Further to my post a month ago, Frances called Artisan Furniture again. They certainly don’t seem inclined to demonstrate any sort of initiative themselves.
It appears Artisan themselves have little firm idea as to when we can expect our unit. They’re pointing their finger at their suppliers and suggesting (as far as we can tell), that they simply aren’t fulfilling the order, and/or not putting it on the shipments. So until they open up the crates, they’ve no idea what they’ve received.
Quite how this is purely the suppliers fault, I don’t know. If Artisan are being messed about by their supplier they should have contractual processes to resolve that (and/or customer service processes that’s not, frankly, derisory). If they don’t know what they’re due to receive, it’s clear their own processes are deeply flawed, as demonstrated by inability to answer straight questions.
If, on top of all that, they’re not keeping track of customers experiences (as seems to be the case with us) and it’s left for the customer to do the chasing, well, it further points to negligible concern for customer satisfaction and poor processes.
“We’ll add free delivery“, they suggested. No thanks. Vague delivery assurances at your convenience are not what we want. We already made the mistake of putting this on a debit card rather than a credit card, so we can’t involve the credit card company for non-delivery of goods.
Afraid Artisan have done nothing to impress us from the moment we placed our order. Six months later we’re still waiting, and have been told it’s likely to be a further month. Presuming it even arrives, and they just don’t seem to know themselves. I’m minded to insist on a refund, but Frances is happy to give them another month. So that’s looking like seven months.
“Caveat Emptor” is well worth remembering if you have the misfortune of dealing with this shower of a company.
Postscript
Just take a look at the very first paragraph in their FAQ: “Artisan furniture Limited is not responsible for delays caused by manufacturers or carriers that are beyond our control. We will always make every conceivable effort to carry out deliveries on the date and time agreed. If for any reason delivery is delayed Artisan furniture Limited will not accept liability for any consequential loss.“. This might be a standard clause, but to me (aggrieved customer with a weblog), this is hardly an example of what constitutes a friendly, customer facing “FAQ”, and speaks volumes to me.
Entries (RSS)
December 28th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
We finally received our television cabinet. 5-6 months after we’d ordered it. We’re quite pleased with the cabinet itself, but still very very disappointed by the level of service we received from Artisan.
It’s safe to say we’ll not be running back to order anything from them any time soon, at least until we have a better idea about whether they’ve sorted out their supplier or having something approaching even basic customer service.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:18 am
we too experienced the exact same problem with Artisan - 7 months to recieve 2 items, which by the time we got them had been reduced in the shop - nearly £100 difference. we requested we get them now for the new price since we had waited so long - but of course not! all we were offered was free delivery, we live 3 mons max from the shop!, plus earliest they could deliver was another 10 days away when the furniture was sitting in the shop 3 mins away!!!! shocking - no customer service at all, they coudn’t care less is the attitude displayed. we were in a situation of having paid 50% deposit and of course so we took the items but not impressed at all! only problem now is we’d like some matching items but very unhappy at the thought of using them again. they had a stand at the Ideal Home expo london - no answers for why the 7 month dealy!!
May 28th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I too had an order in, expected before christmas then waited still no answer. When to the shop, they offered a coffee table, still no news, eventually I call it quits and got my money back. Wouldn’t go to them again. By the way there is a sister shop (East Kilbride) which sells stock furniture. Overall poor service
June 11th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Artisan are not only absolutely useless at delivering what you have already paid for but when it comes, be prepared to have to construct it yourself with instructions that look like they were drawn by my 5 year old. I ordered a table, 6 chairs and sideboard. Table + chairs came 20 weeks after ordering and am still waiting for the sideboard. I am trying to build the chairs and I am not only mad that they did not tell me they were self assembly but the design and craftsmanship is appalling. I have to put the side panels on upside down as the ends are cut wrong and when screwing on the seat I find the angle they have bore for the screw holes is so sharp the screw came straight out the back of the chair. Absolutely appalling and I will be taking this up with customer service - if they have one.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I have ordered a sideboard back in January 2008 and it is now July and still nothing!!!
When i first ordered it they said 12 weeks delivery now it has been 24 weeks!
They customer service is not very helpfull either.
Please tell your friends to go elsewhere!!!!!!!!!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Horrific - do not buy from Artisan. See a letter I have just sent them. Thing is, I have sent it to their “customer servives manager” a guy called David Strain but is he and his team not the problem? Guess it will fall on deaf ears so OFT have also been copied in.
Their address is
David Strain
46 milton road
college milton
east kilbride
g74 5bu
Mr Strain,
As customer services manager, I trust you will be used to dealing with such a letter – from reading various Artisan customers’ online blogs, I see our poor experience is fairly common.
You will see from your records (order xxxxxx) that we placed our order (valued at £567 for 2 x dressers) on 24/2/2008 and that we have now past 25 weeks, despite the order form stating 6-12 weeks delivery. Despite your T&C’s, I trust you will agree that a further 13 weeks delay is unreasonable and beyond the time you would expect one of “your” customers to hang on for an order?
We received a letter from Artisan at week 12 stating that our order was “nearing delivery” and to expect contact shortly to arrange a delivery date – I guess that is a common tactic you employ to buy some time as clearly there were no grounds to advise that our order was “nearing delivery”?
Upon visiting your Edinburgh branch at week 21, a smartly dressed man approached us clearly thinking we were wanting to purchase something – when we told him that we were in to enquire about delays to our order, he interrupted me to say “sorry, I’m only a consultant to the business and I will go and get someone to help you” A consultant? Hopefully not in customer services!! Anyway, as he did not get anyone for us, we had to approach another member of staff that was there to assist.
I guess to buy some extra time and to avoid owning the problem, the member of staff advised that the furniture would be arriving that week (the second piece had still not arrived and you were holding only one of the dressers) and we were to call the home delivery department to arrange delivery – again and like the “consultant”, the staff member took no ownership.
Naively and foolishly putting our trust in Artisan, we did expect the furniture to arrive that week. When we got a call saying that the second dresser had arrived, I called the delivery department only to be told that it hadn’t arrived – WHAT IS GOING ON?
I called your “customer services” today on 08717 333 223 and established the second dresser has still not arrived with no ETA (although I would not have believed it if I was given one). After requesting a refund, I was advised to put a refund request in writing – another inconvenience for one of “your” customers – you really go that extra mile to ensure customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Listen, I understand that some suppliers can be unpredictable and delays can happen although this is not the basis of our complaint. Our complaint is relating to the lack of trust we have in Artisan for the failure in managing our expectations and repeatedly falsifying delivery dates.
I have also sent this letter to the Office of Fair Trading and I trust they will clarify if you are treating customers fairly or not? I await a response to confirm our refund request has been accepted and instruction on how we obtain the £171 deposit we paid?
August 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
On behalf of Artisan Furniture, I would like to apologise to the customers who have expressed dissatisfaction with our service on this website and indeed to any other customers who have had to wait longer than expected for delivery of their furniture.
Please be assured that we take feedback of this nature very seriously indeed and it allows us to continually seek ways to further improve the service we are able to offer our valued customers.
The furniture industry can be a complex one, with long lead times to delivery being the most frequent cause for concern. The major reason for this is that there are many variables in the manufacturing and supply chain, with the majority of furniture in today’s market manufactured overseas and as such is shipped to the UK on large containers.
Most world wide manufacturers work on 45 days production time, then 30 days shipping time on the water, then there’s customs to clear at both ends as well as unloading, storing and dispatching to the end customers property. Regretfully this all takes time and delays can be experienced due to all sorts of unforeseeable reasons, including weather conditions, customs clearance delays etc. It is for some of these reasons, that many companies have difficulty offering ‘day accurate’ lead time details to which Artisan is no exception.
At Artisan we successfully complete in excess of 150 deliveries per week, which equates to around 50,000 pieces of furniture per year. To meet this demand and to avoid the above manufacturing process delays, we forward order many of our collections, which enables us to deliver far quicker and very often from stock.
At Artisan we love our furniture and feedback confirms our customers do to, we only offer the very best quality solid wood, fully assembled furniture, which has been properly made using features such as dovetail joints and tongue and groove drawer bases and backs, though this can mean that some of our collections are made to order and as such can take a longer time to come in to stock. These features are testimony to properly made furniture and is the reason why we experience virtually no negative quality of product feedback.
Over recent times the team at Artisan has worked extremely hard to offer the very best furniture, together with the very best service within the industry. At the point of sale our customers orders are keyed on to a cutting edge intranet ordering system, which allocates stocks on a first served basis, either from stocks or forward orders due.
Our customer service team of 6 are continually working on ways to communicate more proactively with our customers, though with in excess of 1000 active customer accounts on our system at any one point this can be very challenging.
We know we don’t always get it right, though please be assured we are all working extremely hard to continually improve the most important part of our business, which is meeting or exceeding our customers expectations. We know and appreciate our customers have a choice and we want to build a future positive relationship that will last for generations to come alongside the furniture our customers purchase.
Should any customer experience dissatisfaction at any point of the Artisan experience, then I would welcome you to write to me personally, to 46 Milton road, East Kilbride, G74 5BU where our team will reply to you within 48 hours.
Many thanks
Graham Lambie