Thomas Sanderson

Pound

I ordered a catalogue from TS with £10 Quidco. Soon after I got a phone call (obviously) asking if I'd like to buy a conservatory. I said I was busy and added their number to my contacts and gave them a silent ringtone. After then I was probably getting about 3 missed calls from their number a day, for 3 months after which it stopped completely. So that's nearly 300 missed calls I got from them!

Joeboy22

Hi everyone !!

I've joined the site just now to add this post.

My brother in law had Thomas Sanderson shutters fitted in his new house in October and when we went to visit him over xmas we liked them so much he recommended us for a quote. Half an hour before the salesperson was due i started doing some digging. See this thread and started reading..OMG why am i bothering i thought ? I was expecting a young guy in a cheap suit giving it large and telling me he has to ring his manager to get it cheaper etc etc..(just like the double glazing firms).Anyway to cut a long story short the bloke turns up very nice bloke about 55 very nice,very polite no pressure,gave us a quote and left. The price never changed and got suddenly cheaper to get the sale,none of that. He was here 90 minutes and left. He told us how to get it 10% cheaper by taking finance and paying it off early which would of saved us a packet. This was about a month ago and i've had one call since from his manager just to say that the January deal was to finish and if i wanted it at the price quoted i would have to act asap.
And...No i do not work for them !! Honest !! I work for BT Openreach so slag me off about that if you like !!
If you are getting a quote ask them to quote you for UPVC as they look exactly the same and are 35% cheaper than wood. We were going to have UPVC in the bedrooms and wood downstairs to save but the quote was about £2200 and we decided it was too dear in the end.
My brother in law paid £3000 for 3 large shutter for windows for his house. Might get Hilarys in as my dads friends daughter had them and was impressed although apparently they screw into your windows to fix them on a bay window which i don't like the sound of. I did ask the saleperson if Thomas Sanderson did this and he said i'd have to order and sort it out with the fitter when they come to measure up properly which i thought was stupid having to place an order before i found out.

Hope this helps

Joe

Quest73

Hi - I entered a competition to win £2500 worth of blinds and have just been told that I "won" a runner up prize of a £250 voucher for blinds from Thomas Sanderson, which they insist has to be presented to me at a free no obligation designer visit. Rather surprised I agreed to the appointment but having read this thread I am a bit nervous. What do people think? Is this another sales trick?

Thanks

Leory

I think its fair to say it is a trick.

The price will have been inflated and returned to a lower (still high) price when the £250 is taken off. They will then in all likelyhood offer you mroe money off if you sign up at that point

hollydays

Quest73 wrote: »

Hi - I entered a competition to win £2500 worth of blinds and have just been told that I "won" a runner up prize of a £250 voucher for blinds from Thomas Sanderson, which they insist has to be presented to me at a free no obligation designer visit. Rather surprised I agreed to the appointment but having read this thread I am a bit nervous. What do people think? Is this another sales trick?

Thanks

Thinly veiled sales trick.Ask them what conditions are attached,to the voucher.

oldoakey

There are always alternatives to the national companies that advertise for your business and I would expect the vast majority are much better in terms of the quality, choice and service. These shops are usually run by experienced owners/retailers who will have your best interests at heart as they rely on word of mouth not some mega discount that means not a jot.

If you have paid 3 or 4 times the price for a comparable quality blinds then it is very easy to guarantee to buy them back after 10 years when you place another order (and what exactly do they buy back?) what are the terms.

Sales

The voucher is unfortunately another con-trick to lull you in to the sale and to give you extra pressure. Each salesperson is sent an envelope full of vouchers during eac promotion so that s/he can pull one out "just for you" if they suspect you are not going to buy on the first appointment without it. If the salesperson knows you have the voucher, they will simply add the value of the voucher on while they are calculating the cost of the blinds. All of this is marketing, it is the same as DFS and the same as every other sales scenario, so we need to be careful not to single Thomas Sanderson out for the use of these tactics. If you are determined to use Thomas Sanderson for your blinds, I can give you a few tricks how to get the best price. Insist that they show you how they have calculated price - they all HAVE to take a price list with them to ensure it is legal. If they have offered you 3for2 or 40% off, then add the blinds up for yourself and deduct the discount that YOU have been offered when making your appointment - do not accept that the fabrics with the discounts have all sold out - they update the list every day so that there is always a fabric at the advertised price. Once you get to the discounted price, the salesperson can then take a further 50% off. At this point, the saleperson will not be making any commission at all and they work on 100% commission. The only commission they can now make is if they can sell you a finance package with massive interest. If you take all the discounts and refuse the finance, they can still make a bonus based on the value of their whole month's sales and so will probably still take your order, but don't expect them to wait for your order at this point. The only thing that matters to the company and to the salesperson is the money on the first visit. As soon as you say you are going to think about it, they will want to clear out of your house as soon as they can or change your mind. If you don't order on their first appointment, you don't exist to them. Everything else is a pantomime. They will go through the whole "I need to ring my Manager" routine, but this is all part of the act and is not real. Following the call, they will just about be able to give you the discount but ONLY if you order right now. The better trained ones even decline the discount and arrange for a fake return call to pretend that an unexpected twist of fate means that you can now have the discount. This will happen after 15 minutes and so the salesperson will have to take their time packing up just to wait for the 15 minutes to tick away. It is all a pantomime and only a matter of time until they are caught out by someone with a hidden camera. We were trained even to pretend there was someone else on the end of the phone if our Managers were unable to take the call. They are a disgrace.

websubs

The Blinds market is mostly one large scam.
Sales are non existent

Discounts are full of terms and subject to etc.

Read the adverts very carefully:
50% off...............off what?
2 for 1............hmmmmmm how much is the 1st one?
Key words to look for:
"from"
"upto"
"selected fabrics"
"certain sizes"
"on selected"
"buy one get one free"
These are all terms that will catch you out.
The adverts look good, they are meant to be! "free fitting" "free measuring" etc..........nothing is free it is all built into the price.
Uks Number One company uses agents (as do most of the big companies) they earn commission and will try to up sell to take more money and earn more commission. These agents come and go.......your backup service will be very poor.
Quality of product is a major consideration.
We all look at the fabrics, but what about the head rail?
The vertical blind market is full of cheap far east products, ranging from fabrics that feel like cardboard to totally cheap crap head rails.
Why? Because it make the companies money!
You should always ask these simples questions:
How much guarantee to you get and what does it cover?
Where do the fabrics come from?
Ask to see the head rail?
Where does the head rail come from?
Are your fitters qualified?
Are your fitters insured?
Ask for referrals?
How long has the company been trading?

Fridaycat

I agree that some of the sales tactics seem a little dodgy, but I would like to say that we had TS blinds fitted for our conservatory about 8 years ago. I have nothing but praise for the quality of the product - they fit in to each frame individually and have sun screening backing so they help to reduce the glare/heat into our south-facing conservatory. They look as pristine today as the day they were installed, though I have done nothing in particular to look after them . So, I think it is a shame that what is an excellent product is spoiled somewhat by some dodgy sales people :eek:

yipee

Sales wrote: »

The MD is called Nigel Campkin. He is kept in the dark over the techniques used to secure your order by the salespeople. He would be totally gutted if he knew what was actually going on in people's homes. It's a bit like the big banks, the guys at the top earning the big bucks haven't got a clue what goes on at street level. You are more likely to be passed on to their completely ineffective customer service team who will in turn pass you to the local manager, for whom you will be just a tiresome irritation.

Any chance you have contact details for Nigel Campkin I would love to go through my saga with him. Anyone else out there got an awning that is unusable for 50% of the time while it's waiting to be fixed? I don't know where else to turn. In less than 3 years we have had at least 3 new covers (the last one took 7 months to arrive deeming the canopy unusable), the whole canopy distorted and we were unable to use it, the whole motor system has been replaced, the canopy has a mind of it's own in the middle of the night and the arms have been reset countless times, that's just a snippet. Surely this is not fit for purpose??