Be concerned. Be very concerned. Just when you think it’s safe to settle your balance with ‘Inspirations’ think again. Take a step back and check their work very carefully. Response times, the quality and nature of said responses, and customer treatment and care radically deteriorate to totally unacceptable and rude once all bills have been paid.
As a flavour, the following is a brief account of the treatment I have received from ‘Inspirations’ over the last three weeks.
1/ I telephoned the kitchen fitter and left a message re a snag with the kitchen. As had been the case on previous occasions, just under a week later I still had not received even an acknowledgement of my phone call.
2/ I then used the ‘Contact Us’ service on the ‘Inspirations’ website to send an email. I waited a full week and received no response.
3/ So I went to the showroom. I saw the owner, Roger Hawkins and, I presume, his PA. He informed me that they had passed my email on to the fitter a week earlier. He then went on to say that they had had this sort of problem with this fitter before and had spoken to him about it. Mr Hawkins said that he would give the fitter ‘a kick up the backside’. His words not mine.
4/ The fitter duly arrived and did all he could do, saying that the only way to properly deal with the issue would be to totally remove the worktop and start again.
5/ Using the ‘Contact Us’ service I requested that the owner come to see the kitchen. On this occasion the response was very prompt.
6/ Roger Hawkins arrived as agreed. A camera was hanging from around his neck. ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan would have been proud. The camera lens protruding from his stomach was large, loaded, cocked and ready to shoot. He was accompanied by one of his employees, presumably riding shotgun.
7/ The reasoned discussion I was expecting did not materialize.
Mr Hawkins spent most of his time loudly informing me that I am a pedant. Every so often I was able to respond, briefly, before the cry of ‘pedant’ was raised again. He also implied that I had lied to him about when exactly I had first phoned his kitchen fitter. Irrelevant really and I said that I was hoping to talk about the kitchen rather than his fitter.
Eventually Mr Hawkins either became tired of repeatedly accusing me of being a pedant, or came to realise that whenever he stopped to take a breath I would have an opportunity to attempt to discuss the kitchen with him. He said that he was not going to stand there any longer arguing with me over the kitchen. Ironic really as there was hardly any discussion or argument of any worth; more a ranting monologue based around Mr Hawkins’ word of the day.
Buyer beware!
Source: thebestof.co.uk
Reply from Inspirations Kitchen Design St Neots:
Mr Hart not very accurate with his version of events.
1 / He phoned our fitter on 14th of November.
2/ He sent an email late Wednesday 15th of November which we received on Thursday the 16th morning.
3/ Upon being grilled by Mr Hart about our service, and it not being the first time, I said that I would make enquiries and find out why my fitter had not contacted him, if this was the case I would make sure he was contacted. I later found out this was a complete fabrication of the events. My fitter had called at Mr Hart house on Friday the 17th only to find no one there, admittedly he should have phoned first, but then Mr Hart could’ve informed us he wouldn’t be around for the long weekend.
4/ Mr Hart called in The office on the 20th to give us this complaint, we arranged for the fitter to return to find out what was the problem, it turns out that the underside of the worktop was a little rough, it was filed smooth, the complaint then was the white finish to the underside of the worktop had been removed in the process, Mr Hart was not happy as when he got on the floor he could see this. Wayne the fitter explained that he could do no more, and said he would have to take the whole worktop off to appease Mr Hart, he did not offer this as a solution, it was a sarcastic comment born out of frustration.
6/ Upon discussions with the fitter, Alan my installation manager and myself arrange to go and inspect this worktop and took a camera to take pictures. I explained that this worktop curved edging had to be cut and manufactured on site by the fitter and my view was that it was a perfect finish and if he was worried about some of the white colour was missing underneath he could paint it. This was not acceptable, I told the customer that we would not be replacing the worktop as I felt he was being pedantic making a fuss out of nothing. I was not prepared to argue felt it best to leave. Mr Hart’s kitchen is beautiful and my fitter has as usual done a great job and doesn’t deserve to be put under stress over the ridiculous complaint, especially as most of it is a figment of Mr Hart imagination. I have no apologies over this, unfortunately there is a small minority that you can never appease. No details of this complaint were posted, as really there were no problems with the kitchen. We have been operating for 35 years and never fail to take a customer complaint seriously and acted on it.
This is probably the most ridiculous I have ever had to deal with. You only have to look at other post to see what a high regard customers have for my staff. As an employer it is my responsibility to protect them from stress and I have to take exception when people bend the true for their own ends.