I'm so outraged I want to boycott Little Greene. I don't think that's quite fair, but I just have to vent. The worst customer service I've ever had. Keep reading only if you want to get worked up...
We just moved into a much bigger place (hooray!) and we're getting ambitious with our painting. We ordered most of the paint from Paint and Paper Library, which delivered the next day and was all around wonderful. It was nearly £1500 and has lived up to the price. Silky smooth and great coverage.
But: there was one colour we wanted that only Little Greene had. We ordered online and waited and waited and waited. This was strange because PPL and Little Greene are the same company - they're based in the same office. And the PPL paint came so quickly...
After a full week, I called Little Greene customer service. They said, literally, 'oh that paint's not in stock right now'. No apology, no indication when it would be in stock. I insisted and she told me she would check and get back to me.
She never got back to me, and I called again a few days later. This time, she said 'It'll be in stock next week; I'll let you know when we get it'.
Of course she didn't email and it wasn't in stock the next week. So I called again, and she (it's just one woman answering all the calls) tells me that it will finally be in stock the next week - more than one month after I ordered!
I asked if this was usual practice: not to have it in stock and not to tell customers that they might have to wait one month. She said it was not normal practice, but she gave me no apology and had no empathy for our situation. We were just another annoying customer for her.
Finally the paint was sent, but it didn't arrive on the day they said it would. I waited at home all day and our buzzer rang for other deliveries but not for the paint.
I called Little Greene the next morning to ask where the paint was. She said it will definitely be coming that day. I wait at home all day AGAIN. And again no paint. I called Little Greene, and she said it should be out for delivery, but I had suspicions so I asked for the tracking number and called UPS myself.
The UPS woman said the paint had actually arrived back at the Little Greene facility in Manchester that morning at 9am!! There was some difficulty with the tracking number because it was multiple boxes, but I couldn't believe my ears. When I called that morning, Little Greene had my UPS delivery at their facility and they told me to wait for it at my home.
After I got off the phone with UPS, I called Little Greene back, but it was after hours for them. So I called first thing the next morning. Little Greene confirmed that they had my paint and said they would resend it. I insisted they send it somewhere else so I could pick it up and not be trapped at home for another day.
The paint arrived the next day and I picked it up. Success - almost 6 weeks after I ordered it. Never once in those 6 weeks did they tell me I should expect to wait so long.
And equally upsetting for me: never once in the entire process did I receive an apology. Not a single one! Not even after they discovered that I'd wasted a full day at home while the paint sat at their facility!
It was only when I sent an angry email that I got a formulaic apology and a coupon for future purchases (yeah right!).
I'm sorry for the wall of text. I'm just still so angry. I've never had such a bad customer service experience - and we spent more than £1700. I know that's not contractor-level purchases, but it was a lot for us, and Little Greene didn't seem to care at all.
Hope you've all had better paint experiences than I have. Who should I use in future? I'm thinking Farrow & Ball for the basic paints, but I've also heard good things about Craig & Rose and Zoffany...