Comments on: Wickes’ Jeremy Bird in ‘not god’ shock

By: Steve Burdon

Steve Burdon — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:00:12 +0000

BTW, The reason I posted the last message here is because Wickes have no contact us link to report web site problems.

Im sure the CEO would like to have his web site running smoothly, but for now I’m off to B&Q..theirs seems to be working well.

By: Steve Burdon

Steve Burdon — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:57:41 +0000

I hope someone at Wickes web site team will read this, their web pages for showers http://www.wickes.co.uk/Showers/Enclosures+Cabins/icat/enclosures?tmcampid=35&tmad=c&tmplaceref=ppc_ggl_0022891

wont go past the first page, hopefully will be fixed soon but frustrating for me in the meantime.
Thanks

By: B. Bird

B. Bird — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:52:21 +0000

HI. I’m Jeremy Bird’s niece and I’ll have you know that his company and his customers mean everything to him. He is incredibly busy and no, he has NOT gone to focus or whatever but if he had he would have made it better not worse. He is an incredibly good man; each year he does extrodinary things for charity with his colleagues and staff from various stores ( people he hasn’t met before ) such as climbing Kilimanjaro; cycling across the himalayas and hiking over volcanoes in South America. His life revolves around his work and the rest of his time is devoted to family life. Even during his time off he is constantly being emailed and having to sort out Wickes. I don’t think any of you appreciate how hard it is to run a company this big – so just take some time off from your complaining. Because his life isn’t as easy as you think. So thankyou to those of you who are supporting him and Wickes – I know it would mean a lot to him.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:48:50 +0000

Re: Wickes fitted Kitchen. Local Wickes recommended installers.
August 2011.

The kitchen is of good quality, the fitters were brilliant, but surprise, surprise, kitchen parts were missing: This is sad because when everything was delivered, everything was scanned by th edelivery men. But this does not record the fact that essential parts were not in the order in th efirsyt place:

I was sold an oven with no brackets, a sink with no waste and there were no worktop bolts or filler. I can’t understand the Wickes mentality here. The kitchen can’t be fitted without these, but does anyone at Wickes care. Answer: “No” . At least the fitters cared a lot because they took pride in their work and they really wanted to finish the job. They were as frustrated as i was and one got so angry with Wickes on the phone he had to put the phone down..

On ringing the Wickes kitchen store, I was surprised to be given a phone number for Electrolux to order (and pay) for the oven brackets myself. I did not accept this. I am appaled at the staff’s attitudes, i.e. they couldn’t care less whether my kitchen is fully operational or not. Similarly with the sink waste and bolts, Fortunately one of the fitters had some spare bolts and a spare sink waste . However the drainer waste pipe is specific to the sink and I understood Wickes had this on order. However, today, over a week after the kitchen was fitted (minus the oven), I found out that they had not ordered the parts at all. I have had to order the sink overflow from Astracast at a cost of £10 simply so the sink drainer can be used ASAP,. The oven brackets arrived today because the order was faxed over as urgent, either yesterday or today. I hope the Wickes CEO reads this. He needs to kicj ass or does someone need to kick his ass first? Unless he does something about Customer Service.and Customer satisfaction, then Wickes is doomed to failure.

By: PK

PK — Sat, 28 May 2011 16:02:48 +0000

And here is the final deviousness shown by Wickes’ management with regard to my kitchen.
Wickes print a DIY leaflet No. 93 which shows how cooker-hood ducting should be done. Plastic ducting and proper connecters but apparently they do not expect their installers to do such a professional job.
I thought our kitchen was finished at the end of 2009 but last August (2010) we were to find why, for months, our kitchen got steamed up whenever we used the cooker.
The cow-boy builder that Wickes had sent to us to fit the kitchen had used a 6ft length of flexible ducting. He had not used the proper connectors but had simply pushed it through the outside wall and at the cooker end had simply connected it with wrap around duct tape.
He had obviously stretched the ducting because it had pulled apart from the cooker-hood hence the steam going up to the ceiling.
The exterior wall vent louvre had not even been screwed to the wall.
When I phoned Wickes they were in no hurry to right this appaling work and an appointment was mde for a month later.
I had insisted on having another installer to do the remedial work but needless to say on the appointed day he didn’t show up.
I phoned Wickes and was told they would phone back. They didn’t. It was now over two months since I had made the complaint and it was now that I decided to take my complaint to the Furniture Ombudsman.
The upshot of this was that Wickes told the Omudsman “that their charge for installation in-store is for the dry fit only as standard, i.e.for the installation of the items purchased. Therefore when the installer visits site they quote for any additional works. This if accepted would form a private contract between the customer and installer”. The Ombudsman then goes on to say “therefore as the contract for the addional works was carried out privately between you and the installer i cannot comment further”.
If I had not agreed fo pay for the “extras” asked for by this builder the kitchen COULD NOT have been installed. Besides I was not given the choice.
The kitchen was finally finished 15 months after the start.

By: PK

PK — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:10:54 +0000

I think Vicky needs to read more of the reviews re kitchen installations by Wickes and she will see that people do comment when the customer service is good. But equally she will also see the many complaints of bad workmanship, missed appointments and generally poor customer service.
She goes on to say that no company is perfect and that is certainly correct with regards to Wickes. But does that mean that we should be content with less than perfect work?
Wickes is in the business to install kitchens. For the money that it costs we have a right to expect first class work up to our expectations and if they cannot deliver they should get out of the business and let those that can do it
Would she I wonder pay £10000 for a new car and accept it with bits missing, with loose doors,with parts that didn’t work and then wait months for the problems to be sorted. I’m sure she wouldn’t and that goes for my kitchen too.
I do know that mistakes can be made but the sign of a good business is the speed whereby these mistakes are rectified to the complete satifaction of the customer. THAT is what is called customer service.
My above review is not about the only things that went wrong but there was much more and it was 15 months before the kitchen was finished.
Anonymous above states that the installer is quite within his rights to come along at a later date and add extras as he seems fit after the price agreed at the time of the purchase, so I say BEWARE Wickes’s kitchens can cost you much more than you think.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Sun, 22 May 2011 12:41:00 +0000

Interesting reading. However what I would say is that when good service is received, 99% of people say nothing. When something goes wrong, in sometimes very minor cases often caused by your own expectations, everyone jumps on the band wagon. No company is perfect (I remember having a disasterous experience with PC world nearly 15 years ago but I still use them)

By: PK

PK — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:44:25 +0000

I assume that anonymous above (May 17th) has an intimate knowledge of Wickes installation practises so first I would like to ask this. Why wasn’t I given a copy of the terms and conditions or a least told where to get a copy, when I ordered my kitchen. But no, Wickes kept very quiet about giving me a copy and there seems to be a good reason why.
After the kitchen was planned and the price agreed do you really think that I or anyone else for that matter would agree to a further charge ( cash) of nearly £1000 as thought up by the installer three weeks later for work that was already an integral part of a kitchen installation and had already been agreed at the planning stage and was therefor already factored into the £2040 being charged for the installation. I would say NO, and I would have taken my custom elsewhere.
Things like cutting off 4″ at the back of a floor unit “extra” £39
Cutting off 4″ at the side of a base unit “extra” £39
A wall unit adapted to fit “extra” £25
Each of these jobs took about 5 mins.
Putting in a consumer unit without prior discussion for £440. The cost of the unit on the internet between £50-£60, then charging another £25 for earth bonding.
Having included an integrated cooker-hood in the kitchen plan and then having to pay extra for the ducting £54
Electrical supply for the extractor part of it £60
The installer put the wall units too high (his fault) then demanded £180 to put them in the right place.
As for the installation of the flexible ducting for the cooker-hood (which eventually pulled apart) this was shocking. I just wish I could put a photo on this site to show just how amateurish it was.
As I said before DON’T GO TO WICKES

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:27:20 +0000

Read the terms and conditions on the installation quote. It clearly states that the fitter will carry out a survey and finalise the cost. The price primer, primes you for this cost!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 May 2011 10:48:19 +0000

Do not be conned re Wickes’s latest advertising feature for a sale of kitchens. You may think you get a bargain, so did I, that is until the installer came along later and promptly added nearly £1000 for “extras” which were an integral part of the installation and for which we had already agreed to pay £2040 for.

Wickes cannot be trusted.