More of a nightmare than a dream - but sorted out in the end

We purchased a matteress in January under the Comfort Guarantee Scheme. This was delivered on 12 Feb. On 26 Feb. we returned to the store to advise we did not find the mattress comfortable and wished to exchange this. Given there was no other suitable alternative of similar cost, we decided to upgrade payinf £1000.00 +. However, each time they were due to deliver the new mattress, we received a call stating they did not have this in their warehouse. By now months have gone by and it is May! We subsequently discover that they were having difficulties with their supplier. We had spoken to several different members of staff at the Customer Serservices Dept. Each time we were given different information. Finally we rquested a refund. We were told we could have a refund less 20% costs for removing the mattress etc. We queried this as clearly it was Dreams who had let us down and we did not see why we should pay for their incompetence. We were put through to a woman who identified herself as a Customer Services Manager. Her response was quite simply " you are not entitled to a refund apart for the additional money paid for the upgrade mattress. The Comfort Guarantee Sceme we offer is only a goodwill gesture, we are not legally obliged to honour this. What do you expect we would do with your mattress. I am afraid you are stuck with your mattress and that is tough, but that is how it is!!! She did say that the replacement mattress was due to be deliverd in a couple of days and that she would contact us. The day came and went, with no contact from this so called customer services manager. By now I had had enough and sent an email to the Chief Executive of Dreams. Within the hour, I had received several telephone calls from various members of staff including the Customer Services Manager. Needless to say, I informed her that I did not wish to continue the conversation with her, as I was now dealing with another member of staff in whom I had faith to resolve the matter. He did. He refunded us for the additional amount paid for the upgrade, and recommended a suitable alternative which we are very happy with. So Dreams finally did resolve the issue, but it took from Febuary to May to get this sorted out. In short our experience of Dreams is as follows:

The staff at the Basildon store, was most helpful during this process.

However when they as staff attempted to contact your Customer Servces Dept. they had to wait for 35 + minutes for their call to be answered. We subsequently found the same. Clearly this needs to be improved.

Upon contacting their Customer Services Dept. we spoke to different members of staff each time, and each time we were given different information. When we quoted information we received during previous calls, the reponse we received as "well he shouldn't have said that". This was most frustrating. We were made to feel that as customers we were inconveniencing them! Indeed it was anything but Customer Service! A woman who identified herself as the Customer Service Supervisor was by far the worst and instead of setting a good example as a role model to her staff. Had their Customer Service been more efficient, then this matter could have been resolved a lot sooner.

Sadly it is this part of the service that lets Dreams down badly, and clealry needs some training/re-structuring with proper systems in place to improve their initial response time and telephone manner when speaking to customers.