Wren Kitchens - My Review

danlondonuk

I have placed an order for a WREN kitchen and paid a deposit of over £2000, wren contract states that the full amount has to be settled 28 days before the kitchen is fitted, any advice after now reading so many negative posts I am seriously worried as i have saved up for so long for my first new kitchen. Do i have to pay the final outstanding amount over £8000 before the kitchen arrives and if i refuse will they keep my £2000 deposit and not deliver and fit the new kitchen? I am not sure what i should do, the kitchen order was placed about 4 weeks ago and the fitting is in August. The Fitter was recommended by Wren and thought it best to stick with someone who knows the product. Advice really appreciated.

SHIRAZ

SHIRAZ wrote: »

I'm having a bit of a nightmare with WREN just now regarding a bedroom, the guy who came to measure up didn't do it very accurately and the units didn't fit where they were supposed to!! and there were several damaged pieces too. We had our things delivered at the beginning of April and are still waiting on replacement bits
Phoned them just now and the guy said he was just away to phone me (not sure I believe that but hey) assures me it will be here tomorrow or Friday...time will tell.
Would not use them again nor would I recommend them to anyone else, not a great experience and not so much as an apology for the inconvenience either.

UP DATE
Well shock horror the stuff didn't arrive on the Friday when it was supposed to, My OH went back into the store on the Saturday morning and said he would now only deal with the manager, on checking he discovered the replacement and missing items hadn't even been ordered!! said sorry and that he would see to it straight away...
it's now supposed to be coming this Tuesday, not gonna hold my breath. Really have been a terrible company to deal with.

Rhystownsend

Where to start!


We went to the Lakeside branch on opening weekend. Spoke to a designer who came and measured up. Went back the next day and sat with him for 3 hours. Had to come back 3rd day to finish off. Liked the design etc and went away with a price.


Came back a little while later to find that designer had "left" and had to sit with another who then spent another 2 hours re inputting our details and trying to find the designs as we wanted to change bits.


Went away to compare to other companies pricing etc as they "guarantee to match or beat any quote". Got a good deal from a competitor so went back and forth with the Wren designer in order to compare. Eventually got told over the phone by the tore manager that they would match the quote I had so we went in that weekend to put deposit down and finalise.


When we arrived we were informed that the designer AND manager had "left" that morning. We sat down with yet ANOTHER designer and went over the same things again. I explained we had come in to pay deposit and he had the agreed price from the previous manager in front of him. He asked us to give him ten minutes to check over everything, so we went for a walk around the store.


We came back after the ten minutes to be told that they could not do at the agreed price and it would cost an EXTRA £2,500!!! Needless to say I was not amused. When I asked for head office details to formally complain, I was told there was no phone or email, only an address to write to.


I asked for the new manager to complain in store who then turned out to be the area manager. He was less then helpful and would not move on the price. He then went on to call the MD apparently who agreed with him and would not honour the previous managers deal which was clearly written in front of him.


By this point I'd had enough and had lost my temper so left with the new price break down to cool off.


In order for me to start again with other kitchen companies would have cost time which I didn't have so decided to remove appliances and work tops in order to bring the cost down. This brought the cost down enough for me to go back and secure the deal still needing a washing machine, oven and work tops.


Another designer came over to arrange deposit and finance.


A week before the kutchen was due to turn up, I had repeated calls saying the balance was due despite telling all that I had the finance in place. This eventually got resolved with a new designer,Bill, he came to my house so I could sign new paper work.


The kitchen arrived just over a week ago. One door was damaged, was missing feet and the designers had left off the curved plinths. Thankfully Bill helped to resolve and all is now sorted.


One thing that Wren never mentioned in all this, the timber kitchen I bought was fr from this. The only parts of actual wood are the frames on the doors. The rest is either MDF or chip board.


I have not finished fitting this kitchen yet but will update should anything else go wrong!!!


Overall, I should have gone elsewhere but had no more time to start the process again. This company has caused no end of stress and still need to buy the parts I had to remove in order to bring the costs down!


UPDATE


Since initially writing this review I have been contacted by Wren to try and resolve as I have written an ACTUAL review on there customer service.


They promised me a call back in the morning which they did but couldn't speak so asked to call later. They didn't.


They called again the next day so spoke to the store manager and regional manager but as he was driving, he kept cutting out. I said to arrange a meet instead to talk about everything.


Yet again, no reply. I called the branch to speak to the manager who was in a meeting and was promised a call from the regional manager that night. Yet again, nothing.


I eventually got a call from ANOTHER branch manager as the other was off sick and got told they would look into why my initial price I was offered was not honoured and come back with an offer to fix everything.


I just had the call back and the price was an extra £3000 on top of my original agreed price.


I urge anyone considering using Wren kitchens not too and to look elsewhere unless you want endless chasing and grief and rubbish customer service!

bod1467

To be honest, even without knowing about this thread, after the second "departure" I would have said bye-bye and found a competitor.

Topcatuk

bod1467 wrote: »

To be honest, even without knowing about this thread, after the second "departure" I would have said bye-bye and found a competitor.

After deciding to purchase a new kitchen, I researched a lot of the major retailers

I have to point out your comment because its ridicules , all kitchen company's will have bad feedback , when thousands of kitchen must be sold each year and only bed feedback is mainly given on forums.

There will always be good and bad service

Any how's Iv gone with wren and so far so good. Delivery and fit set for October , but the designer was great, very professional , and the design is better than I ever imagined .

He showed me other units of competitors against the wren units and they seem far better quality... So fingers crossed the fit goes well

P;s I personally got serveral quotes from various company's , although I liked a magnet designer ( friendly and professional )it was far more expensive and of less quality so lets see what happens :rotfl:

jess_bristol_2

We are in the middle of fitting our wren kitchen.it has been a nightmare, a complete catalogue of errors by Wren Bristol.

These included:
- sending the wrong sink
- sending the wrong taps. and then attempting to get away with giving us a second hand tap?!?!
- not delivering the top/base panels in time for the kitchen to be fitted
- not communicating with their own work surface fitters. Wren Bristol said that it could be measured wven though they hadnt delivered the sink, whereas i've now spoken to the Wren fitters who say this is not possible

I am struggling to get decent communication from Wren Bristol, as they fail to answer emails unless its convenient for them.

All in all the Bristol service is shambolic.

the units look nice enough though

I'll let you know if the missing bits ever show up!

Jess

somethingcorporate

I have recently had a great experience with Wren.

We moved into a new build with a Wren kitchen but needed a few extra bits to finish it off - cupboard doors, worktop, plinth. Even though our order was only small (around £500) we had the designer round twice and he did his absolute best for us including using a local courier at £25 delivery rather than their standard charge and getting the stuff to us in less than a week.

A wonderful service and would certainly use them again based on my experience.

jess-bristol

So.. İ lost my login details but hve returned to give you all an update on how useless Wren kitchens Bristol are!

After my previous post tjere was a flurry of activity from Wren. Perhaps due to tje post? Or perhaps because the work surface fitters couldnt measure up until the sink arrived.

So various missing panels turned up after a lot of prompting. And te manager himself turned up with the missing sink. However they had clearly been out and bought the sink, but clearly hadnt checked our order as it was the wrong size! Eventually they returned with the right one but it hasinvolved an awful lot of waiting home for wren staff members or random delivery drivers to turn up unannounced with various pieces of missing kit.

However we are still missing the taps! They initially tried to fob us off with second hand taps clearly pinched out of a showroom. On my insistence they ordered new ones, which were meant to be delivered on friday. Howeer its now tuesday so they are four days late and wren bristol are studiously ignoring my emails.

Moral of the story: when its about to cost wren (ie by delaying their fitters) they can get their act together. When it comes to responding to communocation, delivering on their pomises, and customer care they are tryly useless!

jess_bristol wrote: »

We are in the middle of fitting our wren kitchen.it has been a nightmare, a complete catalogue of errors by Wren Bristol.

These included:
- sending the wrong sink
- sending the wrong taps. and then attempting to get away with giving us a second hand tap?!?!
- not delivering the top/base panels in time for the kitchen to be fitted
- not communicating with their own work surface fitters. Wren Bristol said that it could be measured wven though they hadnt delivered the sink, whereas i've now spoken to the Wren fitters who say this is not possible

I am struggling to get decent communication from Wren Bristol, as they fail to answer emails unless its convenient for them.

All in all the Bristol service is shambolic.

the units look nice enough though

I'll let you know if the missing bits ever show up!

Jess

nickinbracknell

Hi Jo83

I'm hopefully having a new Wren kitchen fitted on 7 October also through Reading branch. Did you have any major issues?

Also if you don't mind me asking what was the name of your Sales Rep and fitter??
Thank you!

jo83 wrote: »

I have just ordered a kitchen from Wren after getting a quote from pretty much all of the big names inc. Hammonds, Wickes, B&Q, Magnet. They seemed to offer what we wanted and at a good price which is why we chose them in the end.

Experience (at the Reading store) so far better sales service than at any other showroom the salesperson spent at least 6 hours of his time "tweaking" the design and came out to my house with the product.

We are having Wren fit the kitchen as well, and the fitter came out and advised that some of the design may not be possible due to plumbing locations, so we have again tweaked the design which seemed no problem.

Having now read this thread I am preparing myself for the worst when it comes to the delivery on the 15th Oct - I will be checking everything very carefully.

I will post again once the delivery/fitting has gone ahead, but so far the process has been easy for us.

I hope I haven't spoken too soon.

oneofakind1

well what can I say , I was warned !!! I wasn`t respected as my wife is foreign and as her English is poor a I was trying to translate so she could get involved in the project , witch was obvious from the start, as I was served by the manager Jason to be honest I was surprised he his the manager as he was poorly dressed very poor hygiene and strong alcohol smell you know the type! , he didn`t really care about what I had to say all he wanted to do was beat the quote I had from b&q and to be honest money was no object and I could pay more for allegedly better quality... anyway all Jason did was trying to convinced me to buy the bedroom on the day without visiting my home first pushy pushy like a salesman I had to agree a deal after meeting him for over an hour and spend a small fortune for what I know consider to be flimsy poor quality chip board products . in the end I backed out and wanted to think and I promised I would be back the following day.
so I went home checked my plans and realised they was many mistakes, so I went back to verify the quote (witch had a 50% reduction yeah right..) and met the other manager called david the cheesiest salesperson on the planet he so called rectified the managers mistakes added a fee for installation and took a full payment without asking! when I rang and ask why I wasn`t just charged the deposit he was cheeky enough to say that it would speed the process not caring if I had enough funds every time I spoke to him he was abrupt on the phone to the point of being Impolite . I had the delivery the fitters came and the measurement they took were wrong !!! they measured and got it all wrong they fixed it a month and a half later as I had to wait for them to rectify it , they tried charging me more after I spent 6.5k .the products still weren't right the doors kept falling off and no one ever returned a phone call I had to ring all the time . whilst I was on "hold" with david as he had to ask is manager for approval I felt I wasn`t welcomed and was only a problem that they no longer cared for .in the end I got it all ripped out bought the one from b&q and it is much better in quality .the showroom I visited was the one in Huddersfield so take my advice go anywhere but wren and never deal with Jason and david they are like crooks.