It seems Sarah Raven has gone right downhill

[Toowhiteforawedding]

What on earth has happened to Sarah Raven?

They used to be a really good company, but I placed an order a week ago which has not yet been dispatched. As I am about to be away for a few days I needed to check whether it’s about to be dispatched and what the status is as I don’t want it to arrive while I’m away. Ended up going round in circles with a chatbot which insisted on taking all my details then ended the conversation saying sorry I can’t help. I went back in and asked to speak to a human so it has now apparently raised a Support ticket but instead of passing on my inquiry has paraphrased it.

There is no option on the website to phone them or email them directly as far as I can see, the only option given in order management is to speak to this chatbot. I’m starting to think that they have completely given up on customer service. I’m really sad as they used to be great to deal with..

You are not the first person to notice this, there was a feature on one of the R4 consumer affairs shows about this not long ago. The company was going into administration not long ago and was actually bought back by Sarah herself but it seems it taking a long time for them to sort out all the issues. Such a shame x

It’s not the only company to buy into the AI chat bot snake oil, sadly. Too many companies are cutting costs to impress investors instead of making an effort to retain customers.

Sarah Raven has been dreadful for a while. I found no way to contact customer services a year ago. There is none.

I'd be surprised if you end up with any plants worth planting out. They either send out desiccated plants, too late or wrong cultivar. I will never order from there again.

I ordered a packet of seeds from SR and another packet from Thompson & Morgan at the same time. T&M had no postage to pay and arrived within 5 days. For SR I had to pay to £2.99 extra and postage and I had an acknowledgment of order about 10 days after placing it. I know that was steep for seeds, but I couldn’t find the same ones anywhere else. I waited and waited for the SR seeds and eventually had a generic email nearly four weeks later apologising for slow despatch. It was only a packet of seeds FFS, and surely all they had to do was pop it into an envelope and send it off. Instead, they despatched it by Evri just as we went on holiday. Evri have sent me an image of the box saying they have delivered it, but not sure that it was small enough to go through the letterbox and whether it will be there when we return.

What with holiday season and people ordering live plants and all, you’d think they’d have the decency to prominently display the delayed despatch times on their website, thus avoiding further delays because they’ll have to resolve dead plants, but nothing obvious is showing …

Oh its awful! I absolutely adore the Sarah Raven podcast and have learned loads from it. I felt I should order from the company by way of thanks for all the free plant education.

Most of the order arrived about 6 weeks late in a terrible state.

It must be really hard to balance marketing/PR with actual customer service, but the latter really should come first. High end businesses have customers with high expectations and when reputation is lost there's no PR strategy in the world that can get you out of the hole.

I do hope Sarah Raven will be OK. Perhaps the podcast etc brings in so many new customers it doesn't matter? I work in retail, so I doubt it.

Oh interesting. Was sent wrong hydrangea last year. Little lime instead of little fresco. Emails went un answered.

In the end I’ve not minded as my other little line died and this one is looking amazing but I ended up going elsewhere for the fresco.