Axminster good service

[Andy Burns]

Needed a new sander yesterday (old one suddenly slowed down then more or less conked out, no smoke, might just be brushes, will investigate later) so that made an excuse to visit the local-ish Axminster store and buy a few other bits and pieces, so did a click and collect on their website as the sander was showing low stock.

When I got there the order was waiting, helped myself to a coffee, wandered round and added another couple of items, paid, drove home.

Slightly annoying to see two items were not in the bag, but I hadn't been charged for them, so I dropped them an email, hoping they'd waive the postage to send them out, phone call this morning, they're sending the missing items out FOC. OK they're not much over a tenner, but I thought very good service, and their price for the sander was as cheap as Amazon to begin with.

[Graham.]

I was expecting a 50 year old carpet.

[Scott]

You are probably more generous than I would be. I would give them three stars. Two items missing from an order - after having the customer drive to the store to collect - seems pretty sloppy to me. I'm not surprised they sent them out free of charge. A gift voucher to make up for the inconvenience would have been good relations.

[Bob Eager]

I had good service from BigDug a little while ago (although it *was* their mistake to start with).

I ordered an item for next day delivery (200kg odd of floor tiles, on a pallet). The next day was a Friday. By the time the delivery window had closed, I couldn't call them.

I emailed Sunday night to ask what had happened. I got a phone call not long after 0900 on Monday morning. Grovelling apologies ('mix up in the warehouse'). I asked when I would receive the goods, and they said "Today".

They sent it about 200 miles using the fastest method possible - White Van Man. He arrived at lunchtime. They must have been bloody quick getting him, and getting it loaded.

The only problem was that I don't have a fork lift at home, so we had to unpack the tiles from the pallet. The driver did a *lot* of the work, assisted by me and my son.

So, screw-up - but good recovery.

[T i m]

It's funny isn't it, if you order something and it turns up when expected and does what it says on the tin we generally say nothing (not so much on eBay maybe as even I generally leave feedback there).

Something goes wrong and they sort it out to your satisfaction, you (one, often) give them praise (as per this example).

Is it that we so often expect the worst and when we get better than that we are relieved?

In fact, I think this technique has even been used as a ploy to increase the customer satisfaction. Slightly under delivered and then over deliver the correction. Customer happier than they would have been, even when everything had gone ok in the first place.

Like when your food delivery is promised within 30 minutes but turns up in 15 (but it could have been 10, if they had wanted to). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Andy Burns]

If they were items I needed for the job in-hand I might have been more annoyed, but they were just things from my "pick some of these up whenever" list.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sadly, it's often the case that when something goes wrong the firm will try every trick in the book to make it look like the customer's fault.

[T i m]

I've not experienced much of that with outlets that offer a feedback service as it is a bit like the old 'local shop, good service word of mouth'. This seems to apply to eBay more than other places because theirs seems to apply (more?) to the seller than the the item.

Maybe having good feedback history yourself gives them a better insight into if you are trying to scam them or not?

Cheers, T i m