Kitchen News Updates
I'm afraid Majjie has been neglecting her blogging duties recently ... but that's only because we've had so many kitchen designs to do. Did you all make a New Year's resolution to do something about your kitchen?
Anyway, since nothing has been added here for a while, I thought I'd do a quick round up of gossip and news.
Samsung American fridge-freezers
UK Whitegoods - the service engineers site - has taken the drastic step of recommending that you don't buy a Samsung American fridge-freezer until the manufacturers have sorted out a problem they have with "internal sparking" which can pose a fire risk. The main problem is with RS21 and RS60 models made in 2005 and 2006 ... but UK Whitegoods are not impressed and recommend that if you have a Samsung American style fridge-freezer you should get in touch with Samsung customer service straight away.
Samsung American fridge-freezers are very popular because of their modern looks and low prices. If you want to find an alternative ... that's relatively low cost ... try LG or Whirlpool.
Mark Wilkinson gets an OBE
Furniture designer Mark Wilkinson - of Smallbone and Mark Wilkinson Furniture fame - should be collecting his OBE shortly, as announced in the New Year's honours list.
He has come up with some iconic kitchen designs, in the past, and does sterling work helping to instruct young furniture designers, including a long running apprenticeship scheme at his company. A dyslexia sufferer himself, Mark Wilkinson's OBE was also awarded for services to charity, as a result of his work with children and young offenders with dyslexia and learning disabilities.
Undoubtedly a great designer - way above my league - and very deserving of his award. I just can't help thinking that such a great man could afford to be a bit less litigious when it comes to lesser mortals copying his designs. Perhaps that's just sour grapes on my part ... and no, of course not ... I wouldn't dream of copying any of his kitchen designs!
Case Against Vance Miller Collapses
From the sublime to the ridiculous, perhaps. Vance Miller's kitchen companies (he has to keep changing the name because of bad publicity) have been the subject of numerous customer complaints ... and appeared on BBC 1's Watchdog and Rogue Traders programmes. Documentaries about him, and his entrepeneurial adventures in China have, on the other hand, been rather more positive.
Oldham Trading Standards brought a huge case against him and business colleagues ... lasting 14 weeks ... which collapsed in January and resulted in the suspension of senior Oldham official Tony Allen. The judge criticised him for pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Vance Miller and said that "regrettably I find myself unable to rely on his evidence".
Who knows what the truth is? I certainly don't. There's certainly a lot of lazy journalism about ... labelling Vance "the kitchen gangster" ... and yet there are also a lot of complaints about him too. He himself has admitted that quality control has been a problem in the past and ... judging by the complaints ... he seems to employ a lot of agressive and rude youngsters in his customer service department.
There's no doubting Vance Miller's enthusiasm for selling kitchens ... and for selling them very cheaply. And according to the recent court case, total complaints were only 4% of total sales. It's just that he makes a large number of sales ... twenty to thirty thousand a year ... that's very roughly 1,000 unhappy customers a year.
I'll leave you to make up your own minds whether or not to buy a kitchen from him. You might get a bargain ... or you might get rather less than you bargained for!
Brookmans in Liquidation Again
Many of you will never have heard of Brookmans Design group. They were called that when I worked for them very briefly - a few years ago now. They produced highly priced, good looking, kitchens and for a while supplied the John Lewis Partnership.
They went bust four years ago and were bought by entrepeneur Leo Caplan who set up a company called SOC Ltd to continue to manufacture the kitchens in Sheffield. The factory was finally closed when the business stopped trading a second time, just before Christmas ... although no customers lost out.
Leo Caplan meanwhile had been on a further kitchen company buying spree. He bought Smallbone and Mark Wilkinson Furniture when they went bust last March and added Alternative Plans (a very upmarket London-based kitchen retailer) last November ... to his new kitchen company Canburg.
Apparently, the Brookmans brand name is likely to be bought by Canburg (as reported by trade publication EK&BBusiness) and the kitchens will then be produced in Devizes (home of Smallbone) as an "exclusive bespoke production for the extremely wealthy". Does that description apply to any of you?
Will Wren be the new MFI?
Going back to cheap kitchens. Remember Hygena? The brand name of some MFI products. Well the Hygena brand was originally founded by a guy called Malcolm Healey who sold it to MFI for multi-millions of £'s.
He then went to America and did the same thing with a cabinet manufacturer there ... built it up and sold it for millions. He's also connected with the Ebuyer (IT and electrical goods) internet business in the UK ... which has started to sell cheap kitchens called Wren.
Wren has also opened up a few showrooms recently, at Aintree, Horwich (Bolton), Howden (E.Yorkshire) and Stevenage ... so you can go and have a look at the kitchens. They have colour matched, rigid carcasses with soft close (Metabox - or similar) drawers and standard melamine front edging (as far as I can tell). The spec isn't bad for the price ... and the marketing is brilliant (well I guess that's what Mr Healey is good at) ... question is ... what's their customer service like and how do they deal with problems and complaints? That's what lets most of the cheap and cheerful suppliers down ... and that's when their customers stop being so cheerful.
Comments
Well ... there's a coincidence! No sooner do I mention Vance Miller than he pops up again on BBC1's Rogue Traders. His current company (although he won't be listed as a director) is called Rock Solid Kitchens.
Rogue Traders set up a sales situation and got a Rock Solid rep in ... to sell them a kitchen. The rep claimed that they were selling 1,000 kitchens a week and that 99.3% of them were delivered with no problems.
So was that particular kitchen one of the 99.3% with no problems? Not exactly. All of the doors were damaged; the worktops were missing, as was the oven housing fascia; and it was the wrong oven.
Mind you, the problems were all sorted out eventually ... after more than 100 phone calls and three no-show appointments for deliveries.
See what I mean about cheap and cheerful companies falling down on the customer service? And wasn't it unlucky that the Rogue Traders kitchen was one of that 0.7% (or was it 0.5% as Mr Miller said on the programme ... or was it 4% as reported from the court case) of kitchens that did have problems!
I recently ordered a kitchen from Wrens, a 25% deposit was placed to secure the order. Having checked some dimensions in our kitchen it transpired one unit would need to be changed for a smaller one. Simple enough you would think, the unit was changed via a phone call to the branch.
On finalising the remaining 75% payment some 6 days later it was noted on the invoice that the smaller unit was charged at the same price as the larger one. This was queried at the branch and agreed that 10% of the unit price would be re-credited to my card. Having not seen the credit appear on my account after a week I visited the branch again to query the delay.
It was again committed that the re-credit would be promptly arranged. Having now chased the re-credit again (now three weeks later); the branch manager explains that the credit can not be released until the kitchen is delivered a month after placing the order. As any change to the account would in effect cancel the order.
At this point it seem Wrens account practices are ridiculous, and customer information and service score very low indeed. My advice is, if you do use Wren, dont pay until the order is fully ratified and checked in detail, buyer beware indeed!
Well, I'm sorry you're disappointed with the service you've had from Wren Mr Roberts ... although I can't help thinking that waiting a month for the refund of 10% of the cost of one unit ... isn't the end of the world!
I take your point about it not being great customer service, though.
I'd be interested to hear what you think about the rest of the service, after you've had your kitchen fitted.
Being an ex-employee of Wren I feel I am at the advantage of knowing a bit more about how they work and sell kitchens.
As you have already pointed out they are opening up showrooms all over the country spreading south from Howden in Yorkshire. Wren are fairly new being two years old having started selling kitchens via the internet. They have a trade side which they are trying to grow which offers approx 20% off for trade customers.
Wren produce their own units at their factory in Howden and have recently secured another factory with the intention of producing their own range of doors so in essence making the whole kitchen unit.
The product I feel is good value and of a good standard - what I don't like about them is the way they sell kitchens.
I have never been a fan of hard selling or drop closing a deal as I feel it undervalues the product and makes the company look desperate for the deal at any cost. Pressure is applied to customers to place an order upon their first viewing of their plans and quote. This has a feel of a direct selling company rather than a high street kitchen showroom.
A thing to note is they don't have price lists and I would question their Sales. How can you offer 50% off a price if you have never listed the price to start with?
Staff recieve a weeks training in Howden which covers very basic knowledge of kitchens but concentrates more on system operations. The selling skills part of the training is out of date and very old hat.
Staff are recruited from many sectors of the kitchen trade (most I know of, who had experience, have left or have been dismissed) but a lot have never been in the kitchen design business before, a very mixed bunch.
If you do buy a kitchen with Wren don't bank on your designer being there the next time you visit the showroom!
The customer service side of things is going to be sticky by nature as the more volume they do the harder it is going to be to keep quality controls up to spec also with high staff turnover I would question how much experience someone has got in dealing with the issues that arise when something goes wrong with a kitchen.
The aim of Wren is to become a market leader and to topple the likes of Wickes and B&Q but with aggressive selling and a cut throat approach to their new staff I wonder how long it will be before they get a bad reputation.
Thanks Anonymous - for taking the trouble to give us a personal account of what Wren are like.
It sounds a lot like the experience I had with Kitchens Direct (what seems like aeons ago, now) - except that they did keep some of their staff for long-ish periods - and (as I twigged eventually) the quality of the kitchens was fairly basic.
I sort of had high hopes of Wren - they started off by providing reasonable quality kitchens at very reasonable prices - and by saying they weren't going to be like the other kitchen companies, with inflated list prices and dodgy discounts and "Sales".
That's a new one on me - having no list price - how do the salespeople know what to charge? I guess you just have the "Sale" price.
It's a real problem in the kitchen industry - this forcing of a higher volume of sales using various sales and marketing techniques (I guess it could just be called clever marketing) - and the use of under qualified sales designers. It's only the customers, though, that can really bring about a change - by refusing to fall for it.
Wren's sales model sounds a lot like Moben's - where the showrooms are just used to generate leads for a salesforce using direct sales methods - and we all know what happened to Moben!
I hope you've found yourself a better job.
I am an employee of Wren Kitchens and feel a lot of what Anon says is a bit misguided. Maybe the showroom he was in was fond of the hard sell or maybe anon is just a hard seller. Either way this is not my experience, yes the company want you to sell kitchens but this is no different than any other sales environment after all we are there to sell, no sales equals no wages.
I have never been encouraged to "take the hard sell approach" Maybe that is just me and the way I choose to do it but I have never been told to "tie them to the chair till they buy" and let's face it it won't work in the long run as the customer can always cancel the next day, no questions asked.
With regards to his comment on the price list, if you go onto the Wren Kitchens website and select a kitchen range you can get a price for each unit and the price based on current offers etc. Also as I am sure he/she knows you can't advertise a sale price without it having been on sale at the higher price first.Anon also goes onto talk about recruiting people from various backgrounds and basically says he/she thinks this is a bad thing. Having had no kitchen design (or sales) experience before joining Wren, naturally I find this offensive. I work alongside people with a lot of experience and have found it most beneficial. I think if someone shows promise and has the right attitude to work then surely they should be given the chance at a new career. Yes they may make mistakes but who doesn't and if everyone works as a team and we all bring something to the table then a successful team you will have.
Customer service has to be the most important thing and at the forefront of any business whether a greasy spoon cafe or a large kitchen retailer. I am sure all companies can improve on their customer service and as long as the customer service grows with the business then you should be ok. There will always be room for improvement.
Other people on this thread spoke about getting prices for single items and how this wasn't possible but I can assure you if the consultant knows what he/she is doing then they can get you a price whether it is for one leg or one unit, even the receptionists will do it for you,(reception are very important).
I know people will think well he is a Wren employee, of course he will be positive but I believe as does anon that Wren have a great product at a great price and in my showroom we have great people. Wren is a new company with a lot of ambition as do I, I believe Wren will be a success and I believe I will be there to share in it. Only my opinion.
All these Anons are getting confusing!
I'm not against inexperienced people being taken on as kitchen designers ... what I am against is the very poor training that is normally provided. The sales training is usually a lot more prominent than the kitchen design training.
There's a lot that a kitchen designer needs to know to be good at their job and there needs to be some sort of proper training ... but that's another story.
I have just finished fitting a Wren kitchen for someone.
I initially had Howdens and Magnet plan kitchens for this customer, but he instead chose to go to Wren.
The quality of the units seem fine, the doors too. His particular choice of worktop left something to be desired in terms of quality. However he was supplied with the wrong colour breakfast bar, no end panels, no pelmet or cornice. I have as a result had to fit the kitchen in my spare time.
The plan/design is an absolute joke, my nine year old could have done a better job.
By accident I damaged a door and went into a show room to order a replacement. The guy who had actually planned the kitchen couldn't tell me how much it would be - he explained that because the whole item was priced as a unit he couldn't find the individual price.
I know how much Howdens and Magnet's equivalent doors would cost but expected to pay more. Eventually he, with the help of one of his unhelpful and smart alec colleagues, found it. £99.00 for a 500mm black gloss door.
In fairness he asked his colleague if that was the final price - yes was the reply. The sales guy was a nice enough lad who had worked for a few kitchen companies. I explained to him that I fit lots of kitchens and that price was expensive for the above mentioned door (around double). What became obvious to me during the conversation and also due to the attitude of his colleague is that these are not actually inexpensive kitchens.
The staff are generally less than useless at designing kitchens, and have no general understanding of even their own products let alone kitchens or fitting. Profit/sales is the total focus.
The kitchens seem cheap(ish) because you need to check that you will have end panels etc, they seem to keep costs down by not supplying these in some cases.
In this day and age, 2011, people don't want an outdated 1980/90's selling approach. The kitchens are not bad but the overall total product is appalling. I would never recommend this company. If you do decide to buy and take them another company's price/plan, double check that you are actually getting exactly the same like for like quote.
Thanks Anonymous 2 - for your input on Wren - it doesn't sound good!
As a fitter you will know that there's a general problem at the bottom of the market - with poor quality designs.
There are moves afoot to make kitchen design more of a profession and to introduce proper training and accreditation ... the sooner the better I say ... but it's not going to happen tomorrow!
What an experience you had. The reason he couldn't tell you the price of the door alone is because the whole computer system they use is free software and in house designed. This means everything is a work in procress with updates almost daily. Put this with a lack of a price list and things become harder for the sales person to work out.
Bear in mind most of the staff will of only been with the company a very short amount of time it all adds up to a bit of a mismash.
As for the product and no end panels and such, the kitchen ranges are geared at keeping costs down and the selling point is to not supply end panels if the carcase is matched in colour to the doors. The lack of pelmet and trim is also for the benefit of keeping costs down.
Next time you venture into a Wren showroom look for a flyover between two wall units ......... you won't find one as they don't promote it because their CAD system doesn't do one. How can you show anything more bespoke if the design system you're using won't allow you to show it?
Talking of the CAD system if you have used 20/20, Planit or Articad forget it ... their CAD is built for very basic design with very basic graphics. On the plus side they are working on it all the time.
Check out their webpage - the CAD system is on there. A few things aren't included in the online version but its pretty much the same! Investment in the showrooms yes - investment in training no, product knowledge no. Hard selling, ruthless and will do anything to get the deal!
Majjie, the reason for the Sales in every kitchen company is geared at having a pressue point to apply to get the customer to buy. If you don't have an end date for your quote or a reason to force the customer to make their mind up quicker, its harder to sell.
When a customer is told a price could go up at a certain time, it applies the pressue and gives the sales person another reason to contact the customer - its all about the selling.
The truth of the matter is, none of the companies sell their kitchens at full price at all of their stores. Maybe one store within the chain at any given time will be selling at full price to enable the other stores to sell at a sale price.
Have you ever noticed in any Sale, in any company, the amount of tat that is suddenly produced in Sale time that was supposedly sold at full price? Makes you wonder doesn't it?
The reason Wren changed their mind on having Sales was because customers weren't buying quick enough so a Sale had to be created to apply the pressure.
In case you're wondering, I have worked for almost all of the high street kitchen companies now I'm independent and I don't need or have Sales!
Hi again Anonymous,
Yes - I'm perfectly well aware why companies have bogus Sales - I've written about it a lot - and as I said, I worked for Kitchens Direct for a while.
Kitchens Direct used to supposedly have their kitchens on sale for the full price - for the required period (they stopped advertising a Sale) - but during that time every kitchen sold was marked as being sold at the wrong price (i.e less than it should have been). I don't know whether that would work these days.
Bogus Sales and discounts are obviously a method that works - that's why I say that it will only stop if consumers reject that approach.
It's not true that it's necessary to have bogus Sales to be successful at selling kitchens - as you say, independent retailers often don't use that approach - and neither do IKEA or John Lewis.
IKEA are at that cut throat, bottom end of the market - and yet they have completely transparent prices. John Lewis, on the other hand, are much more upmarket and they rely on customer service and honesty to attract sales.
Good morning Majjie,
I totally agree with you that you don't need to have a Sale to win over the customer and to be honest a lot of the customers I dealt with were cottoning on to the fact there was always an offer or Sale of some sort.
I tend to practise the up front and honest approach myself and have found it tends to be a better way of selling than the silly game playing other companies want to do.
The disadvantage the customer always tends to be at, is that they are normally first time buyers of a kitchen. This naturally puts them at a disadvantage and throws them into the unknown with the sharks of the industry as well as the better ones.
Consumers don't know any better and try their hardest just to get a cheaper price which is why they will spend hours having their kitchen redesigned and quoted at more than one place. Considered purchases that kitchens are, but companies don't like you to consider it!
For me selling a kitchen isn't just about securing the sale, its so much more than that. Building relationships, service, good quality and affordability have to all play a part as well as good design and listening to what a customer is saying and wanting.
At Wren one of the guys had the fanatastic ability to completely ignore what the customer wanted which was ok but when he didn't get the deal it would be every other factor apart from the one, that he didnt give the customer what they wanted or required. To say it was uncomfortable to watch him knocking money off the price to try to get the deal is an understatement. He never did "close" the deal with price dropping.
Majjie, I didnt work for Kitchen's Direct but did have a spell with Space Kitchens years ago now. What an eye opener that was! Ruthless, over priced and hardselling to the max. The games those guys played were just typical of direct selling companies.
I will never understand why companies get selling kitchens so wrong, with high prices and daft sales, and don't offer great service and well trained staff. To me it's easy to be successful if you just concentrate on the other parts of your company and are not just tunnel visioned to get the money.
With you on all of that Anonymous!
I guess it's partly historical that the culture of Sales and discounts exists - so the big retailers feel they can't move away from it without being at a disadvantage with respect to their competitors.
We need a consumer revolt! Trouble is people seem to be so easily hoodwinked by the prospect of a bargain!
(Incidentally - there's a lively community of kitchen people on Twitter - don't know if you're already there?)
We have just installed a Wren kitchen and I am very pleased with the price and quality.
They were the last quote we got and were the best on price/quality. No pressure to place an order, I think the girl did three plans before we placed the order. The whole installation included 6 appliances and silestone worktops. As promised they beat all quotes on the appliances - we checked online prices against their's.
The units all arrived ready assembled and well packaged. I feel that factory assembled units is a must for kitchen units as they will carry a lot of weight and get plenty of use. The difference is that they are put together in a jig and glued and screwed which is far better than having flat packed units assembled on site by a fitter (bodger!). The fixings of flatpacks simply aren't up to the job. Despite the packaging there was damage to one unit. One phone call and they ordered another without even seeing the damage and offered to courier it over. They didn't even want the damaged one back. The curved plinths had been omitted from the spec and not quoted for. These were duly ordered and delivered without any extra charge.
It's true that the plan is basic and not in any detail for fitting. However as it is all assembled it's pretty straight forward. The only real issue was an oven housing had been mis-calculated but this was resolved to my satisfaction, and they have agreed to cover the cost of the extra work required to do this ( we didn't use their fitters).
The worktops are supplied by a third party company - Rotherhams. They come out and template(hi-tech job with lasers and laptops, downloaded to the factory, clever stuff) before manufacturing and returning to fit. They haven't arrived yet, it's a couple of weeks from templating.
So far, despite the few problems, I'm pleased with my choice and would say that they are well worth considering.
Very glad to hear that you're pleased with your Wren kitchen Michael ... although I must say your comment reads a bit like an advert. I'm always suspicious of positive comments because most people don't search around for blogs to comment on - when they're perfectly happy with the service they received - they tend to do that only when they're unhappy.
So - apologies if you are a genuine happy customer - but I suspect some link with Wren.
I don't agree with your comments about flat pack kitchens either - there are some very good ones around with fixings that are well "up to the job". Also a "bodger" can make any kitchen look bad, flat pack or not, whilst a good kitchen fitter can make a flat pack kitchen look the bees knees!
I'm sure Wren kitchens are fine - and if they really did sort out quite a few mistakes as quickly and easily as you say - then all power to them. A lot of other kitchens, including some flat packs are just as fine, though.So looks like I'm not the only one who has had problems with Wren.
I had a kitchen delivered in December with 2 drawer fronts and 5 door fronts missing. I'm struggling to understand how a ready assembled kitchen can pass quality control when the doors haven't been fitted!
I contacted Wren the day the delivery arrived (15th December) to inform them of the problem and I was told they would try and get the missing parts sent out to me before Christmas but couldn't promise anything. I was then told that they would send the delivery to my nearest store to allow delivery last Saturday. It is now the 10th of Jan and I still dont have the missing fronts or a date for delivery. This is making life very difficult as I work offshore and won't be home to receive a delivery after this week.
I will be calling again today and will no doubt get fobbed off with a load of ******** as usual.
The product itself is good quality and well priced but the aftersales has been useless. I simply want the items delivered that I have already paid for.
Sorry to hear about your troubles Bailey. It's the perennial problem of kitchens sold at low prices ... the companies don't employ sufficient staff (or staff of a high enough calibre) to cope with the after sales service.
We are still waiting for end panels and cupboard doors for a Wren fitted kitchen 6 months after we ordered them. They have promised and failed several times to provide them and are constantly promising to ring back with news and hardly ever do.
We were eventually told that the kitchen we have had fitted is no longer in production so chances are they have run out of panels and are waiting until they receive enough orders for panels to justify making another batch.
We also discovered that there are several other customers who are in the same position. We are constantly badgering them to little avail. We have even seen a change in shop manager after they handed their notice in and was immediately put on gardening leave. The shop staff are willing but unable to help. As stated in earlier posts, their Customer Service and follow-up is awful. After this experience I would not recommend Wren to anyone.
That's not good Anonymous. When a kitchen manufacturer stops production of a kitchen range, they should still have some of the doors in stock - for just such an eventuality as you describe. It all comes down to spending money on customer service ... which is where Wren seems to be falling down.
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