Wickes - Norwich Anmeldelser 

Staff were really good at helping me pick out a lawn mower and strimmer set.

This is purely a review about the bathroom designer who helped me at the Wickes in Norwich...not had bathroom fitted yet.
Laini was great! Really helpful, knew exactly what she was talking about and has a great sense of humour too.
She made the whole (potentially very tedious) experience really enjoyable and if you know nothing about bathrooms then she's the woman you need to see.

We bought a complete Wickes Kitchen just 4 years ago, it looked great and we were, initially, very pleased.
Then we found the drawer fronts kept getting loose, I took them apart, finding the interior material into which the screws went was like cardboard and the small screws had nothing to grip. I filled the holes with new wood and hoped that would be fine. Then a couple of doors started to drop, the same problem, the core material was too soft, fortunately you can buy reinforcing plates on Amazon to fix the issue.
Last month, one of the larger drawer fronts dropped off totally when the drawer was opened, the screws had totally pulled out and the holes were too large to use again.
I called Wickes, fine, the drawer units were covered by the 5 year guarantee. I sent photos and was told the support staff would come back in 3 days, maybe less.
NOTHING happened - I emailed them.
Still no reply - the guarantee, like the kitchen seems to be USELESS!

After posting the above they did reply, the supplier said ''Once installed as per the instructions the fixings will stand up to normal everyday wear and tear without becoming faulty''
The point is that they did fail! Four very small screws join the drawer face to the body of the drawer. They screw into the soft board core of the face and after some normal use they work loose and the face falls off, it is near impossible to repair since the interior board is soft, so there is nothing to really fix to!
Apparently, they think that is the end of the matter, no reply since that statement - Kitchens that are correctly installed as per instructions are apparently not guaranteed as advertised at all - poor materials, poor design and zero customer service!

Laini in the kitchen design team was amazing! She supported by listening to my ideas around how I use my kitchen and what I needed from a new design. Drawing up a plan on our first visit in store, then completing a home visit to check measurements etc. second visit to tweak the design. Thank you for the attention to detail and showing us with the displays in store options and informed choices.

Staff are extremely helpful kind and knowledgeable.

My elderly parent ordered a new bathroom, and uses the reccomend fitter by Wickes. Due to my father's health problems and needing to use the bathroom frequently (they only have 1 bathroom in the house) they decided to stay away for 2 weeks (fitter said 2 week job, max 4 days at best) so the fitter could get on and they wouldn't need to worry about that situation. Whilst away they chased to see how things were progressing, to be fobbed off constantly by the fitter who seemed to have every excuse under the sun. They returned home to sort it out, after 2 weeks, Job not even started, and the fitter AWOL with their house key. They have now lost complete trust in this individual and if he's even going to be able to complete the job. They attended Wickes inperson today, who said 'we will look into it'. Abysmal, and they are both more stressed that ever that they have no resolve, have paid to stay away for 2 weeks unnecessary, and still don't know when the bathroom will be fitted and they might be without a shower for 2 weeks or easy acsess to their toilet. No care or compassion, once they have your money of course

We had our bathroom designed by Laini Dekeyzer at Wickes Norwich. She has been absolutely amazing from start to finish, going the extra mile to help us with any issues we have had. Chasing products and delivery issues. Laini is always really friendly, helpful and an absolute star. We would definitely recommend anyone who wants to have their bathroom or kitchen designed. We will be back for our kitchen in the future.

Jess & Marci

The Wickes designer, Lois Hall, was inventive in designing our kitchen, finding ways to make the best use of a limited space and offering good ideas about colour schemes and fittings. She was a pleasure to work with and responded swiftly to issues that arose once the fitters began their work. For example, one narrow spices drawer didn't quite fit the space available so had to left out of the scheme. She made sure it was refunded and returned without any fuss.

Kitchen & installation service, kitchen good quality then Wickes fail to perfom or achieve on all fronts, the only thing the installer got right was ripping out the old kitchen, seemed unable to read drawings (20-40mm difference) and when this was highlighted, threatened to walk off the job (which would have left with no usable kitchen) contacted Wickes experience co-ordinator, gave photos dimensions etc - no help took and age to get any action, 3 alternative Wickes fitters later and 8 months further on from agreed start date, work should have taken 2 weeks, we are just about complete, attention to detail could be better and some dubious electrics.
Getting any action in response to emails or phone calls from Wickes customer liason or Service Specialist Customer Relations or their managers was was almost non existant, We will definately not be using Wickes installation service agian

Bathroom refurb. The whole process from selecting items to delivery was seamless. Laini Dekeyzer, one of the Design Consultants at the Norwich branch, was very helpful, patient and very knowledgeable about the products available. Laini is a great asset to Wickes.

When we visited the Norwich store, Sam a member of the team was extremely helpful. He went above and beyond to help sort out what we needed, also helping with online questions.

Wickes fitted a nice bathroom for me in early October 2024. There is a masive waste sac full of the old bathroom, toilet, bath, sink, tiles, flooring, which is on my front lawn. They said it would be removed max 4 days after completion. It is now 3 months and it is still there, despite numerous calls to their customer "satisfaction" centre, and several visits to the shop. Unless you want a large unsightly, unhygienic bag of debris on your lawn for months, don't use Wickes.

Update.
Despite a flurry of emails, being forwarded, and requesting information they already had, they have gone silent again. And the bag is STILL THERE. A rat has been seen going in and out, I do hope no one catches Weils disease.

***AVOID***
THE ISSUES:
We’ve had our kitchen and utility room fitted for 15 months now. The kitchen fitters were not the most reliable, nor the tidiest. I can’t bring myself to remove the plinths and look at the empty cans and crisp packets left behind under my units. Our designer was amazing but unfortunately left the company, which is where it started to go wrong. We’ve had the fitters back numerous times to rectify issues but they became more unreliable and began not even turning up without notice, where we are self employed and rearranged jobs around the fitters. We have been trying to get more issues sorted for almost 6 months and wickes are making it as difficult as possible. We refused the original fitters and were allocated someone else who came and rectified some more issues. He made a list of the other jobs that he saw needed rectifying and sent it to wickes for them to give the go ahead. They dragged their feet again and after weeks of trying to get through to them via the store and the customer relations team, they gave me a date of 6th Jan for the fitter. On the 8th January the new fitter called to arrange to do the work and they haven’t even given him a list of what needs doing. More waiting, more time wasting.
FEELINGS:
I’ve had enough and I’m looking into take them to court and claim compensation.

Having looked at several kitchen providers our decision to go with Wickes was greatly influenced by Elisha and her enthusiasm. Her visit to our home to see what could be done was thorough and her knowledge excellent. The plans were detailed and took into account our wants but also ideas we hadn’t contemplated.
Due to the house being old and needing extra work we were matched to an excellent team of Peter and Mark who visited us and completed the planning in detail giving us options and ways round any problems. Their work was better than we hoped for and everything was on time and handled well with such lovely people. The kitchen has been complimented and we always recommend Wickes.

Firstly, I am so glad Wickes haven't followed the style of some other major online stores and opened a marketplace with tens of thousands of useless and ultimately undeliverable products.

For me, the online Wickes experience is thankfully pleasantly speedy and their search works really well, not returning hundreds (or worse-thousands!) of products leading to hours of fruitless scouring.

When a product says it's available for home delivery I have found this isn't always the case so the site could be improved by labelling the item out of stock on the search results without having to click through on everything to find out. Or a simple "Hide out-of-stock" would simplify ordering time.

Their sizing filter options aren't always helpful, they're too broad-a slider selector would be more useful.

What I find particularly impressive with Wickes though is no matter where I have lived and had a delivery from their local store, their delivery staff are always without exception friendly, courteous and really helpful. No jobsworths or gender dinosaurs ("That's 50L, it's going to be really heavy you know, love...") in sight.

I'm an avid gardener and quite competent home DIYer, and their range of products/varying price points suits me very well. I don't recall ordering anything that wasn't up to my task at hand. I particularly like their own range of quality colour garden paints and the variety of product options on offer is wide enough without it becoming decision paralysis from too many.

The main sell for me is the fact Wickes don't whack you with a huge order charge like some other online DIY stores who charge £40 for the privilige of spending your money with them, so I can order as much as I like without having to factor in a massive delivery cost on top. It means I go back to Wickes as a first point of call now because my cash goes on products-and not delivery costs. £40 is a lot of compost!

I don't drive so the ability to order bulk/heavy items of compost, manure, garden materials and paints and then get free delivery over £100 is an absolute dealbreaker. There is also no particularly noticeable product price increase so Wickes makes sense for me on all counts.

My plants enjoy their own brand compost and top soil and it's not full of stones and other rubbish. The bags are also consistently intact.

I also like the fact I can save things to a specific project shopping list rather than just a save for later. I would welcome an email notification when anything in my projects is on sale!

Wickes 'could' tell some garden suppliers (looking at you, Forest Garden/Charles Bentley) that their products are ridiculously overpriced for their quality/lack of longevity or showing brands Trustpilot reviews on their site. Forewarned is forearmed.

One teeny weeny weeny niggle- why are all their gloves in a large? Not *everybody* who does DIY and major garden projects is big and burly with hands like plates of meat ;-)

Lois at the Wickes store in Norwich (Turnpike Close) was absolutely brilliant.
She quickly understand what l wanted and guided me in with her depth and breadth of knowledge of Wickes products to put together a dream kitchen and utility room that was within my budget. She had some excellent suggestions that l wouldn't have thought of on my own, and she also made the whole experience thoroughly enjoyable.
I found Wickes products really good, but it was the final design that thrilled me - and I can't praise Lois enough for getting me there! She was a real gem.

Lois Hall was very helpful and friendly meeting all our needs - Norwich Wickes store

We purchased a new bathroom from Wickes, Norwich. This included design and installation. Parts of the delivery was well executed, others could be improved and a few was well under par.

What went well: the overall result, and the quality of the new bathroom is very good. The design was great with good utilisation of the space. The installer proposed some improvements to the technical design, which improved the overall result.

What could be improved: During the during the works, I found myself having to project manage between Wickes and the installer as their comunication did not seem to be working well.

What was under par: The drawings from Wickes of the glass shower wall included a supporting bar. Without it, the glass wall would certainly break. Despite the bar being clearly shown in the drawings, Wickes claimed it was not part of the delivery so I had to install it at my own expense. After several emails Wickes also rejected my claim of a refund for my expenses.

Other items from Wickes was seriously delayed and resulted in us having to redesign parts of the bathroom (alternatively stop work for several weeks waiting for the delivery).

Our design consultant, Kathy, gave us a first class service. She was always helpful, easy to contact, didn’t read from a script, and her experience was second to none.
Our fitter, Steve, always answered our queries and got back to us in good time. He always offered us suggestions when he encountered problems and was reliable. We never had to chase him, he had a positive attitude and wanted to do an excellent job.

We contacted Wickes online on Monday 9/09 about an issue with our toilet as it has been flushing for extended periods and not stopping (upwards of an hour). Our bathroom is still under warranty so we got in touch with them to hopefully get this fixed. There was no answer as of Thursday so we called to try and get some further assistance, as our toilet is still out of commission. We were advised that the way we had contacted them was the only way we could get a response and a note was added to chase this up urgently. Over 24 hours later and our initial query hasn't even been acknowledged. This is a shocking level of customer care and they're very happy to take your money on installation, but less happy to resolve an issue in line with their own policies. We would appreciate somewhere this can be escalated as the timeframes for assistance appear non-existent and no one seems willing to take ownership of this issue.

UPDATE-we got a response about 10 minutes after I posted this review (probably conveys that their online contacts aren't the best way to get a response) and after an email exchange, including us sending photos and videos that our toilet is now flushing non stop, including constantly overnight. Initially we were told this would urgently be looked into on Monday morning, however this has now been amended to end of Tuesday at the latest. Given we have the constant sound of a toilet flushing, which is also wasting a huge amount of water, this is still a disappointing experience and we are now looking at a probable 4/5 days of inconvenience before this is even close to resolved. If anything, we've given more information outlining the severity of the problem and this has downgraded it in Wickes' eyes.

20th September- update. We're still no further forward in getting this issue resolved, despite it being a week since this review was posted. We had some contact at the start of the week, that was largely suggesting that we remove the covered unit ourselves, which we declined as we didn't want to do so and for it to then impact our warranty down the line. Since Wednesday there has been no further contact, so we're looking at another weekend without the toilet functioning and still seemingly no interest from Wickes about giving a timeframe for when someone will be able to come out and fix this problem as they seem unwilling to arrange this, despite the bathroom clearly being under warranty and in line with their own policies. Very disappointing all in all so far, as this saga seems sure to continue with no end in sight.