Wickes - Fail (with a small recovery)
So Wickes, bit like Homebase / B&Q but aimed more at the trader. That said, they're trying more to compete with the likes of B&Q / Homebase as I see it. Proud to put their name on it or something like that. So you'd think that getting it right would be reasonably high up on their list of priorities (and as a person who deals a lot with customer experience, it's actually quite important to me too). Allow me to give you the tale of my first time Wickes experience.
I wanted to install some kitchen units at home and had identified that Wickes had a set that I wanted. The only problem is that the freelander does not have roof bars at the moment (well, we've got the transverse ones, but not the longitudinal ones they fit to) so there was no way that we were going to be able to take home a 3m work surface safely. On the plus side, Wickes offer free next day delivery for orders over £300. Checked my local store and they had plenty of everything in stock. Planning on doing this work over the weekend I placed the order just after their cut off on Wednesday night, expecting delivery to be Friday.
Thursday morning I get a call. Unfortunatly my delivery can't come from Basingstoke, it has to come from Farnborough. Farnborough don't stock the work surface and will have to order it (from Basingtoke). This means that they can't deliver on Friday but will deliver on Saturday, waiving the Saturday delivery charge. I point out to the person that I need it delivered early so must be a morning delivery and he says he'll arrange that. So, so far, fail on the next day delivery but a recovery on the calling and keeping the customer informed front. It's also worth bearing in mind that to get to my house from Farnborough they have to pass with 20 metres of the Wickes they're ordering from, so that's a whole load of extra miles they don't have to do, but I accept that logistics may dictate that this is what has to be done.
Saturday comes. Now, it's stated that they will call in the morning to give an estimated time for delivery. Guess what, no call. 12:00 comes, no delivery. 12:15 I start to go down the process of calling to find out where my order is. Turns out customer services don't work on a weekend (fail). Eventually I manage to get hold of someone but they can't help, but will get someone to call me back once they're off the phone. We're now well into the world of fail but there are still small elements of recovery.
13:15 I call again as there's still no delivery and no returned call. Turns out all they do on a Saturday is take messages and pass them on. I get the offer of leaving another message and to wait for a call back. Now we're so far into Fail territory we're looking for a map.
14:00 the delivery arrives. I say arrives, the top and 2 of the cabinets arrive and a 3rd cabinet that is not what I ordered. Rather than wait around while someone attempts to take responsibility for fixing this cock up (remember, we're well into fail territory here) I take the order as is, load the incorrectly delivered item into the car and drive to Wickes, Basingstoke (following the van that's just delivered to me most of the way).
In the shop things are so much different. I'm in, apologsied to, given the correct item and out within 5 minutes. In store, I can't emphasise enough, the experience is exactly what I would expect as a customer.
So finally, I've everything I need and am ready to start doing the installation at 14:30, 5 hours after I was hoping to start.
I ended up complaining to Wickes using their on line form, which promises a next working day response. 2 days later I received a call from Sean who, while apologetic, didn't offer me anything other than if I ever order from them again to personally take control of the order. Nice touch, but let's face it, after venturing this far into Fail territory, I'm not coming back.
I wanted to install some kitchen units at home and had identified that Wickes had a set that I wanted. The only problem is that the freelander does not have roof bars at the moment (well, we've got the transverse ones, but not the longitudinal ones they fit to) so there was no way that we were going to be able to take home a 3m work surface safely. On the plus side, Wickes offer free next day delivery for orders over £300. Checked my local store and they had plenty of everything in stock. Planning on doing this work over the weekend I placed the order just after their cut off on Wednesday night, expecting delivery to be Friday.
Thursday morning I get a call. Unfortunatly my delivery can't come from Basingstoke, it has to come from Farnborough. Farnborough don't stock the work surface and will have to order it (from Basingtoke). This means that they can't deliver on Friday but will deliver on Saturday, waiving the Saturday delivery charge. I point out to the person that I need it delivered early so must be a morning delivery and he says he'll arrange that. So, so far, fail on the next day delivery but a recovery on the calling and keeping the customer informed front. It's also worth bearing in mind that to get to my house from Farnborough they have to pass with 20 metres of the Wickes they're ordering from, so that's a whole load of extra miles they don't have to do, but I accept that logistics may dictate that this is what has to be done.
Saturday comes. Now, it's stated that they will call in the morning to give an estimated time for delivery. Guess what, no call. 12:00 comes, no delivery. 12:15 I start to go down the process of calling to find out where my order is. Turns out customer services don't work on a weekend (fail). Eventually I manage to get hold of someone but they can't help, but will get someone to call me back once they're off the phone. We're now well into the world of fail but there are still small elements of recovery.
13:15 I call again as there's still no delivery and no returned call. Turns out all they do on a Saturday is take messages and pass them on. I get the offer of leaving another message and to wait for a call back. Now we're so far into Fail territory we're looking for a map.
14:00 the delivery arrives. I say arrives, the top and 2 of the cabinets arrive and a 3rd cabinet that is not what I ordered. Rather than wait around while someone attempts to take responsibility for fixing this cock up (remember, we're well into fail territory here) I take the order as is, load the incorrectly delivered item into the car and drive to Wickes, Basingstoke (following the van that's just delivered to me most of the way).
In the shop things are so much different. I'm in, apologsied to, given the correct item and out within 5 minutes. In store, I can't emphasise enough, the experience is exactly what I would expect as a customer.
So finally, I've everything I need and am ready to start doing the installation at 14:30, 5 hours after I was hoping to start.
I ended up complaining to Wickes using their on line form, which promises a next working day response. 2 days later I received a call from Sean who, while apologetic, didn't offer me anything other than if I ever order from them again to personally take control of the order. Nice touch, but let's face it, after venturing this far into Fail territory, I'm not coming back.