Illuminating
Posted: Tue 2 December, 2014 Filed under: B&Q, Domestic, Getting Organised, Green 1 Comment »When I moved here, I had a “mother and child” lamp, which I’ve used as the main illumination in my living room since.
Sadly, both bulbs in the lamp were halogens, so it’s been a bit of an energy hog – which I realised more once I’d bought my OWL energy monitor and saw the way the usage figures went up when I turned the lights on.
As a result, I said that when the bulb(s) finally blew, I’d replace the lamp with one that was more energy-efficient (or at least was able to use more energy-efficient bulbs) and that finally happened today.
So – a new lamp has now been purchased, assembled, and installed. It’s a similar style of ‘mother and child’, but both bulbs are non-halogen and standard-fitting, with eco-bulbs in.
The drop in power-usage is pretty noticable already, and it should result in a noticeable drop in the electricity bill.
All told, I see that as a success all round.
Kitchen Doors
Posted: Thu 19 February, 2009 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, House Work 2 Comments »You’d think we’d have learned after the last farce with B&Q about kitchen doors, but no – Herself found the ones we liked, and ordered them from Ballsup and Quit. And the delivery was due today…
Oh dear, oh lord, oh what a to-do. I don’t know quite how to break it to you, gentle reader – so brace yourself.
B&Q delivered everything. On time. And it all appears to be correct – even the kitchen worktops. My gob has never been so smacked.
It looks like (in fairness to them) B&Q have sorted themselves out in the intervening time, and now everything is bar-coded, and checked in a hand-held terminal before it comes off the truck. If there’s stuff missing, the terminal won’t let them make the delivery.
It makes the delivery a lot slower – they were sodding about on the truck for a good twenty minutes before anything came off it at all – but it means we’ve got everything, and it’s all ready to go.
So fair’s fair. In this case, B&Q has definitely improved, and upped it’s game. Despite myself, I’m impressed.
B&Q Fuckwitticus Commentiara
Posted: Sun 2 December, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, B&Q, Customer Services 5 Comments »Last night, I got another comment on one of my B&Q posts, obviously by someone who doesn’t really understand the entire concept of “read the post, then comment on it”.
This time the comment was
this place is full of shit! did your mum and daddy not teach you fucking manners? try being in our shoes for a day then you’ll know.
Which, considering it was related to the post where I was very polite to the fuckwit chimp “manager” when we were trying to get a sample tile in order to buy 125m² of them. (And yeah, B&Q did lose the sale because of the attitude, but I was still polite to the cretin)
Still, it all adds to the amusement, I guess.
B&Q – Another Attempt
Posted: Sat 14 April, 2007 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, House Work 11 Comments »I forgot to say at the time, (although I did mention it in the summary of the week) but when we were checking out quotes and costs for getting floor tiles for the house – a large task, but one that makes a lot of sense in the long run- we decided to brave B&Q again. After all, I’ve slagged off their home delivery service and website, and the comments from various B&Q employees on there have all made out that the people in the store are a lot better.
Now bear in mind I didn’t go in with the attitude “B&Q are shit” or any preconceptions – and also bear in mind that we’ll be going back later for some of the things we do want, which we’ve seen there for decent prices.
Anyway, we’re looking for (at the time – the specs changed slightly later on) roughly 126m² of floor tiles. That equates to One Fuck Of A Lot of tiles. About a thousand tiles, depending on the tile size (obviously) and when you take into account the amunt of tile adhesive and grout we want as well, we’re talking somewhere around the £2-2,500 mark.
We see a tile type we like, and (when we eventually find one) ask a member of the staff team whether it’s possible to buy one tile to take home to check we like the things when they’re in situ.
“Oh, I dunno, snomydeparmen. I’llgoantryanfinesommunwhoknows” Roughly translated, this works out as “Oh, I don’t know. Sorry, it’s not my department. Wait here, and I’ll go and try to find someone who does know, and may be able to help you“. I think.
We wait.
Eventually he comes back with someone else.
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy”
“We’re not wanting to just take one, we’re quite happy to pay for it”
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy. You can buy a complete box, and bring it back for a refund”
“We don’t want a box. We just want one tile so we can see how it looks. Look, here’s one that’s seperate, so you don’t even need to break open a pack”
“We don’t do sample tiles. It’s not policy.You can buy a complete box, and then bring it back for a refund”
“Look, we’re going to be buying a hundred and twenty five square metres of these tiles. We would like to buy this one seperate tile, so we can see how it looks in the place before buying two grands worth of tiles, plus adhesive and grout”
You guessed it.
“We don’t do sample tiles. You can buy a full box, then return it if you don’t like them”
“OK, so for want of this one seperate tile, you’re prepared to lose a sale of about two thousand pounds?”
“We don’t do sample tiles”
“Can I speak to your manager please? I’d just like them to know why they’re going to lose this amount of business”
“I am the manager” (Aye, right)
“OK, then. You’ve just lost our business, because you won’t let us buy this one tile, because it’s ‘not policy’. That’s two grand (roughly) plus all the adhesive, tile grout and so on. Nice work.
He did let us have the tile in the end, once we’d started walking away. Amazing what that’ll do, just demonstrating that actually yes, you can find other places, and that B&Q aren’t the be-all and end-all of the business. I’m not quite sure what the ‘policy’ is that he was quoting, but I suspect it’s “B&Q have a policy of not wanting large dollops of business. Piss off to a proper place instead”
Unsurprisingly, we won’t be going with them for the tiles. And yet again it gives the lie to all those commenters who say that the staff in-store at B&Q are really helpful and do their best to help anyone who asks.
Aye, right. 200% of fuck-all is still fuck-all.
Dancing On
Posted: Fri 5 January, 2007 Filed under: B&Q, Cynicism 1 Comment »As someone called Chris pointed out, it really is quite surprising in some ways that I haven’t yet mentioned about B&Q’s Norwich store, and their bizarre interview techniques. (Except of course, I now have – and was planning to anyway)
Mind you, I think it’s actually pretty apt that they’d ask prospective employees to dance and pull funny faces. After all, B&Q have always appeared to have a preference for employing clowns…
B&Q – Comments and Feedback
Posted: Sun 17 December, 2006 Filed under: B&Q, Charm School, Customer Services 1 Comment »Back in February 2005, I wrote a very snarky post about B&Q‘s general inefficiency, incompetence, and piss-poor attitude.
It’s had a fair number of comments along the way, but yesterday, some charming person from B&Q dropped by to leave his thoughts.
Lovely…
B&Q
Posted: Wed 22 June, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, General 32 Comments »No, not another set of events with that bunch of cunts, but having just looked through my referrers, and checked back, I’m pleased to confirm that I’m now in the top 10 on Google for the search “B&Q customer services“.
Told you I’d manage it…
New category
Posted: Wed 23 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services 6 Comments »In light of the fact they’re such utter, utter tossers, I’ve elected to give B&Q their own category.
I’m probably going to make up a seperate page on D4D™ for the posts as well. You know, just to make sure that Google and so on notice it too… *grin*
At the time of writing, D4D™ is #30 in Google for “B&Q Customer Services“. That’s only going to go up, if I’ve owt to do with it.
In the meantime, if you’ve come here looking for how to contact B&Q’s Customer Services, they can be reached on 0845 609 6688, or by emailing customerservicesdepartment@b-and-q.co.uk. Their address is listed here.
B&Q – You couldn’t make it up
Posted: Wed 23 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 36 Comments »Following yesterday’s successful uplift of the-stuff-we-didn’t-order, I got a call from B&Q’s customer services person this morning. (Yes, I did mean person. I reckon they’ve only got three or four people to deal with the entire country) She was ringing to confirm that the uplift had happened, and told me that the refund on our now-cancelled order would happen once they could confirm that the items had been received back in the warehouse. Supposedly this could take up to two weeks!
“Oh, well I don’t know how often the delivery people return to the warehouse”
Every fucking day or two, I’d hope. Twat.
I also asked if she’d seen the report on BBC’s “Watchdog” last night about the shyster fuckwit twunts. She hadn’t.
“Oh no, I was watching the Sci-Fi channel instead”
Well, thanks for that information, but I really would have to try very hard in order to give a shit. Anyway, this meant she conveniently hadn’t seen that the majority of complaints regarding B&Q were regarding the fact they can’t find their own arses with both hands, a team-building exercise, and a flashlight. Let alone find the correct items in the warehouse, and deliver them to the correct house at the correct time. Rocket Science this ain’t.
The suggestion that perhaps I should write in to Watchdog myself, as they at least seemed to get some results out of B&Q didn’t go down overly well. Nor did the reminder from me when she said “well, we have to make sure that all the items are in good condition” that she had actually said I could leave the worktops out in the front garden ’til they were collected, and that she would authorise me to do so and it wouldn’t affect our refund. (We ignored their directive to leave it out, and kept it all dry in the house instead)
“Oh yes, I did say that didn’t I? I do hope you haven’t done so, the weather’s been awful in that two weeks.”
Hallelujah
Posted: Wed 23 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services Leave a comment »Well, blow me down. B&Q finally managed to get something right, and removed all the stuff yesterday. Wonders will never cease.
Of course, now we’ve still got to get the refund and compensation etc. out of the tightfisted pisswads, but well, at least we have a utility room that’s not doubling as stock storage for the arsehole tossers at B&Q.
Snowy 2
Posted: Tue 22 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, General Leave a comment »Actually, the walk to work wasn’t too bad at all. It felt warmer than it did last night (no blindingly obvious comments about it being daylight, please) so all in all it’s been an OK morning so far.
Herself is going to be dealing with the B&Q morons if/when they arrive. I’m still betting that they’ll have continued to screw it up, and won’t have the correct paperwork to remove all the items. Of course, I could be wrong. But I wouldn’t count on it, when it comes to that shower of shitheads.
Stylish Apology
Posted: Thu 17 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services 2 Comments »I don’t normally read spam-mail from Amazon, and I didn’t read the original mail this refers to, but I do like the certain style with which they’ve apologised for the fuck up. It’s paragraph three that wins it for me…
We’re writing to correct a recent e-mail notification that we sent about “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6).”
In our e-mail, we stated that this title would not be immediately available from our suppliers, and that you may want to search for it elsewhere. We would like confirm that this book will be available from our suppliers and will be delivered to UK customers on the day of release (July 16th 2005).
We assure you that howlers have been sent to the muggles responsible for this action and we are investigating the possibility that You-Know-Who may have been involved.
I do like it when people can turn round, admit to a fuck up, and make me smile at the same time. Far better than the B&Q “It’s not our system, you must’ve ordered it incorrectly” methodology that makes me just want to reach for the over-powered cattle-prod.
B&Q – still going
Posted: Thu 10 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, General 2 Comments »And in direct contrast I also got an email last night from B&Q’s customer services saying “Thanks for your comments, we’ve forwarded them on to someone who’ll talk to you soon”. Impressive – only three days between sending the email and receiving a response.
I despair.
B&Q – Finale(ish)
Posted: Wed 9 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 5 Comments »I’ve just cancelled the order with B&Q. Now we just have to fight to get the wrongly-delivered stuff removed before we can get a refund on it. The tossers.
Never again will I shop using the online B&Q site. It’s crap. The latest chapter in the epic has involved dealing with a person in their customer services team – one who was apparently offended at the word “effing” (I got told not to swear at her – she hasn’t seen this site, obv.) and who tried to say the entire farce was my/our fault for ordering the wrong items.
Speaking slowly, I explained that we’d used the website, where order numbers weren’t entered by the customer. If the twunting fridgelickers couldn’t get the right numbers into their website, how was that our problem? The offer to re-do the order (“I’ll put in the correct code this time for you” – patronising shitehawk) and still not get it delivered ’til mid-March was, shall we say, received unenthusiastically by myself.
So now we’re back to square one, and need to order 2 x 3m worktops. I wonder what Homebase can do to fuck it all up?
B&Q – the Complaint Letter
Posted: Mon 7 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, D4D™ 4 Comments »Following on from the B&Q saga, this email has just been sent to their customer services…
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am emailing you because I am utterly furious about the incompetent way our order has been handled by B&Q. At the end of December we placed an order via your website for 2x3000mm Stardust black worktops and 2x worktop edges. Personally, I wouldn’t have thought that this was a complicated order, but when it comes to B&Q, I’m obviously grossly overestimating their capabilities.
We first received the order at the start of January. This managed to consist of 1x3000mm Worktop – in Blue – and 1x1000mm wall unit carcase, 1x800mm wall unit carcase, and 4x 500mm cherry wood finish doors. In short, epically, spectacularly wrong.
We organised a re-delivery, and for the delivery company to remove the incorrect items. This time they turned up with two worktops. Great. Except they’re Red Marble finish. And we got a metal hanging rack as well.
For a third time we organised a re-delivery, and an uplift of the incorrect stuff. My partner checked it before it came off the lorry, and this time we had 2x 3000mm worktops. In Grey. We didn’t even take the worktops off the delivery truck. As for the items that were delivered incorrectly last time? Your wonderful delivery service hadn’t managed to detail that there was anything to come back, so they didn’t take anything.
To date we’ve now had three deliveries, none of which have been correct. We’re still waiting for the correct worktops, and the worktop edging. We’ve still got two Red Marble worktops we don’t want, and haven’t ordered, as well as a wall carcase we don’t want and didn’t order, and a metal hanging rack we don’t want and didn’t order.
Is it too much to ask that B&Q manage to sort out this delivery immediately? I can’t believe that this is how B&Q normally operate – otherwise you must be losing hundred of thousands of pounds per year delivering unordered items to people.
I would also like to point out that I’ve just risked serious damage to myself by looking at your website and nearly busting a gut laughing at your statement “Supporting our employees, delighting our customers“. “Committed to great service” is also – in our case – an outright lie.
I would like to be given a call today (Monday 7th February) on 07xxx xxxxxx to tell me what B&Q intend to do to rectify this utter farce. So far it has cost my partner and I 8 hours off work to be present for deliveries, and god only knows how much time in phone calls, emails, and trying to fight our way through the most obstructive AVR phone system known to man.
At this precise moment, I intend to never shop with B&Q again, and would heartily advise anyone else thinking of doing so to go to Dodgy Bob’s DIY Warehowse instead of using B&Q’s “services”.
I hope we can bring this matter to a swift and satisfactory conclusion, and I look forward to receiving your call.
Sincerely
Lyle.
B&Q – Tossers
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 3 Comments »This time, the stuff didn’t even come off the lorry. The worktops were light grey with black flecks, instead of the expected black with grey flecks. You have to wonder at the epic degrees of twuntdom necessary to fuck up an order to this level, don’t you?
The worktops from the last ballsed-up delivery are still in the house too – the arsewipe bureaucrat tossnerds hadn’t even managed to tell the delivery company that they were supposed to be collecting anything.
Snotty letters will be getting written this weekend, I suspect. Copies will be placed on d4d™ as and when they’re written, which pay provide some level of amusement out of the entire farce process.
B&Q – The Tale Continues
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 2 Comments »Over the last month, we’ve had endless hassles with B&Q. The initial order was remarkably simple. Two black(ish) three-meter-length worktops, and two laminate worktop ends. You wouldn’t think it was rocket-science, would you?
In the first order, they sent one blue worktop, two kitchen wall-units (1x1000mm and 1x800mm) and four 500mm cherrywood kitchen doors. You’ll note, the doors weren’t even going to match up with the wall units that we received but hadn’t ordered.
In the second one, they managed to deliver two worktops (and take away most of the problem delivery, except for one of the wall units) but also put in a metal vegetable rack, and something that now escapes me. And the worktops were a very nasty reddy-marble finish. Nowhere even in the vicinity of “black”. They were supposed to deliver “in the afternoon“, which translated to 11.30am.
Today is the third attempt. They’re supposed to be delivering in the afternoon, and give Herself 30 minutes notice so that she can get home from work to check the delivery.
So why have they called at 9.45am to say “we’re at the house – where are you?” ? Something makes me think there’s no fucking chance the delivery’s going to be right this time either. I just hope the blood’s been wiped off the street by the time I get home this evening…
B&Q – Again!
Posted: Wed 26 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Letters Leave a comment »The delivery from B&Q yesterday, as it turned out, wasn’t OK. In the least.
Three items delivered – two 3m length worktops, and a metal storage rack of some sort. Only the worktops were some kind of reddy “marble” finish that’s fucking vile, and is nowhere near the black ones we ordered. And the storage rack is something we hadn’t ordered at all.
They did manage to take away the stuff they’d delivered wrong last time though. Well, they took away three of the four bits. Maybe next time they’ll get it right. But currently I’m not overly optimistic that they could find their arses with both hands and a flashlight, let alone manage to deliver an order correctly.
10,000
Posted: Tue 25 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, General, Health, Resolutions 1 Comment »Today, Gordon’s talking about pedometers, and how many steps people walk in a day. As it’s something that’s good to do as part of the healthy thing, I thought I’d have a quick count-up of the main part of my walking each day.
Thanks to the B&Q delivery (still cocked up, but less cocked-up than it was) I was able to count my walk to and from work. just for this post (He lies, in a fit of “look what I do for you people” pique) It works out as roughly 2,100 steps, although I’ll be verifying that tonight. So assuming I walk both to and from work (I do most of the time, but occasionally get a lift from Herself) just the walk nets me approximately 4,000ish paces. Not bad considering that the average is only 3,000 per day, and that doesn’t take into account the walking I do around the house and office, at lunchtime, or when we take Hundus for a walk. So I reckon that on a normal day I probably average about 5,500-6,000steps – possibly more, but I doubt I break the 7,000 on average.
What interested me more was my walking speed – those 2,100 paces took me approximately 20 minutes. That’s 105 steps per minute, or 1.75 per second. Fairly fast, I’d say.
B&Q – Revisited
Posted: Tue 25 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services Leave a comment »Well, it’ll come as no shocker whatsoever to know that B&Q have the strangest concept of time known anywhere outside BT.
The delivery (and removal of items wrongly delivered last time) was scheduled for an “afternoon” slot. OK, no worries. But why are they now delivering it at 11.30am? Since when did that become “Afternoon”?
B&Q revisited
Posted: Fri 14 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Sweary 7 Comments »About two weeks ago, we ordered some items from B&Q’s website – nothing particularly special, two lengths of kitchen worktop and some doors to replace the current ones on the units. Not bank-breaking, about £250 all told.
Because I’m a twunt, it ended up being two orders – one for the doors, one for the worktops. Fair enough, that’s my fault, and I don’t have a problem with them for that part of it.
When all the stuff arrived at B&Q’s branch – all on the same day, I should point out – they decided in their infinite wisdom that the two deliveries should go out via two different carriers. Why, fuck only knows. But that’s how they decided to do it. Ah good – insanity from the start.
The deliveries arrived yesterday and today. The unit doors delivery was done by Parcelforce, and one of the most spectacularly unhelpful and braindead semi-primates known to science. He couldn’t bring both packages to the door, so I had to carry one. The one he carried (bearing in mind it’s wooden doors) was dumped right on the door jamb, and the packaging for the one I was carrying was split. “Not my problem, mate, I just deliver them. If you want to complain you’ll have to call someone. I just deliver ’em.” I think this was a pre-programmed speech, operated by use of the expression “where do I say on your little computer ‘packaging damaged, goods uninspected’?”. But I digress.
The second delivery – supposedly two 3m lengths of worktop, and an end-cap for the worktop – arrived today. Only – well – it’s one worktop. In the wrong colour. It’s also two 1000mm wall units in “cherry”, four cherry-wood doors, and a 400mm door. None of which match. None of which we ordered.
We now have to organise to get all the stuff taken away, and then re-order what we wanted. In short, the entire thing has been about as organised as elephants working in a jelly factory. Fucking farcical. I wonder if Richard Branson is the B in B&Q?