Surrey Blinds And Shutters

I paid £2,500 for blinds from Berkshire/Surrey Blinds & Shutters with a quoted 3-5 week lead time. Installation took over 14 weeks, with multiple errors: wrong measurements taken, wrong materials delivered, and repeated installations before correctly fitted.

Communication was poor and I had to chase constantly. The only positive was the installer, who was professional despite the company's failings.

Compensation offered (£200) was far too low. Overall, extremely frustrating and unprofessional I cannot recommend this company.

I paid £2,500 for blinds from Berkshire/Surrey Blinds & Shutters with a quoted 3-5 week lead time. Installation took over 14 weeks, with multiple errors: wrong measurements, wrong materials, and repeated reorders.

Communication was poor and I had to chase constantly. The only positive was the installer, who was professional despite the companys failings.

Compensation offered (£200) was far too low. Overall, extremely frustrating and unprofessional I cannot recommend this company.

Despite a very good, polite and persuasive sales person, as soon as the order is placed and deposit paid, this company will effectively forget about you. Do not believe their estimated timings for shutters, add at least a coupe of months onto the estimated date.

On top of that, you will need to call them to get any sort of update on your late order. This company does not conduct any professionalism in their customer service (Stephanie is awful!). They are not pro-active or show any means of communicating with you or looking after you as a customer. When the shutters finally arrived into their possession (6 months after we ordered them), they simply initiate an automated email asking for the final balance to be paid.

No apology, no explanation, no care to manage the situation. At this stage, you realise that the date to book in the installation of your shutters will only be agreed once you have paid the final balance. So you have to pay in full before even seeing the shutters of having them installed! Upon paying the full balance, it is then up to you, yes you as the customer, to call them to book in the installation!

The customer service of this company is shocking. The Customer Services Manager is stroppy and difficult. I am so angry with myself for choosing this company.

The problem is, the sales pitch was excellent. You have been warned!

Initially very happy. However, within five months one of our blinds developed a split.

I politely raised this as they are under warranty. The response I got was rude and inadequate (see below). We have only raised and lowered the blinds using the chord, but I was told it was my fault and not theirs.

The blinds are less than five months old. John Lewis is cheaper and I'm going to presume not as rude / sticks to their word:

'In this instance, we feel that this slit has not been caused by a manufacturing, supplier or installation error and therefore is not covered by warranty.'

I was compelled to write this review (my first ever on any site) as I was so disgusted by what I witnessed on Surrey Blinds Limited's Facebook page. I came across this as I was reviewing their site on Facebook yesterday evening as we were looking at refitting our offices. Our business requires an element of due diligence, so I was doing some background checks.

A customer, who appeared to have a complaint following numerous errors by Surrey Blinds Limited, posted a polite, although negative, review on Surrey Blinds Limited's Facebook page. The review was factual and in no way personal, and complained about the lack of service and unwillingness of the Director (a chris-de-carteret) to call the customer back to discuss and try and resolve. The customer had asked for compensation, as the £50 credit (less then 10% of the purchase price) originally offered wasn't sufficient in view of the errors and lack of service.

The Director posted a reply which can only be described as rude and disrespectful. Although he acknowledged the problems and took credit for all the errors, there was no apology. Instead he cited the fact that this was a "small business", that "they had lost a lot of money the previous month" and that "customers don't just make up how much they want to pay us". His manner appeared aggressive and he was disparaging about the customer - accusing them of being difficult. There were numerous replies on Facebook from other users all saying how surprised they were with the companies comments and blatant disrespect of this customer (including myself - which meant I was notified of any other comments). When the customer replied saying that the companies financial situation was not their problem and pushed for compensation (copy and pasting his initial email and full details of the dispute), chris-de-carteret posted a public reply on the Facebook page calling the customer "greedy" and labelling them a "troll". He later deleted the whole post from their Facebook page, but I was so shocked at the time, I took a screen shot of all the correspondence.

Of course, I don't have details of the dispute so can't comment, but at no time did the customer act unreasonably online or appear offensive, unlike chris-de-carteret. Whatever the dispute, I'm amazed that anyone would act is such an unprofessional and nasty way. How is this man a Director?

I'm glad I saw this before placing any order with them. I don't think I've ever seen such bad customer service. Obviously some training in customer service and PR are urgently required, but I guess you can't teach basic manners.

Shame on you chris-de-carteret and Surrey Blinds Limited. I certainly won't be placing any business with you:

Surrey Blinds Limited

surreyblindsandshutters.…

& Direct Blinds & Curtains Limited (same business)