Hillarys Blinds Rubbish Customer Service

stables

We ordered a set of blinds from a reputable, nationwide company with years of experience...Hillarys Blinds. BIG MISTAKE! The product was not bespoke and was ill fitting. Fast forward several months, the issue remains outstanding because this company refuses to respond to any problems, concerns or anything that doesn’t involve money.

Calling customer services is a waste of time. Their staff are rude and unhelpful. Writing is pointless because they don’t respond to letters. E-mails do prompt random incoherent responses that overlook the problem and focus on payment demands (and threats of legal action).

Apparently, they don't make mistakes...ever! Oh, and customers can't speak or write to anyone senior because they’re too busy!

This company is nothing short of dreadful. If only we’d seen the Watchdog programme before placing the order and departing with our hefty deposit Regrets, we have one, an everlasting one...STEER WELL CLEAR!!!!!

adz201

We bought some conservatory blinds one year ago and have been highly satisfied. The fitting was excellent and they look really nice.
This year bought two roller blinds, one was slightly not hanging properly, phoned customer services, they sent the fitter round a few days later and was told if it still didn't hang properly in a few days he would send it back and replace it. Fortunately after a few days the blind straightened out. Was impressed with the efficient customer service i received. Highly recommended service.

:j

ts49

Hillary's Blind have started spamming me by email. I wrote and asked them to stop, and to tell me where they got my address from, but no reply. Judging from the comments on this thread I needn't expect action any time soon!

BaldacchinoR

I still receive spam from Hillary's. They must be the most expensive blind company going.

We had a quote from them for vertical blinds for about £640!

The next quote was for about £400-odd from Millenium Blinds,

The 3rd quote was from Willow Blinds, here in Caerphilly and was £165!! Their service was excellent and so were their products.

I could not believe the variation in prices. Just proves the axim always get at least 3 quotes.

timor-j

I'm receiving spam email from Hillary's Blinds too.

Their marketing team obviously feel that it's OK to ignore UK legislation so I posted a message on their Twitter feed. Received reply saying "Please email nigel.morgan@hillarys.co.uk with the emails you've received and we'll look into this for you."

I've sent Nigel Morgan two emails in the last couple of weeks asking where my email address was obtained and why the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 are being ignored by Hillary's Blinds. So far, no reply.

bluebones

There are too many companies like Hilary's around, they are morally wrong in the way they go about their business and should be tighter legislated.

I had a quote recently for Shutters from a Hilary's rep I believe wouldn't know where to start. I didn't progress as they were very expensive, i was then phoned 1 month later by another Hilary's employee to be told there was a sale on and they could give me a better price. I asked for a quote on the phone but no a specialist consultant had a call in. I insisted that he knew one end of a shutter from the other and that he had been with the company a long while.

He arrived last night with the opening gambit of 'so it's verticals is it'. I asked if he could sell shutters and he said no, i felt pity for him. He explained that Hilary's employ a company called RSVP to chase up old quotes and like most similar they are paid on appointments - they had passed non of my notes on.

I called customer services today to complain about the waste of time, the 1st lady i spoke too didn't really seem that bothered but put me through to the quote team to see what they can do. Eventually in recognition of the inconvenience caused they offered me a price 20% higher!

I'm sure there are good reps out there but the company business model doe snot encourage it.

ashleyrose-66

They are a disgrace!

We had a chap come to us to give us a quote on 23rd February!! We decided to go with it and paid £570 there and then as a deposit.

2 weeks later another chap came round and did all the measuring for our shutters and told us they would be ordered and fitted on 29th May (yesterday!)

My wife called him on 28th and left a message confirming the fitting would be going ahead as planned on the following day, and that as part of the agreement we signed with them that I would remove existing blinds, make good the frames and remove the window alarms so he could fit the blinds. He never returned her call.

On Tuesday evening, I got home from work, removed all existing blinds, filled the frames, painted them and a local company unscrewed the window alarms, with an appointment booked in to come back and re-fit them today!

At 11am yesterday (29th May, fitting day!) my wife called the fitter to enquire where he was and again he never answered so she left a message. He then text her back about 30 minutes later telling her he was not coming as the shutters hadn't arrived in the UK yet, and that someone from head office should have called us to let us know!

My wife called head office and they now can't book us in until the end of next week!

So I now have windows on a main road with no blinds (and I can't put them back up as I had to unscrew them from the frame, Polyfilla the holes and paint them!) and no window alarms. My household insurance is now invalid as I have have the alarms removed. The alarms which were due to be re-fitted today, but will have to wait until next week now!

On top of that, my wife is a self-employed childminder and she cancelled her work yesterday as it wouldn't have been safe to have the kids there when the workman was in the room, so we are also £80 out-of-pocket for a day of lost work. She will also have to take another day off when they eventually do fit the shutters next week!

And we still can't get a straight answer out of them about why we were not told there was a delay before now to prevent me doing all the above work!

I would avoid Hillary's Blinds at all costs!

Mrs_Ryan

Ah I see my ex employers are still up to their old tricks

gina2454

We had no problem with the salesman nor the time for delivery. It was the fitter. It took him just mins to fit them and he asked me what I thought. Yep, they were all wonky. He then spent another hour trying to straighten them. I was blamed because our house wasn't straight! He finally got them straight and he went away. Two hours later, the dropped and went wonky yet again. We managed to get him back that day and he was rude, but managed to straighten them. Three weeks later, the whole thing fell down! CRASH! We got him back again and he did it right this time. We have since bought two new roller blinds but from another company.

Johnnyboy665

I decided to use Hilary's for the first time to get a couple of perfect fit blinds for the bedroom. We chose them based upon reputation but I'm sad to say that reputation has no foundation.

We ordered two perfect fit blinds for £200, with £100 down.

The initial fitting found that the blinds did not fit (ironic seeing they are called perfect fit), they would not move up or down and their fore useless. The fitter reported what the problem was to their workshop.

The second visit found exactly the same problem, no quality control was used for the second time. The problem was agin reported, this time a note was specifically put on the order to assemble and test before sending them (funny their website says they do this anyway).

The third time they came there was no evidence of any checking and the same problem existed for the third time. Poor quality and careless.

I spoke directly to the account manager and voiced my displeasure, he offered 20% discount on the remaining money (£6.66 per failed visit). I rejected this.

He said he would come back the next day after with an alternative offer. The offer goes like this:

Keep the blinds and have £50 off the price, therefore £150 for blinds that don't fit

or

Take the blinds back and give our deposit back

They told me they would not make the blinds again. Thats my option, faulty blinds or nothing.

Naturally I chose nothing and my money back.

The wife phoned up next day to find out when we would get our money back. There was no record of a request to refund, perhaps we need to organise our own customer service too.

In short, we will never use Hillary's again, it's a company that uses TV ads to make they look big and professional, they fall short when you actually use them.