So we’ve wasted 12 hours + going through the Wren Kitchens sales process, and have just cancelled our deposit payment. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I thought that the laws around selling were designed for the customer to get a clear price and a fair, transparent deal … but that’s not what we got at all. Our house is 18 years old and the kitchen’s beginning to look tired, so we chose Wren to quote for a replacement, hoping it would be a straightforward and price-inclusive process. We’re keeping the floor, doing our own decorating and required only a new dishwasher in terms of appliances; the ‘new kitchen’ is just replacement of existing cupboards and worktop, with Tek-board instead of tiling, and no change at all to the current design.
Step 1 involves a ‘Surveyor’ coming out; he was a nice guy who seemed to know what he was talking about technically, spent over an hour taking measurements and photos etc.
Step 2 is the showroom visit: based on the measurements taken by the ‘Surveyor’, your ‘Kitchen Designer’ salesperson shows you the cupboard, worktop and other material options. You are plied with cups of tea, shown 3-D and VR mockups (neither of which actually worked, but whatever), then given a heart-stopping price which dramatically falls with all the current ‘Special Offers’ applied – in our case it came down by 40%. It was still painfully-high, but we hoped that the high price reflected a no-hassle fitting service. When asked if this was a full and final fitted price, the salesperson replied evasively: ‘We send out an Engineer to check that everything you’ve chosen is OK for installation, but it’s rare for there to be any more costs.’
So far, so good; we paid the deposit, but asked for this ‘Engineer’ [how I hate the abuse of this word] to come out quickly so that any issues could be identified and we could be clear on the full price. So today he came out; it turns out that he’s not a Wren employee but an independent subcontractor. I was working in another room, but my bullshit radar was activated within the first five minutes, and I could hear my husband adopt his ‘I know you’re an idiot, but I’m too nice not to be polite to you’ voice.
Thirty minutes of nonsense and verbal diarrhoea later, according to the ‘Engineer’ we required re-plastering in preparation for the Tek-board due to the current tiles needing to be removed, vast amounts of electrical work despite everything going exactly into the current places etc. etc. No skip would be provided during the works, and the kitchen would be out of action for three weeks. So nowhere for rubbish to go, no kitchen for weeks and significant extra labour costs.
I said that we were already paying a high price for the kitchen, and had not expected all these additional costs, especially as an initial ‘survey’ had been completed and technical drawings etc. had all been made. He clearly did not like a mere woman bursting his bubble and flounced out.
We phoned Wren to cancel and ask for our deposit to be refunded, were put through to the Sales Manager who tried desperately to keep our business; it took 40 minutes of persistence to get our legal right, the refund, agreed to.
On reflection it’s pretty clear that the guy who turned up today is paid a low contractor rate by Wren and is therefore keen to invent unnecessary add-ons to increase his profit. Nothing he claimed was necessary was actually needed, and the additional costs were considerable.
I think that this sales model is mendacious, manipulative and capitalises on customers’ lack of time and technical knowledge to squeeze as much money as possible out of them. To me, the system borders on mis-selling in that we were led to believe that one (high) price quoted in the showroom would cover supply and installation with no hassle, when in reality we would have ended up paying a good few thousand pounds extra.
I’m quite disgusted that a household name company behaves in this way, and am now off to Howdens in the hope of better business ethics. Thanks for reading, please tell me if I am BU to feel that this is not a good sales model?