" wrote in message ...
I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after


( snipped...)

I got my kitchen from Wickes, They did not deliver the doors at first,
but they turned up the next day by parcel force ( must have cost them
a bomb!)
Also I had an odd number of draw runners, but luckily I by passed any
call centre and someone from my local branch just sent me the one I
needed.
I got the worktop from B&Q , nothing turned up damaged..

The sales guy managed to sell me all the pelemet and cornice stuff
that I have still not got around to fitting..

The units themselves are quite good, nice solid doors and quite sturdy
cabs. They were 50% off too ( sort of a continual sale thing they
seemed to be doing for about 6 months a year!)

If / When I do another kitchen I think I might just get the 'off the
shelf' stuff, which I guess I could just purchase as I was ready for
it.

Not too bad an experience all in all though.


Simon

(William Joones) wrote in message . com...
"rrh" wrote in message ...
I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right (second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Yes you are. But in my experience I think this is now the norm when
dealing with any of these types of companies. Their systems and
processes are designed to cope with 'perfect' deliveries. As soon as
anything goes wrong their exception handing just isnt in place.

I purchased my current kitchen cabinets from BandQ. Very happy with
the product, it looks good and performs well - but I made sure that
every item I wanted was stocked in my local store so I could examine
it in store and take it home with me. I opened every box in store and
checked for damage. There was no way I would order anything from then
and expect them to deliver it correctly and undamaged. I 'know' it
just wont happen. Sad.

You can trust them. I ordered my B&Q kitchen on the web and it was all
delivered with no shortages or damage on the day they said it would
be. No missing/damaged components found on assembly either. I still
had to make a few trips to the nearest B&Q warehouse to get the bits I
forgot to order, as the local store doesn't carry the whole range.

MBQ

In article , Mbq wrote:
You can trust them. I ordered my B&Q kitchen on the web and it was all
delivered with no shortages or damage on the day they said it would
be.

You did better than me. Two days of staying in (not me fortunately) then
the 'special favours' department got a new date 'just' ten days later.
Can't fault the product though.

For anyone living to the west of London it is worth knowing that B&Q
Yeading (2 miles from M4 J3) has a much better stock than any other B&Q
I know of including various 'to order' doors on the shelf. I know that
it wouldn't help everyone but in the major conurbations I don't know why
they don't allocate one non-stock range to each branch (e.g. New Malden
would have Birch; Chiswick, Old Oak) so that people who are prepared to
travel a few miles can get what they want now.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm

On Thu, 01 Jul 04 08:36:15 GMT, (dmc) wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:

Absolutely not. By now I would have cancelled the transaction with
the credit card company and told them that they can come and collect
it.

Well, true to a point. Still leaves him with the problem of time booked
off for a job and no kitchen. And the whole process then has to start
again with someone else who may not be any better anyway...

Darren

So you go for compensation on top....

You won't get it in full for the time wasted, but it is possible to
get something.

Whenever I have had an issue like this I ask the supplier for some
compensation. For example:

- Glass doors of cost £700 delivered several times incorrectly made
and time wasted. Compensation £150.

- B&D Scorpion saw of cost about £60 (IIRC). Faulty and replaced.
Faulty again so refunded and voucher for £20

- Shirt from Marks and Spencer. Check on stock made over the phone
and trip made to store. Turned out not to be in stock. £10
compensation in cash.

Again it's the same principle. Try to recover some of the cost and
make sure that it costs the supplier something. The more people that
do this, the better.

It *is* possible to get products supplied at good prices, undamaged
and complete. After all if you go into B&Q or anywhere else the
sales person is not likely to say that the product has bits missing or
is damaged. It is reasonable to get what the product is described
to be. If it falls short of that, then the supplier should correct it
and compensate for the inconvenience and out of pocket cost to address
the issue. After all, they do not say in the leaflet that the product
might be broken or have bits missing do they.

To be honest it does not occur to me to expect anything less from a
supplier than what they have agreed to do which is to sell a complete
and unbroken item.



..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

snip
Yes you are.

Thats somewhat of a typo! I meant to say:

'No you are not'.

then continue with the rest of my rant about how bad these companies are.

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:

So you go for compensation on top....

You won't get it in full for the time wasted, but it is possible to
get something.

Yeah, fine is you can cancel the holiday booked or you don't need
the item. It still doesn't get you a kitchen at the end of the day.

I'm not defending the supplier at all and I would certainly be after
compensation but for things like the worktops I would attempt to find
another supplier who can deliver when needed and then get the original
supplier to pay up + something for the hassle. Of course, the problem
with this is that often it is difficult to actually find anyone high
enough to ok this. Standing in the store informing other prospective
customers can be quite productive though in my experience

Again it's the same principle. Try to recover some of the cost and
make sure that it costs the supplier something. The more people that
do this, the better.

I agree. I suspect that sending the entire lot back in this case may
well cause more grief than it solves to the OP.

It *is* possible to get products supplied at good prices, undamaged
and complete. After all if you go into B&Q or anywhere else the
sales person is not likely to say that the product has bits missing or
is damaged. It is reasonable to get what the product is described
to be. If it falls short of that, then the supplier should correct it
and compensate for the inconvenience and out of pocket cost to address
the issue.

Thats what I mean. Sending the whole lot back means no kitchen. Sourcing
the extra/missing bits elsewhere if possible and billing the difference
+ compensation strikes me as still hurting the company yet still leaving
the OP with a kitchen. Of course, if the missing/short parts are not
avaiable elsewhere then it is a bit of a different matter.

To be honest it does not occur to me to expect anything less from a
supplier than what they have agreed to do which is to sell a complete
and unbroken item.

Nor me. It is however worth compromising at times IMHO.

Changing tack slightly, resently bought an amp from richer sounds. Big
tale of woe that I won't go into now but they have been great throughout.
A big thumbs up for Richersounds customer service (hey, I'm a happy punter
even though I still don't have a working amp!).

Some companies still do customer service...

Darren - (ob John lewis CS plug

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:00:36 GMT, "rrh"
wrote:

I wouldn't. First, on the positive side, the in-store staff have been
helpful and pleasant; and the quality of the kitchen units themselves is
reasonable to good. On the other hand, I allowed myself a full month after
the delivery on 30 May of what was supposed to be my complete kitchen to
install it, and now find myself going back to work tomorrow with the kitchen
still in chaos:

- Salesman didn't sell me all the right bits at the time. Supplemental
orders take as long as the original to arrive.
- One unit arrived damaged. It took three more tries to get it right (second
unit damaged too; third one was the wrong item).
- One crucial bit (worktop) had to be on a supplemental order. On the day of
delivery I was told it was too damaged to deliver. I was given a new date.
Nothing arrived; apparently they were "out of stock". I was promised a call
within the following day to reschedule. No call. I called them. Date now
rearranged - for nearly two weeks after I go back to work.

Add this to the experience of the "customer service" call centre, whose
staff (if you can ever finally get through to them) - with one or two
welcome exceptions - manage to make it quite clear that they hate their jobs
and couldn't give a stuff whether you get what you've paid for or not.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?


I don't think you are.

I liked B&Q, you check all the stuff you need is on the shelf, then
buy it all, you pick the order off the shelf and cart it home. If its
a big kitchen you need a mate to help carry .....

Rick

On Thu, 01 Jul 2004 12:57:44 +0100, Tony Bryer wrote:

In article , Mbq wrote:
You can trust them. I ordered my B&Q kitchen on the web and it was all
delivered with no shortages or damage on the day they said it would
be.

You did better than me. Two days of staying in (not me fortunately) then
the 'special favours' department got a new date 'just' ten days later.
Can't fault the product though.

Just had a look at B+Q's website, and they seem to have changed their
delivery prices and bands since I got my kitchen last May. Delivery now
seems to be 2 weeks and 5ukp for all kitchen items.
When I got mine, you could order as many cabinets, doors, fittings etc as
you wanted, and delivery was 2 days and about 13ukp. As soon as you added
worktops, delivery was 2 weeks and 40ukp. So I got everything except the
worktops from B+Q, and the worktops deliverd by the local Focus within 2
days for 13ukp.
There were a couple of damaged items in the B+Q stuff, but courier came to
collect them day after I notified, and brought replacements, so I wasn't
held up.

I've lost the original posting but one other comment I'd make is we didn't
order worktops from Wickes, and our delivery guy agreed that was a good
move. Damage is more frequent to these and it's a long way back. Also
choice is limited and no 4m units. Instead try a good local wood supply
company who have a wider range and will do the butt/scribe joint as well if
you want.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Looks like I may have been a bit unfair
about Ikea. Also wish I'd realised that it would have been relatively
trivial to mix and match units from Wickes with worktops from somewhere
else, or whatever. Still, that's the value of this group. Next time...


--
RRH

To reply by email, take out insurance.

On Thu, 01 Jul 04 16:24:13 GMT, (dmc) wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:



Thats what I mean. Sending the whole lot back means no kitchen. Sourcing
the extra/missing bits elsewhere if possible and billing the difference
+ compensation strikes me as still hurting the company yet still leaving
the OP with a kitchen. Of course, if the missing/short parts are not
avaiable elsewhere then it is a bit of a different matter.


That's fine and obviously weighs into the decision.

However, here there was a catalogue of screw ups, repeated failed
attempts to get it resolved and the supplier doing nothing to remedy
the situation. That should cost the supplier big bucks.

In a situation like this, I might give the supplier one opportunity,
with a very strong warning of the consequences to get it right. That
is the line of least resistance as you say. After that it would take
a great deal for me to relent from cancelling the business.



..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

"Huge" wrote in message
...
(Steve Firth) writes:
Huge wrote:

snip

Then I vowed never, ever to use Magnet again.

Good man.

Could have been worse - you could have walked into sharps/dolphin/moben to
ask directions, and been bombarded with sales calls for the next three
years....



Next week; Carphone Warehouse.


I must have been lucky with them - few problems. All I know is that one of
m'colleagues is forever complaining about how poor O2 customer service is,
and that I always get straight through to the CPW O2 customer service line &
they've dealt with everything promptly so far! YMMV

--
Richard Sampson

email me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Tony Bryer wrote in message ...
In article , Mbq wrote:
You can trust them. I ordered my B&Q kitchen on the web and it was all
delivered with no shortages or damage on the day they said it would
be.

You did better than me. Two days of staying in (not me fortunately) then
the 'special favours' department got a new date 'just' ten days later.
Can't fault the product though.

For anyone living to the west of London it is worth knowing that B&Q
Yeading (2 miles from M4 J3) has a much better stock than any other B&Q
I know of including various 'to order' doors on the shelf. I know that
it wouldn't help everyone but in the major conurbations I don't know why
they don't allocate one non-stock range to each branch (e.g. New Malden
would have Birch; Chiswick, Old Oak) so that people who are prepared to
travel a few miles can get what they want now.

Ordinary B&Q stores stock a limited range of styles and limited
selection of items in those styles, as indicated in the kitchen
brochure. I thought the warehouse branches stocked everything. The
ones in Huddersfield and Slough seem to as far as I could tell.

MBQ

In article , Mbq
wrote:
Ordinary B&Q stores stock a limited range of styles and limited
selection of items in those styles, as indicated in the kitchen
brochure. I thought the warehouse branches stocked everything.

The stock control in some of ours (SW London) is rubbish. I tried four
branches without success to get nothing more complicated than 500mm
Premier drawers and 400mm regular drawers. Of course re the latter for
several ranges they had loads of 400mm door+drawer fronts. It was just
from a chance comment at another branch that I discovered that Yeading
is big even by B&Q Warehouse standards and has a lot more stock.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm

Huge wrote:
(Steve Firth) writes:
Huge wrote:

Next week; Carphone Warehouse.

*******s.

Any place that would take on Ernest Saunders deserves boycotting.

He who recovered from Alzheimers?

Should be back in jail to serve the rest of his sentence then.
(Mind you, I am not boycotting Guinness)

Magnet are quite good as a builders merchant, but the dedicated kitchen
showrooms staffed by middle aged women with attitude are a v.poor
experience. They rank one place above Moben/Dolphin (Homeform Group).

Wickes/Been&Queued/Ikea all a similar variable experience, but Jewsons,
Howdens & my current favourite Howarth Timber shouldn't be overlooked.

--
Toby.

'One day son, all this will be finished'

I wouldn't have bought a first kitchen from Wickes.

Huge wrote:


Next week; Carphone Warehouse.


I must have been lucky with them - few problems.

One of the shop assistants actually followed us out of the shop and
screamed abuse down the street...

Really? Which branch?

On 5 Jul 2004 18:45:57 GMT, (Huge) wrote:

"hudsterou" writes:
Huge wrote:


Next week; Carphone Warehouse.


I must have been lucky with them - few problems.

One of the shop assistants actually followed us out of the shop and
screamed abuse down the street...

Really?

Yep.

Which branch?

Near St.Pauls cathedral. Dunno what we did to upset her.

Here's my theory.

Perhaps she was used to 23 year old world conquering traders with red
braces going in there and thought this to be the norm.
Most of these individuals that I've met seem to know how to abuse
themselves.

Then when somebody sentient visited didn't know how to handle it, and
felt that she should provide the abuse.


..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

"Huge" wrote in message
...
Next week; Carphone Warehouse.

I must have been lucky with them - few problems.

One of the shop assistants actually followed us out of the shop and
screamed abuse down the street...

Which branch?

Near St.Pauls cathedral. Dunno what we did to upset her.

Was this late in the day on last day of month ? They are on a bonus scheme
and perhaps you were her last chance of meeting target.

"Huge" wrote in message
...
One of the shop assistants actually followed us out of the shop and
screamed abuse down the street...

Which branch?

Near St.Pauls cathedral. Dunno what we did to upset her.

Was this late in the day on last day of month ? They are on a bonus
scheme
and perhaps you were her last chance of meeting target.

I can't recall, in all honestly. I went in there with a friend who wanted
to transfer across from another airtime supplier, keeping his old number,
she said something about it taking a month, he said something like "what
use is that?" and we left. As we walked away, she followed us out into the
street and shouted something after us - we didn't hear what, but it didn't
sound friendly. I never said a word...

Well did use to take months to get a transfer off the old Cellnet. But
still no excuse

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Jonathan Pearson" writes:
rrh wrote:

Still, I suppose it could have been worse - I could have gone to Ikea.

Is my experience typical? Am I being unreasonable in finding it
unacceptable?

Actually I was going to recommend Ikea, mainly because wickes / MFI use
the
same delivery firm and we had endless problems with them, all 4 orders
we
had from wickes/MFI had missing part, damaged bits,didn't turn up etc.
The
service we had from Ikea was delightful in comparison, although our
kitchen
was stocked in store we opted to have it delivered, in total there were
over
200 bits, and all arrived, and every thing fitted with no damage, the
delivery guys even spent about an hour with me checking all the bits
were
present before signing for it (I think the cups of tea helped!). The
only
problems we had we that I drilled the holes in the wrong places on a
door,
which as each unit is modular resulted in me sending the wife to the
store
to get a new door front. Took the weekend to fit the main units and are
delighted with the results.

I would back up the quality of the IKEA stuff. I order it up from
the store which is the painful part, but once you get it, I found
it all fits perfectly, nothing damaged, and I've never had any need
to adjust anything, although there are lots of adjusters on hinges,
drawer fronts, etc.

If I could order it on the Web and pick it up directly from the
warehouse without the pain of having to go into the store and dealing
with the staff, queues, etc, they would be on to a real winner.

--
Andrew Gabriel
Consultant Software Engineer

I'd agree that the quality and value of Ikea kitchens is probably
unbeatable. I'd also agree that the ordering process at the store is painful
but I found the staff unusually well-informed and helpful. Not much like our
local Wickes and B&Q staff (Reading).

KevinWebb

In article ,
"Kevin Webb" writes:
"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message

I would back up the quality of the IKEA stuff. I order it up from
the store which is the painful part, but once you get it, I found
it all fits perfectly, nothing damaged, and I've never had any need
to adjust anything, although there are lots of adjusters on hinges,
drawer fronts, etc.

If I could order it on the Web and pick it up directly from the
warehouse without the pain of having to go into the store and dealing
with the staff, queues, etc, they would be on to a real winner.

I'd agree that the quality and value of Ikea kitchens is probably
unbeatable. I'd also agree that the ordering process at the store is painful
but I found the staff unusually well-informed and helpful. Not much like our
local Wickes and B&Q staff (Reading).

Actually, I mostly agree with you about the staff too.
It's the other customers who are painfull ;-)

--
Andrew Gabriel