This review has been reported to Mumsnet as inappropriate as there are many factual inaccuracies in the review and many pertinent facts missing. Facts that as a company, we were prepared to rely on in a court of law in pursuing the balance payment we were owed. At no point does myself, or any of my team set out to be nasty on any level but especially not customer services or after sales. Why would we? We have a high level of repeat and referral business, so we obviously get it right most of the time. Today, this particular customer wrote to me in response to yet another fairly worded letter "We are always available for measured, fair and non-aggressive conversation with Summerhouse24 but no-one has ever contacted us on those grounds". Not only is that another untrue statement, as we have contacted them, but the above report clearly contradicts that they are always available measured, fair and non-aggressive conversation.
Our payment terms are very clearly set out on our website and are also explained during the purchase process over the phone and any time we are asked. We ask for a 50% deposit on order with the balance due just prior to delivery. Our client did not negotiate any change to these terms and we do not waiver them. What business does? If a client is concerned about paying for a cabin upfront, then we would recommend they pay at least part on a credit card which offers a whole raft of consumer protection rights and insurance. Our clients chose to pay entirely by BACS and at no point said they were uncomfortable about paying in full. We have two emails from this client agreeing to make the balance payment prior to delivery on specific days, but they then failed to make payment.
It was unfortunate that on loading this cabin at our UK warehouse, a forklift damaged one of the components. This caused a two-week delay while a new part was sent from our factory in Estonia. We raised a credit note at the time of £500 to compensate for the delay. We had initially tried to arrange delivery almost four weeks prior to the attempt when the cabin was damaged, but the client requested we store the cabin as they were away on holiday. We did that gladly, free of charge and did not take the balance payment as the cabin was not being delivered. I believe that to be an example of fair payment terms and practices. If we make a mistake, and while we try very hard not to, we like anybody, and any company occasionally do! (I am sure even our reviewer does too!) We will put it right asap. However, in this case, the customer has alleged missing and defective parts that had to be re-engineered. At no point were we notified of these issues before or during the cabins installation. These claims were made some three weeks later when we had received no response to numerous emails and voicemails and had to notify the customer that we were passing this to a debt collection agency. While we received a long list and claim of additional expenditure by this client, to date, we have received NO evidence or photographs of the defective parts.
Due to our computer aided design and CNC machine milled manufacturing processes, as well as our packing and quality control measures, it is highly unlikely that these alleged ten parts were defective. Overarching that, had the customer called us when they apparently made these discoveries, we would have immediately remedied the issue with replacement parts or by sending our install team to assist and make good if possible.
The standard roofing felt supplied with all our cabins is not self-adhesive. The felt sent to this client was the standard felt, as ordered by them and is designed to be secured with felting nails. We advise this covering has a 2 – 3 year life span and offer an upgrade to ICOpal Firesmart which is self-adhesive. This is all very clear on our website. We did not refuse to acknowledge any responsibility for the issues raised but we were not made aware of the issues until presented with unauthorised works and no evidence to support the customer’s claims for these works.
And without wishing to be antagonistic, but listening back to the calls and reading notes on our CRM system, we did find this customer “high handed”, “righteous” and that they had tried to “brow beat and intimidate”. Had they answered very courteous emails and voicemails in a timely fashion, the necessity for us to pass the debt to a collection agency would have been avoided. This situation is regrettable, we are not a faceless organisation and we care about our customers and our business. In this instance, we actually feel we have been treated very unfairly by this customer. It works both ways!