wren kitchen customer service

bigcookie

i have fitted two wren kitchens now. one in my own house and one in my sisters house. beware, the customer service is rubbish. i visited the local showroom to report the problems that have occured and was told they could not help me and that i should phone customer service instead.

i phoned customer services and reported two problems. the double oven they sold me (still under warranty) had started making a loud grinding noise and secondly the drawers on three of the units do not shut correctly due to what i think is a problem with the runners on the left hand side.

for the oven, they gave me the number for zanussi and told me to call them direct ( i was under the impression that the retailer should replace or arrange for the fixing of it)to zanussi's credit a zanussi engineer came the next day and fixed the oven so full credit to their customer service.

the representative from wren informed me that she would pass my problem to the local showroom (which i have already been to) and they would call me and arrange a date and time to come and look at the problem. that was 3 weeks ago and no contact has been made.

with my sisters kitchen the salesman sold her a door and a filla pillar which she did not need/doesn't fit anywhere at a price of about £120 which they refuse to take back.

has anyone else had similar problems to this?

CKdesigner

Hi Bigcookie

You are technically correct about the responsibility for the appliances is with the retailer but the manufacturer takes the responsibility for the warranty back, as you have experienced the manufacturer has the engineers and technical knowledge to get the appliance working again or replacing it. So Wren are generally right in referring you to the manufacturer, however it may have been better customer service to offer to call the manufacturer on your behalf.

You say that several of the drawers do not close properly, normally the Blum drawer runners Wren use as with most kitchen manufacturers are very tough and rarely give any trouble so it is suspicious that several are faulty in one kitchen. The most common reason for the drawers not to close properly is saw dust left in the runners by the fitters on installation. Try removing the drawers and vacuum out the runners properly, hopefully that will sort them out.

CK

bigcookie

i have looked at the runners as you suggested and there is no sawdust there. however the runners seem fine when the drawer is not in situ. the fault is on the top draw of 3 seperate 1000mm base units so i'm wondering if the draws were assembled out of square in the factory. the lower deeper drawers in each unit are fine so i'm sure the base units are not twisted either! my issue isnt with the fault, my issue is with the poor customer service that i have recieved. i was trying to find out if anyone else had recieved poor service before i call them on monday morning.

AmigaBloke

Our experience with Wren Kitchen's in Chester has been awful.

The kitchen was ordered in January. We ordered extra items two days afterwards and were assured these would be delivered with the original order.
When the order came the extra items were't there. A date for delivery was agreed and my Wife waited in all day. Nothing arrived. A call to Wren Kitchens found that none of the items had even been ordered. Wren always promised to call us back and only did once out of around 7 times! Eventually the items were delivered. On fitting the kitchen our fitter found there was nowhere near enough cornice for the wall cupboards. Also, there was no cutlery drawer as originally asked for but the corner unit just had a dummy drawer! A phone call to Wren confirmed the missing items would DEFINITELY be delivered today. We've waited in all day on a glorious hot sunny day and nothing has arrived. A call to Wren and surprise surprise, the girl who promised us delivery isn't in today and neither is the manager who also promised the items would be here today. The guy we did speak to said to my Wife "I don't know why you've waited in all day"!!? Because Wren told us our items were definitely being delivered today that's why! A further call to main Customer services and we find, yet again, none of the items we are waiting for have even been ordered! Our fitter is coming back on Tuesday next week and we have to pay him extra. He will have turned down work to come to us so will still want paying. We won't have the stuff he needs so will have to wait for Wren to eventually deliver the stuff before we can book him again at even extra expense. Not only that but the Fridge Freezer unit fell totally apart when the fitter and I picked it up. He said there was no glue at all on the dowels holding it together and he had to put brackets all round it and glue the dowels in!

Wren are the worst company we have ever dealt with. It's not just our experience either. The only other people we know who've ordered from Wren had a similar experience.

Why is it when customers let Wren down by not being in for delivery Wren claim on their invoice the customer will be charged £50 for the inconvenience. Yet Wren can let customers down time and time again but offer no compensation whatsoever. They don't even act like they care?

EDIT:
Well, by chance I found the telephone number of the managing Director of Wren on this site.
My Wife called him and he couldn't have been more helpful. He organised delivery of the required items for this evening so we are just waiting now.
It seems it's just a case of staff letting the company down and Mr Sanchez seemed genuinely horrified to hear our tale. The kitchen units themselves are very well made. We had the fridge Freezer unit fall apart but that is a very large and 'open' unit. It's fine now it's been glued and bracketed to the wall. So, this is a happy ending it seems and we are satisfied.

chrised2

I bought a Wren Kitchen very good quality and value.
But as one would expect after spending £7000 a few teething problems, but trying to resolve them a nightmare customer service ignored emails, unable to resolve on the phone, local showrooms blamed customer service.
Try ordering something on line it doesn't work!!
I now (4 months after delivery) have a defective wine cooler can i get it repaired replaced... 3 weeks and still trying.

cddc

This seems to be a reccuring theme on here and other boards. Wren have a good product and decent (though increasing) prices. What they do not have is any sort of reputation for customer service.

What I would reccomend is to go to the top to get your problems resolved, this has magically worked for others.

Wren had better watch out though, baring in mind what has happened to Moben. People have been buying Wren for value for money but they are no longer quite as good value as they were and if they keep giving bad service, even though their owner apparently has deep pockets, they could end up going the same way.

Small_one

We have ordered our kitchen from wren ! We are very angry about the customer service we've had so far , the kitchens supposed to come tomorrow ! We've had a call today saying that two important items weve ordered won't be delivered tomorrow ! One is the hobb ! Keep calling them and they say they will call back etc etc ! And they don't ! After reading your post were very concerned now ! Ordered and paid for it way over a month ago ! Surely they've had long enough to know what we've ordered ! And the oven we choose , we now can't have so we've got a different one ! I would be really happy if you could tell me the contact number for the managing director you called ! ?? As were not getting anywhere talking to the customer services and the actual showroom ! If you could msg back that would be really appreciated ! Thank you !

Ps v sorry to hear you had a bad experience !

etlabra

We ordered a kitchen from Wren over 10k so not cheap at all and we had the site visit to assess for fitting and whilst they had to remove quite a few units (they had designed it wrong) the chap never came back to us with our renewed quote. After chasing the local branch up and NEVER getting a call back we eventually cancelled the order. We were told the money that we had already paid would be returned in 3 - 5 days.....three weeks and many phone calls to the branch (one one returned) later they eventually refunded the money.

The issues were: they never call back, They don't take ownership of problems - its always head offices problem and worst of all they simply told us lies when we were chasing up where our refund was.

This is no way to run a business