Wren Kitchens - Inverness Anmeldelser 9

We had a fantastic experience purchasing our new kitchen from Wren Kitchens in Inverness, and we can’t speak highly enough of the service we received from Mary, the store manager.

Mary was friendly, patient, and incredibly knowledgeable. She took the time to understand what we wanted, without ever being pushy. Her attention to detail made us feel confident that we were making the right choices, and she was always happy to explain.

Highly recommended! 👏

Excellent delivery from the drivers today. Well mannered and very efficient. Put all the kitchen into the room with great care.
Thank you Stuart and Stephen.

Stuart and Stephen were friendly and very proffessional.

Absolutely can’t do enough for you in the beginning until that contract is signed and money is transferred over, then it changes!
After sales is non existent and any problems or damaged parts they don’t want to know.
I’m still waiting on a reply and they have not replaced the damaged parts, also the worktops came all the wrong size after being templated by their own fitter now have to wait more than 2 weeks for new ones!

Very positive experience with Wren.
Shaker infinity, Chelsea sage green with midnight starburst quarts worktops.

Danny Hill (designer) Inverness, very helpful and relaxed, didn’t feel pressured or rushed at any point during this process.
Communication excellent throughout regarding delivery times, templating schedules etc and all arrived as advised.

Fitter was through WREN, Lee Mackay Joinery, a local team to me, they were an absolutely brilliant of team of guys, nothing was to much trouble, and I am delighted with the workmanship and attention to detail.

No unit or panel damage, 2 appliance blunders where the wrong items were sent, this was rectified fairly quickly considering my remote location at the far north of Scotland!

Quarts worktop fitted through WREN by a company called M2. Sean & Craig brilliant and very helpful as I had awkward stairs to negotiate!

If your planning a new kitchen don’t be put off by all the negative reviews, for every negative there will probably be 10 positives that you don’t hear about!
My experience has been extremely positive throughout.

Following my previous experience with Wren and my subsequent review on Trustpilot, I decided to pursue a complaint with Wren. When you contact Customer Services the only option you have is to speak to someone regarding bespoke worktops or delivery. After many calls to the only option i could use (delivery) the complaint regarding the showroom and the issues I experienced were passed on to the regional manager in my area for investigation. I was contacted by the newly appointed manager for the showroom who was very helpful and understanding and assurances were given that my complaint would be fully investigated, however I was to provide specific details and a timeline by e-mail. I was seeking compensation for monies paid out to my trades people as a retainer for the kitchen order not being fulfilled at the initially agreed timeframe (it was due in 4 weeks and 11 weeks later it hadn't arrived). I sent the e-mail detailing my experience and a couple of days later received a call from Head Office to notify me that my complaint had been passed on and a response given in 24 hours. I received a call from Head Office to acknowledge that i was clearly dissatisfied but they wouldn't be offering any compensation as their terms and conditions stipulated how payment was to be made (4 weeks in advance of delivery) despite what I had detailed previously that the sales person told me to ignore all the detail in the correspondence and that payment would be requested when the kitchen was being delivered. Following this I got an e-mail from head office detailing their reasons for rejecting my claim for compensation and quite clearly Wren are blaming this all on me. I will never use this inept company again, nor will I recommend them to anyone. My only course of action now is the Ombudsman. I e-mailed the showroom manager to discuss this in more detail but clearly Wren are wanting me to just go away!

Made an appointment on line . Got a call just as we were leaving asking what we were going in for. I explained we were interested in getting new doors for our Wren kitchen - the mood dropped instantly and the guy said he'd have to ask his manager if this was ok. He then came back and said something vague like it might be ok for us to go in . We then immediately got a message cancelling our booking. I called and asked to speak to the manager who said we were still to go and someone would see us.
We were there about an hour and a quarter - no offer of a refreshments ( very different experience from when we bought the Kitchen ) and then were given a quote of £17.500 - just for doors! To put this into perspective we paid I think £20-22K for our kitchen and utility room with quartz worksurfaces and all appliances . This quote was just for doors in the kitchen.
The guy said he could get them half price with a code and called the next day with the new price , however I still felt that was too much just for doors. I said I would consider a new kitchen rather than pay this and he said he'd price it. That was 4 weeks ago!!
This branch isn't a patch on Glasgow where we purchased the original kitchen, very disappointing experience.

Wren make the claim that they are ‘different’ and they are because they have a brilliant business model. The design and order service are brilliant, the staff attentive, coffee and biscuits good and the price not too bad, competitive. Plus once completed, the product is good.
It is the bit in between. The execution bit. Let’s establish the second part of the business, and that is they don’t care. The money is safe and secure so why would they put any effort or investing looking after customers and ensuring the most stressful bit, is as least stressful as can be.
Delivery. Something, probably quite a lot of the order will be damaged. That means that fitting the kitchen has to stop while the replacement parts are delivered. We had to wait a week and then reschedule with the fitters to come back and finish, so the project is delayed and other trades have been put off. There is also no guarantee that the replacement parts are not damaged, as I am waiting for the second set of replacements.
If you have any restrictions on access, even if you make it very clear at the time of ordering, boy will you know about it. It took a pretty robust conversation with my first driver to get him to deliver, then as they were being everything up the stairs the complaining about how hard the job was comical and I learned some new swear words and details of a bad back that I was making worse.
Then we have the farce of collection of rubbish. I am waiting here for the fifth attempt to get my rubbish collected. My flat bedroom is full of the of kitchen and the lounge full of offcuts and packing, making the flat uninhabitable, which in our case is ok as this is a prenatal and we don’t live here. Wren don’t know that and don’t care.
Multiple calls to the so called customer care has failed to get anything done. I feel sorry for the people on the end of the phone, as there is nothing they can do but say sorry. They can’t escalate to a manager, because the manager doesn’t care. No senior managers will get involved, because they don’t care. I was asked what resolution I wanted when I made a formal complaint, which was do what I paid for and you promised, to which the response was they will review.
I wrote to the store manager to complain, could even be bothered to acknowledge receipt, let alone respond, further evidence of part two of the strategy, don’t care.
My fitters were brilliant. They have been contracted by Ween for two months but have now refused any more jobs because the stress is too much. We paid £3000 for fitting, plus a further £1250 to the fitters for all the stuff Wren don’t pay them for. That is top dollar fitting costs for the lowest commitment to fitting with the fitters taking all the grief because Wren don’t care. My fitters told me that on the next job the customer has additional fitting fees if £2500, which came as quite a shock to them.
It is a brilliant strategy. Wren have worked out that customers only buy one kitchen so bad experiences have no effect. Great service wouldn’t bring the customer back because they are not going to buy another kitchen in the next few weeks, so make sure to cut every cost possible, avoid any accountability, protect all managers and senior managers, and laugh all the way to the bank.
So dear reader, you have some options here. My guidance would be to avoid them but you could use the design service then take the plan to a fitter and buy the units online. Or you can use Wren for everything, pay exploitative fitting costs, go through all the stress of fitting and then find a dark room to lie down in.
You have been warned.
Just as I have been writing this for the fifth day in a row the collection is delayed from the morning to the afternoon, and no doubt it will be pushed back to tomorrow so I can go through this farce again.