My Wren Kitchen – Overview
I bought a new kitchen from Wren Living this April for delivery in late July. It’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought that wasn’t an entire house.
I shouldn’t have bought my appliances from Wren.
I shouldn’t have bought my wooden worktop from Wren.
I’m writing this because I felt badly treated by Wren. I’d made a large and important purchase, and once they had my money they didn’t seem at all interested in keeping me happy.
The only person that ever apologised to me was Kelly Longman in Southampton (covering for the absent manager from the Guildford branch where I bought) – thanks Kelly for showing some compassion and humanity.
My experience with customer services was miserable. They never replied to emails, and calling generally involved waiting 20 minutes for somebody to answer the phone followed by a ‘computer says no’ type conversation. I logged 4 hours and 20 minutes calling customer support, most of it spent on hold.
If you’re here because you’re thinking of buying a kitchen from Wren then may I suggest that you first try out their customer support and see if you like it. Dial 0345 127 7008 the choose option 2 then option 3 then option 1. You may want a speaker phone or hands free set whilst you wait to get through.
Wren’s Managing Director Armando Sanchez at one time published his mobile number, but that number is now taken care of the same customer services team. I guess the level of customer unhappiness was too much for him.
From conversations with friends it seems that maybe there’s no such thing as a good kitchen company, but hopefully my bad experiences with Wren can help you choose better where you buy (parts of) your kitchen from.
Filed under: could_do_better, grumble | 1 Comment
Tags: customer, kitchen, living, service, support, Wren
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Chris Swan's Weblog 
Chris,
I had a similar experience to yours this year with Wren. Similar in so much as it was bad at least.
We ordered our kitchen at about the same time as you. Getting any sort of documented design that we could sign off was problematic in the first place and we were convinced when we saw the plans that the measurements were out. The designer was adamant that we were wrong. In hindsight we should have walked away but we persisted and the designer told us that we’d have to accept the delivery and order a replacement unit for the one that was too big to fit where it was supposed to go.
When delivery took place in late June, we duly ordered the extra unit and our kitchen fitter (not Wren’s) started work. Eventually we discovered another measurement was out and a 3m worktop that had been supplied was actually 10cm too short for where it was supposed to go. This is where the fun really started. Wren claimed that we had changed the design after the order was made so it wasn’t their fault. We pointed out that had we not done so, two runs of under-worktop cabinets would have been misaligned by 30+cm and the the change we did make was not to the side where the worktop was too short anyway!
Eventually Wren agreed to redeliver that worktop in a 4m length. Several weeks later, it arrived. Right size, wrong colour.
Another few weeks later, another one. Right size, right colour but the edge trim was noticeably different to the other piece of worktop that it would have to join. When we queried this we were told that they had changed supplier and couldn’t get the same colour edge trim. They reluctantly offered to send a supply of matching edge trim so that we could replace it on all of the existing worktops to match but we pushed back (Section 75 credit card protection) and said they would have to deliver all the worktops again, matching each other.
Finally, Wren agreed. But when we eventually received all three worktops, one was too short again. Yet another delay!
We finally have all three correctly coloured and sized worktops in place but it has taken 4 months. As for the fact that we had to get our fitter back numerous times, Wren aren’t interested in compensating us for that.
The quality of their kitchens is fairly good and their delivery drivers have been excellent but the overall customer experience (design and customer service) is really not recommended. For something that is as significant an investment as a kitchen, I’d echo your advice and say “go elsewhere”.
Michael