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.
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!!