Hillarys Blinds Rubbish Customer Service

smileypigface

Had chap from Hillary's Blinds round on 7 Dec - went firm on order on 9 Dec - for 5 x venetion blinds to be fitted before Christmas.

Phoned me on fitting day (22nd Dec) to say blinds not delivered to him that morning he would have to phone the factory to see what's going on. But he didn't expect he would get them before Christmas now and also the factory has Christmas shutdown.

Fair enough I suppose.

Heard no more from him - telephoned him twice in New Year - both times to be told he didn't know the status of my order and would have to phone the factory - neither time did he bother to get back to me.

E-mailed Hillarys to say I think it's unacceptable that he hasn't initiated any contact with me and I've been left to chase him. Said I have lost confidence in this person and would like to deal with another local representative - and if they weren't able to confirm a fitting date for the blinds then I think it is reasonable to return my deposit.

Got an e-mail response to say blinds will definitely be delivered to representative today and he will be in touch to arrange fitting once the delivery has arrived.

1730 tonight - still not heard anything - phoned their customer services - managed to have the whole conversation without so much as an apology being offered. Said I can swap to another representative in my area but the blinds would have to be returned to Hillarys so they can send them out to the new person (?) so there would be a further 2 week delay while this happens. They then phoned the representative who told them he could fit them tomorrow morning at 11.30. The customer services lady did point out that their representatives work until 2100 so he might have still been going to ring me this evening - call me old fashioned but I do not choose to make myself available for this type of call during my 'family time' in the evenings.

So, rather than cut off my nose to spite my face I now have this person coming round tomorrow morning to fit my blinds! Which now I am dreading.

I am so cross that I had to chase this up, repeatedly, and there has been no word of an apology :mad:

...and relax!

nomoneytoday

They were fine for us. Turned up on time, fitted blinds and replaced a widget free of charge 18 months later
(no connection etc)

System

i used them and they were great. No problems and 18 months later I am still very happy with the result.

allypally1947_2

BBC Watchdog have just run a story on them

Copy this into Google and you will see what they are really like..

"Hillarys - do they measure up?"

They are a franchaise who run 50% sales which "strangley" seem to run all year long... hmmm Anyone know the definitaion of the word "discount" Lol

kellymet

Well this company is the pits.! i called asked for a price for shutters and roller blind, two guys came tgthr to measure 1 window and tried to charge 620 for one set of shutters. i chose a blackout simple cream roller blind instead, paid 95.00 deposit then heard nothing for a month i contacted hillarys who said they said it needed measured again as the person they sent was a specialist... a specialist i ask myself , who cant measure a simple plain recatangle window for a roller bliind.. soo i ask myself if his measurements are not correct and trusted then how do i know the deposit of 95.00 i paid was correct .! another two weeks later another guy came and measured the same window complaining this wasnt his job he wouldnt be getting the ciomission the 1st guys would .!
he reminded me of this 6 times in total, the 1st guys measurements were wrong, naturally.. but guess what so was the cost ...infact the 2nd guy advises they dont even have a pricing structure for the blind to be £190.00 in total most i should have paid would be £148 basically id been had... but nothing he could do as their all self employed and for the 7th time he wasnt getting the commission. 2 weeks later again he returns with the blind broken and dirty and couldnt fit it.. he left it behind on the floor and left and said hed be back the next day... i refused him entry due to the principal of it all

I am minus £95 deposit and have a broken blind on the babys room floor who is due soon may i add and have nothing up at the window.. hillarys are ignoring me, refusing to reply to mail and the guy who conned me in the 1st place refuses to take my calls.. Are Hillarys in the habit of conning pregnant women all the time maybe ill speak to watchdog and see.. but guys they are cowboys try a local firm with a more personal servie as this set up is an absolute joke, i wouldnt have paid £20.00 for this roller blind was utter cheap tat you can buy better in b&q for a fraction of the cost and a better service, so all in all 3 men to measure and fit a simple roller blind that they still have not done between them, i feel a joke coming on...

allypally1947_2

kellymet wrote: »

Well this company is the pits.! i called asked for a price for shutters and roller blind, two guys came tgthr to measure 1 window and tried to charge 620 for one set of shutters. i chose a blackout simple cream roller blind instead, paid 95.00 deposit then heard nothing for a month i contacted hillarys who said they said it needed measured again as the person they sent was a specialist... a specialist i ask myself , who cant measure a simple plain recatangle window for a roller bliind.. soo i ask myself if his measurements are not correct and trusted then how do i know the deposit of 95.00 i paid was correct .! another two weeks later another guy came and measured the same window complaining this wasnt his job he wouldnt be getting the ciomission the 1st guys would .!
he reminded me of this 6 times in total, the 1st guys measurementas were wrong, naturally.. but guess what so was the cost ...infact the 2nd guy advises they dont even have a pricing structure for the blind to be £190.00 in total most i should have paid would be £148 basically id been had... but nothing he could do as their all self employed and for the 7th time he wasnt getting the commission. 2 weeks later again he returns with the blind broken and dirty and couldnt fit it.. he left it behind on the floor and left and said hed be back the next day... i refused him entry due to the principal of it all

I am minus £95 deposit and have a broken blind on the babys room floor who is due soon may i add and have nothing up at the window.. hillarys are ignoring me, refusing to reply to mail and the guy who conned me in the 1st place refuses to take my calls.. Are Hillarys in the habit of conning pregnant women all the time maybe ill speak to watchdog and see.. but guys they are cowboys try a local firm with a more personal servie as this set up is an absolute joke, i wouldnt have paid £20.00 for this roller blind was utter cheap tat you can buy better in b&q for a fraction of the cost and a better service

The BBC watchdog program summed it all up nicely, be very careful of Hillarys. Their reps are franchised and their fitters are all on comissions, try and find a company that has it's own fitters and sales people. Also you will find the prices are lower, remember some companies run "fake" sales all year round which lead customers into thinking they are saving 50%. Such companies are simply ripp off merchants.

Almost certainly the reason they needed to measure again was because their last "highly trained" [ snigger ] rep probably left them...

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience, it's little consilation but the message about Hillarys is starting to get around. Especially after the BBC revealed what they get up to.

mllgnc

We had an absolute nightmare with Hillarys around 5 years ago.

We had just moved into our house and booked one of their fitters to come out and measure up for blinds. Out he came, measured up, gave us a quote and left with £150 deposit.

That was the last we saw of him !

His number was unavailable etc, contacted Hillarys to be told that he was nothing to do with them !! I pointed out that he was booked through their company, the measurements were on a Hillays form and the deposit reciept was on Hillarys headed paper.

Nope still nothing to do with them :mad:

This went on for weeks, and was only resolved when I sent them a letter stating that if I did not recieve a refund within 7 days I would proceed with legal action. I would NEVER use them again and would certainly not reccomend them.

After all that we had a local guy come in, and had all all the windows fitted with blinds in a week for a fraction of the cost we had been quoted from Hillarys.

tiamaria

We haven't had huge problems like the other posters but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

We ordered some blinds in November on the proviso they were to be fitted before Xmas, as the weeks went by we finally hold of the rep to find he was too busy and had no intention of coming before Xmas, OH had some harsh words with him and we did get the blinds fitted in time,(shouldn't have to chase them up though)!

Recently one of the little chain clips on the bottom of a blind has broken, I know it's only a small thing but it looks tacky and as there is a year guarantee I would like a replacement, if they just popped it in the post I'd be happy but the rep is rude and abrupt and won't phone us back and the company won't answer emails either!

I want some more blinds but they've missed out as I don't trust their aftercare if anything more serious went wrong:(

toxicpixie

I had a wonderful gentleman measure and fit blinds, 3 Venetian and 1 roller in brighton. He was from briars or was mr briars. He is/ was a very good agent for hillarys. I recommended them to a friend in hove, they unfortunately got a different agent and they were rubbish, so disappointing. I moved house to Kent and ordered a small roller for the bathroom and the agent mr may didn't feel it worth his while, crass, rude, phoned but didn't turn up on the date agreed and wife also snotty with me, boyfriend had taken day off work and they didn't let the phone ring long enough, he was upstairs so they lied and said we weren't in. Phoned hillarys, complained, new agent Next time I placed an order and he was brilliant. Put a blind Bathroom up ourselves! New agent mr fiest fitted blinds at my workplace apparently in Hastings. I kept his name he fitted my kitchen roller and he returned to fit my spare room roman blind. The agents are a bit luck of the drawer really but once you get a good one, remember them ask for them and hillarys will accommodate you. Mr may obviously thought I had not spent enough mOney! I have now used hillarys successfully three times, hundreds spent sorry my little blind request wasn't good enough for you!

John_Haywood

I've used Hillarys online service which I think is called web blinds and thought the service was OK. My most recent purchase though was for some roller blinds for my kitchen and some blackout blinds for my son's bedroom - got them from CharlesAstor .com
Would recommend the latter as prices and service were good.

lisawood78

Amy, you are not allowed to post here on behalf of a company unless you have permission from MSE, which it appears you do not have.