Report Abuse

“Worst customer services I have ever received”

written by Gregwire on 14/09/2017

I have purchased a kitchen and flooring from Howdens Warrington Westbrook branch at first they were fine, someone come round and measured the kitchen and said they would do a computer plan of the kitchen and email us a copy of the estimate and plan once we were happy with it which we were.

The problems come once the kitchen was delivered. The delivery drives where rude to my partner my children and some of the electrician I had work on my house at the time of delivery. The delivery drive put the entire kitchen on top on my child’s coat which we didn’t find out till two months later when we finally removed the last parts of the kitchen out of my spare room.

The corner pieces of the kitchen are a completely different shade of white it stands out a mile and when we complained to Howdens Westbrook they said they would send someone out to are home and look at it which they did but said it was with in tolerance which is a complete joke and even the kitchen fitter said he was embarrassed to fit but as they would budge and we were in a rush to get the kitchen fitted we let the fitter fit the corner pieces.

The next problem was that the designer hadn't measured the kitchen properly so the lower part of the kitchen didn’t fit together so he had to use some of the brand new door and cut them to make new corner pieces which cost me more money as Howdens didn't charge me for the doors but the fitter did charge me for doing it.

The problem after that was the kitchen doors that where on the plan didn't fit my kitchen so the fitter again had to cut four more brand new door to size which I wants happy about after paying thousands of pounds for a brand new kitchen and it was starting to be more like a second hand one. The manager at the Westbrook branch was kept informed of all the problems we had and at this point his answer was to just keep giving us more doors at no cost but this was no help as the fitter charged me £30 for each door he had to cut and glue back together.

The fine straw is the flooring that the designer told us would be perfect for are kitchen as it was hard wearing and come with a twenty year warranty for wear and finish and could even be used in a bathroom as it had Aqua block. The flooring started to scratch after about four weeks so I rang up Howdens Westbrook and told them about the problem and they told me to email images of the flooring and they would send this to Howdens head office for them to look at, after two week I emailed them back to find out what was going on and the receptionist told me that someone would have to come out to the house and look at the flooring and fill out a form so I arrange a time for them to come out, the day they were supposed to come out my partner stayed in to wait for them after half an hour had passed after when they should have been there she rang me to say they hadn't turned up so I rang Howdens to find out where they were, when I rang up they said they knew nothing about it and nothing had been put in the diary after I told them the name of the person I had arranged it with and give them the time and date of the emails when I arranged the appointment they suddenly said they did know about it and they would be round in less than half an hour which they were. The person did take photos of the scratches and lifting and said that it shouldn’t be doing that and he would fill out the form and send it off and we would hear something in the next two weeks. Two weeks come and past and we didn’t hear and thing so this time I rang and asked for the manager as I was fed up with dealing with the other staff, they told me he wasn't in and they would get him to ring me back which he didn’t and I had to ring back over five times in the space of two week and finely I did get through to him and he said he would come himself to look at the flooring as the person that come the first time hadn't sent the form off which was a complete waste of my time and his. The manager did come to the house and said the flooring had been fitted to a high standard and he didn’t think the flooring should be getting scratched as easily as it is. He said he would send the form off and get back to me with in two week which again he didn’t, I had to ring him again and again after leaving messages for him to ring me. The final time of ringing him he told me that the QA team had emailed him back and said that it was the fitting of the flooring that was the problem not the flooring, how they can say that when they hadn't been to the house and the manager said it was fitted perfectly I don’t understand. After saying I wasn’t happy about the answer he said he would speak to his area manager about it and get back to me guess what he didn’t and ended up saying that he wouldn’t speak to me about the problem anymore as am not their customer the fitter is and he will only speak to the fitter. The fitter rang them up to say that he would meet them at the house and show them that the flooring was fitted correctly but they said they didn’t want to do that and leave it with him and he would have another word with his area manager and three weeks the fitter rang him again and the manager said that they won’t do anything and there isn’t anything up with the flooring even though when he come to the house he said there was. The manager wouldn’t give the fitter the name of his manager or any contact details to complain to and just said he wouldn’t help anymore.

I would never use Howdens again and I have been able to stop three other people buying kitchens from them now and my fitter said he would never recommend them to anybody again.