Hi There Fekin
Thanks for the info. I have tried B&Q and even though they show a stock of these tiles in Reading, the bloke I talked to there was totally disinterested in trying to find them for me, as the computer didn't have a location.
As for Ballesmar, I heard they went into recievership, but this doesn't seem to be true, so I will contact them direct.
Cheers Jon.
:rant:
Well I'm sorry I've started now......
Need I say more. This is standard B&Q customer service. This is what is wrong with our country. This guy dosen't even deserve a job! There are hundreds of people being made redundant every day and this little a**e wipe can't even be bothered to put himself out to find a tile that they stock.
When I get service like this I find the store manager and explain that this simply is not good enough.
Customer Experience #1
I had this a while ago when I asked a price for a bathroom sink and the young lad who, quite frankly shouldn't have bothered getting out of bed that morning, just grunted and handed me a price list. The sink in question wasn't even in there! This was shortly after they opened and they were really slack. There were about 5 customers in the store and about 20 staff.
I found the manager, explained that this 'customer service experience' is not one I wish to remember. She picked up a scanner, scanned the product and gave me the price. I loaded it onto my trolly and as I left to pay I managed to catch a glimps of her repremanding the little oik, RESULT!
Customer Service Experience #2
An ex display bathroom suite was put out for sale. As I was in the process of renovating a house I was interested in buying it. I asked a 'kitchen and bathroom adviser' how much it was. He said he would go and find out.
About 20 minutes later I was still standing there waiting for a price. I got fed up and found a manager. I politely explained that I was just starting to lose the will to live. The muppet in question, with the memory span of a gold fish had simply forgotten about my enquiry, some 3 mins after I had asked him and he was doing something else when they eventually tracked him down. One had to laugh, If he forgets what he's doing every 3 minutes, I can just imagine the dozens of customers dotted around the store waiting for him to find something out for them, some are probably still there as we speak.
Customer Experience #3
I am a trade card holder, so I get free delivery if I spend over £50. I ordered a plastic garden store, as they were doing 15% off. I Identified the one I wanted and asked for it to be delivered along with some other stuff I was having. They agreed to do this on a given date.
The delivery came but there was no garden store. When I phoned up to ask why, I was told that they only pick them from the shelves the night before, the delivery and that they had run out of stock! I didn't even get an apology. This was despite the fact that I ordered it several days ago whilst they had stock. That was the way they did things and that was that! I dread to think what would have happened if these were materials I needed for a job.
This is standard don't give a damn, recession proof customer service, which will no doubt get B&Q through these hard times. I say bloody good luck to the decent staff they have, and to the rest of them, what goes around comes around!
To everyone on this forum, B&Q serve as a reminder to all of us the perils of not choosing your suppliers carefully. It's all about the cost of receiving poor customer service that is likely to drive our businesses under whilst they and a handful of their staff who quite franly couldn't give a damn whilst they've got jobs, sit around and do the bare minimum to keep themselves in their cosy little orange aprons.
I really feel for the staff who are motivated, they have to work with the store policies and some complete muppets.
:rant: