Mamas & Papas Murano cot bed - £30 for four wee replacement screws!

ginger_jesus · 15 February 2013 at 8:53PM

Got a couple of nice voicemails from Fiona at M&Ps today. Missed the calls because I was working. Will arrange a call with her for Monday and update this then.

ginger_jesus · 16 February 2013 at 8:57PM

Further update - delivered the cot to my friend's place this afternoon. He took one look at the screws and said "Oh, they're called grub screws. You should be able to find replacements for them." As I said, I'm not particularly technical and had never heard of grub screws, but true enough, they're out there and cheap too. So the question now becomes why was I advised by M&P's CSA that these were bespoke parts that would be hard to replace elsewhere? It's either one of two things I reckon. It could be a lack of training and the CSA is as clueless as I am about the types and names of screws and fittings and their systems are not set out to help them because it's not occurred to M&Ps that this might be a good thing to do. Alternatively, it could be that M&Ps have made a conscious decision to ask their CSAs to push their parts packs because they make a bit of money out of it. Either way I think they need to do something about it.

fluffnutter · 16 February 2013 at 9:37PM

ginger_jesus wrote: »

So the question now becomes why was I advised by M&P's CSA that these were bespoke parts that would be hard to replace elsewhere?

Because they wanted to charge you £30. Lesson learnt. You'll know next time. It happens to the best of us but perhaps it's time to move on now.

ukjoel · 16 February 2013 at 10:57PM

pick them up for a couple of quid on ebay....

We have had cots, cot, beds, changing tables etc that were all ex mamas and papas from ebay and all the bits are standard parts.

Your paying £30 for their customer service team more than the screws.

Funnily enough I had the exact opposite experience last week when I needed some replacement balls for my hungry hippos game. On ebay they were selling for about £8, but if you phoned the maker they would send a set out for £2 postage cost......

Thats customer service for you.

ginger_jesus · 18 February 2013 at 11:00AM

Disappointing result on the phone call this morning. Perhaps I was a little naive to think that they would see things my way at the first attempt. Awaiting a written response from M&Ps now, but the thrust of the conversation was that they did not believe that it was reasonable to hold spares beyond two years despite my assertion that by design these units have a longer lifespan and that they wouldn't be able to implement standard components in their global supply chain. They did say that they were discussing the feedback although given that response I don't think it will be particularly high on their to-do list. Still have a few tricks up my sleeve, though, so onwards and upwards!

somethingcorporate · 18 February 2013 at 11:09AM

Whilst normally I do not think too highly of pointless crusades it's actually ones like these that are more about the customer service element and how a company can gain real insight and feedback from the customer to improve themselves as a company.

I think you should keep pushing.

ginger_jesus · 18 February 2013 at 10:36PM

Email from Mamas and Papas in full below.

Dear xxxx
Further to your telephone conversation today with Fxxx, I am sorry that you remain unhappy with our response to your enquiry. I understand that you purchased your Murano cot bed from us a few years ago. This has been used as a cot and later converted to a junior bed and was used fault free since purchase. I am aware that more recently, you have opted to gift the cot bed to a friend and discovered 4 screws to be missing that were originally used in the assembly of the cot. We are genuinely sorry that this is the case and being that the Murano range is now discontinued, we are unable to supply you with replacement fittings. We do not recommend that you use replacement parts that are not recommended or supplied by us as non-approved parts may render the cot bed as unsafe. We realise that this may be frustrating and disappointing in circumstances such as yours, where parts have been misplaced.
I am sure you can appreciate that the safety of all our products is of the utmost concern to us. All our products are stringently tested for safety, durability and for compliance to the current safety regulations. With safety being our priority, we also want to provide our customers with the most innovative designs and offer and extended choice of many different styles and colours, that we believe would compliment our customers nurseries. To enable us to provide this variety, the supply chain we have is worldwide and therefore prevents us from being able to provide universal fittings for our cot beds and furniture ranges.
When originally purchasing your cot bed, we offered a 12 months manufacturing guarantee. It is reasonable to expect that in the unlikely event a fault in manufacture was to occur, this prevail within this time frame. However, as a further commitment, we will hold spare parts for up to 2 years after a product becomes discontinued.
All components and fittings are listed in the instruction manual and specific reference is made to ensure all parts are identified prior to assembly and if there is any discrepancy, we ask that we are contacted to ensure we can remedy this. Thereafter, responsibility to secure all components and fittings must lie with the consumer.
As a direct result of your feedback and further research carried out by us, the pricing of our spare parts is currently under review and we hope to improve this within the foreseeable future.
I can confirm that we are seriously considering your suggestion to offer a more streamlined spares system. We genuinely take on board all our customers feedback and will implement changes where necessary. It is with regret that we cannot offer specific feedback as to what our future collections may include, but can give you our assurance that as a business, we have taken on board all the comments you have made and will continue to investigate these internally.
Once again, we are genuinely sorry that we have been unable to provide the spare parts you required on this occasion and again thank you for your detailed feedback, this will most definitely help us to continue to review this situation and meet with our customers expectations.
Best Regards
Vxxx
Customer Care Manager

I only wonder if there is something I can take from their comment about the pricing of spare parts. I like to see the best in people where I can, and maybe they are listening. Since I started pursuing this, I've been made aware of several others who have had similar experiences either through friends anecdotes on here or on Facebook. As such, I would urge those that are following this that know a similar story to get in touch as it will all help demonstrate the need for change. Anyhoo, I'm now considering my response.

ginger_jesus · 1 March 2013 at 4:23PM

Hi all, thought I'd give you an update on this. Last night I followed up with customer services to see whether anything had been done, and at the same time I emailed the owners and the senior management team with some suggestions to improve their service. As of 3pm today there has not been a response.

That said, my blog is getting lots of hits from all over the world now. If you're interested in the detail, it's all on mamasandpapasspares.blogspot.com

lucy03 · 1 March 2013 at 6:00PM

Just as my view, from a safety point of view I'm not surprised by what M&P are saying. They seem to me to just want to want to control the process and ensure they are not accused of offering the wrong parts for older pieces of equipment.

If they sold 1,000 packs of screws for 30 pounds profit to make 30,000 pounds a year, that's not going to cover much more than one member of staff (and an assistant to cover holidays and illness), phone calls, packaging, office costs, product costs, etc. So they'd likely have to sell tens of thousands of replacement parts to make this a useful profit line, and I'm not sure how likely that is. If they felt this was a profitable enterprise they'd have likely established a much larger supply stream to supply these items.

I suspect the reality is that they know many buyers will just fix the items themselves after the two years following product discontinuation. However, from a legal point of view, they're on much safer ground not operating a phone line trying to give DIY or parts advice when those parts are sourced from a third party.

There must also come a practical point of view of just how many replacement parts they can hold, if they felt their items lasted six years for example, that's a potentially huge amount of replacement parts for every product they make and every product they've discontinued in the last six years.

ginger_jesus · 1 March 2013 at 8:28PM

Hi Lucy, interesting take on the issue. I'd argue that the cost of providing the after care service is wrapped up in the margin when you buy the product in the first place. Even at the cheaper end you're paying £300 - £400 for a cot. There's a good amount of profit in that. The cost of handling my original call was probably in the region of £3 (assuming contact centre costs of £10 per hour which is not far off the going rate for that service these days). The cost of the parts is only a tiny fraction of that.

But the whole issue of complex stock holding and high inventories goes away when you introduce the idea that you design with standard components so that all furniture can be assembled using the same things. So if someone needs a double ended widget for a high chair, it's the same double ended widget that's used on the chest of drawers, wardrobe and cot bed.

I don't buy the legal argument either. They supply replacement components when they're reported as missing from newly opened packs. There's no difference in their duty of care during that process.

And finally, they're still prepared to sell you a pack of bits that might not be fit for purpose. I'd suggest that would put them on shaky legal ground under the DIY scenario you suggest.

Mamas & Papas Murano cot bed - £30 for four wee replacement screws!

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