Coblands Best4plants www.best4plants.co.uk

Ordered 4 Geranuim plants at a total boat of £30 including delivery. They were planted and after a few weeks I found that after one of the plants had flowered that it was not what I had ordered. These plants were brought to add to an existing colour scheme in my garden so I contacted Coblands who informed that this particular plant was no longer in Devi and a refund would be processed. As I now was short of this one plant I check an alternative supplier but they confirmed that delivery for this one plan would be £8

I reconteacted Coblands to requested if they would pay the delivery charge for this one plant from the other supplier as it was their error that was forcing me to pay an additional delivery charge. After 2 email sent they responsed with a no

I know it is an unusual request to make for them to pay another supplier to delivery this one plant to me.

But when your garden planting scheme has an exact colouring set up, then I thought it's was a reasonable request

I placed on order with coblands after they were recommended to me by my neighbour. They arrived the following week and were well packed and are now flourishing in my garden! Will use again soon - especially with their offers and free delivery

First time I ordered from Coblands I was happy with plants and delivery....but then I didn't have a problem. Second order plants were ok but were mislabelled and some were missing - on back order. Shortly afterwards I ordered a third time. Plants were ok but none of them were labelled. A bit tricky in identifying similar looking plants when not in flower and apart from counting, wasn't sure if missing plants were included. That's when I realised that if you have a problem with an order it is never going to be resolved by Coblands. The reason....because no matter how many times you phone, leave messages, email - no-one will get in touch. So as my plants are now growing, I realise I have been sent the wrong plants and some plants ordered are still missing. More phoning and emailing - which is a waste of time but I feel the necessity to keep trying. How do they win awards? Confused about that - obviously the award team do not read the negative reviews.....there aren't any on the website, only glowing reports from delighted customers. Well wiser by the experience and there are plenty more websites without having to bother with any of the other big name ones. Anyone used PlantMeNow - excellent plants and customer service. Thanks for reading

I'm miffed that I am not able to leave a zero star review as one star is more than they deserve. My partner ordered £50 worth of plants on April 16th 2014. Today is 31st July. He emailed them several times, asking when his plants would arrive. He received a reply stating that they had the plants but they weren't in good condition so they would send different ones. It has now been four months and despite emailing many times, here was no response. Asked for a refund via email no response. Today I phoned the company on his behalf. The customer service number was engaged the first three times I phoned. Then it just went straight through to answer phone. After leaving several angry messages, I looked up their main number for the actual garden centre. I phoned this number and the phone was actually answered. The woman on the end of the phone barely spoke English and asked for the order number and a mobile number to call back on. It's been three hours. I have a feeling they will never call back. They took the money, made a load of excuses and then refused to make any contact. We may as well have thrown the money into the bin. Or flushed it down the toilet. Actually, thinking about it, I think we would've got more plants growing in the garden if we just planted the money in a pot and waited. Disgraceful.

We have even tried contacting Coblands over twitter, posting about their horrendous service to their customers and anyone who reads it, but still no response. It's like they really don't care at all.

Looking at previous reviews, it doesn't seem surprising. So my advice is avoid gem like the plague, go to a local garden centre and buy your plants there. They will cost less and you will actually get them

You can wait a month to get your plants happens to me everytime. Will never use again

Placed two orders with Coblands.

Actual delivery was a week after their promised delivery date.

One shrub was missing form the delivery. Contacted them 3 times now with no response about missing plant.

That actual plants that arrived were in good condition. But they need to sort their customer service out as I won't be using them again and it looks like this is a common problem.

I ordered my plants on May 21st. Have emailed twice, received no reply and no plants either. I could not recommend this company as I have no idea whether the plants will ever appear.

I ordered my plant 12 days ago on 29th May. The plant has still not arrived as of 11 June. Considering the Garden Centre is in Kent & I live only 2 counties over in West Sussex, I find this amount of time to deliver astonishing!

I contacted an advisor who told me (by email) that my plant should arrive Friday gone, it didn't. They seem to think that good customer service consists of making up any old story and tell it to the customer to pacify them.

I have requested a refund but as yet this seems to have fallen on death ears & no response has been forthcoming.

I would urge prospective customers NOT to use the online service until it is drastically improved or go elsewhere. As for Ms Masterman, I would suggest customer service is NOT her forty and a change of profession should be considered.

Do not be fooled by pleasant phone manner of the staff at Coblands. I was promised every day for 4 days that my order was being processed. I took a day off work to receive order and in the morning received a call from the Coblands supplier to arrange delivery the following week!! They must have known that nothing was being progressed their side but just wanted to keep me in the dark. If you do have to use them and want something confirmed, do not let them say they will call you back...they will not do this, they will just leave you guessing. Also, do not expect to get any reies via email either....perhaps they think that by not conveying bad news then customers will remain happy.

A real shame, clearly nice people but with absolutely no idea about what actually makes a good customer experience.

The supplier even told me that if they had received the call from Coblands when they said they would then alll would have been fine and i would have received the order on time.

Coblands online garden centre are not recommended by this reviewer.

First off, I ordered over £90 worth of plants via the internet and used a discount code supplied by Coblands. I put the order in and the discount didn't work. I made contact and very promptly had the discount refunded to me. I checked their delivery timeframe which was 10 days (which seemed long to me compared to say a competitor like Crocus. Three days before the end of the 10 day period I received an email confirming that my order was being processed and informing me that delivery would be a further 10 days. I emailed and was assured that the email had been sent in error and that I would receive the goods on the 10th day. I waited in until 4pm in the afternoon and phoned Coblands and was told that the order had not yet been dealt with because they had experienced an unprecedented demand for online orders and had difficulty fulfilling them manually. I explained that I was going on holiday the following day. I cancelled my order.

1 It seems that customers are to blame for poor service as there were just too many of them!

2 I wonder whether they had considered taking on some temporary casual labour to help keep their delivery promise. Its not skilled work and there are plenty of people who could havve used te experience.

3 They have a lot t learn about good customer communication and keeping their own people in the loop.

No I can't recommend them, especially when I am getting such good service from their online competitors.