Hi Alex,
Im a member on other forums, which you are getting ALOT OF VERY BAD reviews on, with regards to your customer service. Apparently you are banning people from further orders who have returned products to you, which have either been faulty or not happy with the product.
As I always use your company for pretty much all my WFP products, this is very alarming news. Surely this its not the way your customer service operates is it....?? I could understand it if it was one or two reviews but its LOTS of people who are saying have been banned from purchasing from your company.
Firstly I'm sure you would like to know this and Secondly could you shed some light on the matter.
Dazzler
Hi Dazzler
Thanks for asking this question. I am aware that on some of the unregulated Facebook groups there have been some rather inaccurate posts being made about us over the last few days -this does happen from time to time when someone wants to sound off if they feel aggrieved or have not received from us exactly what they wanted and in the exact way they wanted it.
As you have been using our company for some time now I am sure that you have experienced our usual excellent standard of customer service. We have over 11,000 customers and we work hard to provide a high standard of customer service, with courteous and knowledgeable staff. This standard of service is applied to all clients whether we are helping customers with their first order or whether handling warranty replacements.
We do have an excellent warranty program on our own products and the products we supply. As we are selling tools into the commercial market these are generally subject to a return to base warranty as is standard with most re-sellers in these types of industries. This means that if a warranty issue occurs the product will need to be returned for examination and then repair or replacement. However we are often able to 'shortcut' this by means of photos or videos showing the issue - sometimes then we are able to replace without the need for return - however this does not replace the return to base warranty and we will often still need the faulty item back to assess - sometimes this is so that we can learn from the failure and other times so that we can return to the manufacturer or supplier.
Sometimes a client simply will not send back the faulty part, even when their postage costs are being covered and they have already received a replacement part. On occasions then we will raise an invoice for these parts until they have been sent back - this is also fairly standard practice and even Amazon have now started doing this - the difference with Amazon is that they automatically charge your credit card after 30 days if the alleged faulty part is not returned or is returned and found not to be faulty (we do not do this!)
So why have a very few clients found themselves banned from doing business with us?
A very few will find that they have been on a temporary hold until an outstanding invoice is settled - if they have found this then they will usually have gone through a process of being reminded to either return a part or to settle the old invoice. This temporary hold is only taken after communication with them about this. If it is regarding a broken part then before sending the new part out they will have been told to keep the old part to return to us.
There are only 2 reasons that we have ever put clients on a permanent exclusion from doing business with us:
1. Fraud - yes unfortunately this does happen from time to time with stolen cards, disappearing goods etc.
2. Abuse - we have a zero-tolerance policy to abuse within our company. We aim to always treat our clients with courtesy, respect and tolerance, even when the exchange with them is stressful. Unfortunately, even after being warned there are a small number of clients who have been persistently threatening, abusive or aggressive - this can include the use of texts, phone, emails or social media. We do not tolerate any such threats or abuse either written or verbal to us or our staff regardless of the circumstances. So after suitable warning if such behaviour or attitude persist, once we have fully resolved whichever issue is being dealt with we inform them that we do want to continue to do business with them. Often this is not believed until the next time they try and order from us.
So in summary there are those that have been banned from doing business with us - this is not because of any warranty issues ever - it is only because of either fraud or abuse.
One thing we all appreciate is that when running your own business, you can choose whom to do business with. Sometimes we exercise this freedom within our sales business just as I used to when window cleaning.
I hope that this has reassured you and we are very happy to say that the majority of our customers are a delight to deal with and very professional.
