Victorian Plumbing - avoid avoid avoid!!!

dwarren

Do not use Victorian Plumbing!

I ordered over £1200 of goods from them in December. For starters it took over a week to deliver the goods and upon delivery my plumber discovered the toilet flush pipe was missing. Despite repeated calls (sometimes up to 45 minutes in their ridiculous 'customer service' queue) and emails during the lead up to Christmas this was not resolved.

I then proceeded to email them 5 times between 21st December and 11th January querying where the part was.

Finally today - 12th January I managed to contact them over the phone and was told the part would be with me by the end of the week with an apology for their bad customer service.

I now have to book a plumber at my cost to come out and fit this. So what compensation do they offer based on a month without a flush pipe and the cost of a plumber?

£105. That's the maximum they can offer apparently despite speaking to their 'head' of customer service. I asked to be escalated to speak to someone higher up and was told 'you can't madam'.

Avoid them at all costs!!!

dominoman

I never understand why companies try and scrimp on customer service. If a customer is trying to contact you then do everything to speak to them. It pays back many fold.

Nevertheless I think you did well to get any compensation at all. Missing parts is pretty common.

Furts

The flip side to this post is OP ordered items and did not check the delivery, or did not allow a time slot to check the delivery ahead of the plumber being booked. Neither was a wise move.

Equally the items could have been ordered by the plumber and the problem would have been theirs to sort out. A temporary solution would have been arranged or a trip to the plumbers merchants to purchase the missing piece.

In life things go wrong, and I think the solution offered by Victorian Plumbing is worthy of credit.

MisterBaxter

Furts wrote: »

The flip side to this post is OP ordered items and did not check the delivery, or did not allow a time slot to check the delivery ahead of the plumber being booked. Neither was a wise move.

Equally the items could have been ordered by the plumber and the problem would have been theirs to sort out. A temporary solution would have been arranged or a trip to the plumbers merchants to purchase the missing piece.

In life things go wrong, and I think the solution offered by Victorian Plumbing is worthy of credit.

Not sure how this is relevant to the complaint about customer service provided by the company in question which seems to be the crux of the OP's post.

OP says that the plumber found that the flush pipe was missing when checked on delivery suggesting that the missing item was identified quickly; the delivery agents wouldn't have been able to do anything even if it had been pointed out to them whilst they were delivering.

'Just in time' delivery is commonplace in all industries including construction so the delivery of materials for almost immediate installation isn't unreasonable or unusual. Most of the supply chain has recognised and embraced this, those companies (other than specialists) that don't embrace this are going to get left behind.

Agree that a trip to the plumbers merchant to pick up the parts would have probably been a sensible solution to the immediate issue. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the original supplier to pick up the bill for the missing items by way of a refund. The supplier could have gone someway to redeeming themselves by suggesting this as a course of action.

Things do go wrong, although they shouldn't, but the sign of a good company is one that is responsive to such issues and one that deals with them quickly and efficiently; two weeks to deliver a small item that should have been included in the original delivery is not exactly good customer service particularly when you think that consumer facing companies such as Screwfix will get parts to you next day.

Antispam

This is why is best to buy from a local supplier. I got my bathroom from a local supplier easy quick and got all my parts for bathroom within days.

Marktheshark

Are these bespoke parts ?
If not its not exactly a hard item for a plumber to source