Better Bathrooms.com complaint

Copy of email sent to Mr Colin Stevens, Managing Director (colin@betterbathrooms.com)
You say….

Better Bathrooms Our Goal…
… to supply quality bathrooms & tiles at highly discounted prices, offering value for money, along with a great customer experience.
Well it’s certainly been an experience Colin, but great? I am afraid not!



Timeline of Events.
Reference O/N 11078802 dated 26/5/16
Mid May.
Visited your impressive Slough store, found some tiles we liked and went away to measure up and discuss. Was disappointed when salesman told me I could not buy samples to check colour etc. -- Later I discovered your website/catalogue does offer this service. Why did your salesman not tell me?


Thursday 26th May
Received a local paper with large advert for Better Bathrooms, noted late opening times and offer of discount with voucher in the paper, and so visited your Slough Store in the evening. I was hoping for a delivery on Friday or Saturday so I rechecked colour match, quantities etc, and spoke to a salesman about placing an order.
The salesman seemed unsure of when delivery would be available and disappointingly told us the 15% discount advertised in our local paper had “already been applied” to the prices. (Why then did the advert ask us the bring the voucher from the paper if everyone gets the same price?) We spoke at length about delivery and I was surprised I would also have to pay an extra £35 for delivery. The salesman offered me Click and Collect, but this was apparently only available if I collected from Didcot a town in a different county and some two hours round trip from my home, hardly convenient at all. I was surprised that the delivery from your warehouse could not be sent to the Slough store as Click and Collect was advertised so heavily in my local newspaper. In the end I reluctantly agreed to pay the delivery charge and was told I would be called within 48 hours to arrange a time slot for delivery.

Saturday May 29th
I called your helpline number as I had not received a call about delivery slots. I waited a very considerable amount of time for anyone to answer the phone – this is VERY poor customer service! A young lady told me that the 48 hours was in fact 48 WORKING hours (so could be six days?) and that it didn’t even begin until the Courier had received the order for delivery! She went on to tell me that delivery would be impossible before Wednesday anyway as the tiles were located in different locations so would need to be shipped by a different method where no delivery time slot would be available. I was disappointed that delivery even on Tuesday was now impossible despite your Help desk operative offering me a Free Upgrade to “NEXT DAY DELIVERY”, which still apparently meant Wednesday. On my calendar the next (normal working) day after Saturday would have been Tuesday because of the Bank holiday. This meant I had to take a full day off work (unpaid) in order to wait for this delivery on Wednesday

Tuesday May 31st
I received email/text messages confirming my order had been “released”, and then another notifying me that the items were being picked and then that the order had been dispatched on a “next day service”, and another email with an invoice.

Wednesday June 1st
I waited until around 2pm and called the delivery company on the number your helpdesk had given me. They too fail to answer their phone in a timely manner. I had to wait over 15 minutes! I was transferred to another number and finaly was told the delivery was second drop on the PM delivery route and I could expect it sometime between 3 and 5 pm.
At 4.45 I called again. This time it took more than 20 minutes for anyone to answer the phone. I was eventually told that as the order had not arrived from you (Better Bathrooms). It was not actually loaded on the vehicle and would not in fact be delivered.
I called your helpline number again. This time I waited 27 minutes before Michael answered my call. I explained the situation and he put me on hold for several more minutes before confirming that the delivery was not actually coming. He was quick to tell me that it would be delivered on Thursday. I explained that I work for a living and get paid only for the hours I am working, I told him I had already lost a lot of money taking a full day off work. I suggested he may want to offer me some form of compensation or at the very least refund my delivery payment. He declined to do either; he seemed to believe that Better Bathrooms were within their rights to deliver when it suited them, despite having made firm arrangements to deliver on a specific day. I pushed Michael for a refund as I believe that I was not getting what I paid for. He referred to his manager and came back talking about company policy not to make refunds for this situation. So I received no offer of help or goodwill from your company at all and would now have to take further time off work to await your delivery.
Michael finally offered to upgrade my delivery to an AM or PM time. I called back later to confirm I would prefer an AM slot after reviewing my work commitments and Michael confirmed delivery would be between 8 and 12.
I was disgusted by the lack of consideration and understanding from your company, and asked Michael for an email address to which I could address my complaint.

Thursday June 2nd.
It’s now SEVEN DAYS since I placed the order. A little before 11am I called your chosen delivery company, who once again took a long time to answer their phone. They could find no record of the order number, and put me through to another number where the gentleman I spoke to was heard leafing through documents for some time and, despite being very polite and as helpful as possible, was unable to find any paperwork or computer record of the order. He suggested I called a number in Andover. This was also incorrect and the person there gave me yet another number….
With the time approaching 11.30 I finally spoke to someone on this new number, and they were able finally to give me an update on the order status, “it should be with you by 1.00”. (So much for Michael’s promise of delivery before Noon.) This means I lose another full day from work, and another full day’s income.
As the delivery had not arrived by 1.00, no real surprise to be honest – I have lost all faith, I called the carrier again. They told me the delivery was not marked for AM delivery, and would not in fact be delivered until “sometime” before 4.00.
The situation goes from bad to worse, so it seems the order was not upgraded to AM as promised -another failure of your so called “great customer experience”. In fact the order was delivered before 2.00 so that at least was better than I was led to believe.

For Comparison. Please take note!
I ordered two items from Tesco Direct around the same time as I placed my order with your company. The order failed to arrive the next day as arranged (they delivered to a wrong address). I called the customer service number, got through straight away, they apologised for letting me down, arranged for the items to be delivered to my local store the next day (so I could collect at a time that suited me!) and refunded my delivery charge in full, and additionally gave me a further refund amounting to 40% off the price I paid. They emailed me apologising in writing and confirming what they had done to put things right.
That’s customer service, they WILL get my repeat business, Better Bathrooms will NOT.

For information…
I will be posting this catalogue of disasters from your so called “award winning company” on social media and every review website I can find. Your flashy showrooms and website belie your ill trained staff, appalling service and misleading advertising. I wish I had looked at your many poor reviews instead of taking your flashy store at face value.

I bought about 2k of bathroom from these guys as I have used them successfully before on at least 3 occasions . This has blown up in my face as our order ( three weeks ago ) turned up today ( 10 days early ) and was dumped outside my neighbours house ! The driver got my 16 year old daughter to sign for it then left . ( fairly sure my daughter wouldn't be sure of what she was checking but she may be doing plumbing at school ? ) on phoning the "customer helpline" we were told its company policy that we have to accept delivery and pay for returns ! It took 30 mins to get them to agree to pick it up , only one problem , I've got no room at the moment and they can't return until Monday .really disappointed with their attitude . Really can't see me buying anything else from them . Gotta go , the local school is about to kick out and the little darlings will be rowing my bath down the high street .

Hi all, I'm new here and unfortunately just discovered this thread.

I've two issues with Better Bathrooms, firstly I bought a shower enclosure that doesn't fit my tray. The sales assistant assured me the product would fit standard 900mm tray so plumber supplied and fitted one but couldn't get the enclosure to fit due to lack of adjustment in the product.

BB asked me to supply photos, which I did, then they asked me to return it so their Technical Department could test to see if it fits a standard 900 tray. I took it back to the store and left it there, the manager said I need to 'returns' paperwork so I asked Customer Service to provide the store with the required paperwork. They now say they want £39.95 to send the enclosure from their store to their warehouse which I feel is unfair.

I feel the product is not fit for purpose, don't wish to pay for their internal transportation and I expect they'll say their Technical Department says it's fine and will not issue a refund. Is there anything I can do?

Issue two:
Basin unit has a damaged shelf, the white laminate has lifted from the shelf timber. I spotted this after the plumber fitted the item. It was fitted 10 days after delivery. BB say any damage needs to be reported within 7 days to obtain a refund. I quote my statutory rights, they reply with the same 7 days quote and ask for me to return the item in order for me to get a possible refund. The basin unit is plumbed and sealed in so would require a plumber to remove it and I expect they'll try to wriggle out of a refund even if I do send it back (which is not worth the bother and expense of calling a plumber out to remove and refit). Are they obliged to refund this item?