Monday 18 July 2011

My faith in customer service has been restored

A few posts ago I wrote about painting my lovely Summerhouse, but I hadn't mentioned that we have had a lot of problems with the timber since it was first bought almost five years ago. Knots were falling out and leaving gaps, shrinkage in the timber that left gaps you could see daylight through and generally leaks in various places. The local company that we bought it from initially sent someone out a few times to put sealer in places to stop the leaks, but it never really did the trick, so we fell out of love with our Summerhouse and hardly used it anymore.

So this year we decided to re-clad the bad bits ourselves and then paint it outside and inside to give it a complete makeover. The trouble was we couldn't get the same tongue and groove cladding that matched the original wood. we tried everywhere locally.

So in desperation we bought something similar but it left us with a 2 inch gap at the top of the back of the Summerhouse, as the overlap wasn't the same as the original.   So we came to a halt in our makeover. I then decided to contact the Summerhouse manufacturer (Shires) direct and was given a contact to e-mail called Maggie. I had a lovely reply and an offer of replacement timber ! I can't tell you how amazed we were. After all this time of putting up with the problems I realise that I should have contacted Shires in the first place. Why on earth didn't I do that ?????

The timber arrived this morning  YEAH ! so we can now finish the job. Thanks to Shires generous after sales customer service and the very helpful Maggie .  Isn't it great to know that some companies do care about their customers satisfaction and their Company reputation. So a big big thank you to Shire Garden Buildings.

And here is a photo of the Summerhouse not finished yet, but now we have the wood it will be watertight and I can paint the inside cream and finish painting the back and the side. We look forward to using it all summer again.

4 comments:

Pam's English Garden said...

Dear Maureen, Your summerhouse is lovely and I am so glad your problems with it are resolved at last. I can just envision sitting inside drinking tea with you! P. x

Kath said...

Restores your faith (as well as your summer house) doesn't it?

Maureen said...

Aahh PAM that would be lovely to have a cup of tea with you, shame you are so far away. Thanks for the comment and I hope you are well.
M x

Hi Veg Heaven, it certainly does on both counts. We can't wait to get stuck in and finish it.
M x

Sue said...

Hi Maureen love the summerhouse very nice would love to visit I'll bring the PIMMS!