I have held an account with Choice for about four years now and have found them pretty good up until a recent bad experience. This catalogue is part of the littlewoods group and includes kays, great universal and additions. As with most catalogues they give you a credit limit and send a monthly statement requesting a minimum payment. You can pay by direct debit, credit/debit card, at the post office or bank counter by cheque or by online/tele-banking. They often have three and six months interest free promotions on and also frequent buy now pay later offers running throughout the year.
For me personally I have mainly used Choice for clothing, footware and small houshold items. They sell a wide rang of clothing, furniture, electricals, appliances, toys and gifts. Unless I have been shopping for sale items about 80% of items have been in stock. There delivery service is free as are returns and they have always delivered on the day stated when the order is placed, that is until recently however! I have often received parcels a day earlier than expected. There online service is very good with up-to date stock information and a 'my account' section
where you can manage your account, personal informatiion and track orders.
My bad experience began on the 11th January. I placed an order online for a set of wardrobes and drawers and all stated 'in stock, delivery within one week'. That was a very reasonable delivery time and I really liked the look of the wardrobes I had chosen. A week came and went and I checked online in their 'track your order' section to see that estimated delivery was actually 23/1, 12 days after the order was placed, fair enough I thought but an e-mail or phone call would've been nice! Then finally on 21/1 I received a phonecall in the evening from somebody to arrange delivery. The lady on the phone was very polite and said that my order would be delivered on 23/1 between 8am and 12 noon. I told her that I would only be in until 9.15 so she suggested I give her my mobile number so that the driver could call be when he was half an hour away and I could come out of work. I did this and arranged it with my boss at work, luckily I live quite close to my place of work. I received no phonecall on the day and when I returned home from work there was a note through the door from the courier saying I needed to phone to re-arrange delivery. I was a bit disappointed and getting a bit annoyed but thought things would be sorted out when I rang them on monday.
Monday, oh dear .......... I rang choice to arrange re-delivery of my wardrobes, after getting past the voice activated security and actually speaking to an advisor I was told that all they were delivering on the 23/1 was the chest of drawers, the wardrobes hadn't even left the warehouse!!!!!!!!!! I was to put it very nicely fuming! I said to the advisor 'if I re-arrange delivery are you telling me that I could have to come out of work on three seperate occasions to take delivery of these items?' Yes was the reply, I asked the advisor to hold for me and briefly relayed the information to my partner who suggested that I cancel the order. After asking why I wasn't informed earlier that it wasn't the complete order they were trying to deliver, I simply get 'I don't know', the advisor was not rude or inpolite but unfortunately seemed a bit clueless. Feeling like I was getting nowhere and getting more and more annoyed I said I wanted to cancel the whole order. I did ring back later to complain about the lack of communication from choice and the failure to communicate between their own departments. The second advisor I spoke to was more helpful and said that the person that phoned me to arrange delivery would not have known that it was an incomplete order as it is a different department that deals with this and that it is not common practise for couriers to phone customers to say they are on their way. I have never done this before but the lady on the phone offered that service to me so I assumed it was something they do! I did ask if I was to place the order again could I have it held until it was complete so that I only had one delivery but was told no and that they don't have the facilities to do that.
This is the only occasion I have had problems with this company and it's a shame because I have lost a lot of faith in them. Of course I have enjoyed having a good moan about my bad experience but I believe that this company are great at small items but not so great when it comes to larger items or orders and if you are considering ordering sets of furniture etc fom them that you may experience the same kind of problems as I did as they do not communicate well with the customers or each other for that matter! I will keep my account because I believe it is useful to have and I'm sure in time I will forgive them and use them again but just for one item at a time as they 'cannot guarantee that orders of more than one item will be delivered at the same time'! Good job I didn't order a pair of trainers!!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: You are able to pay for goods over a period if money is not at hand to buy right out. Disadvantages: I feel we pay over the odds for the above priviledge but to add charges on top is wrong.
plookyskin 19.09.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Choice
Advantages: In Store "Ambiance". Good Prices, Many Offers. Cheerful Staff. Well Stocked Excellent Cafe Disadvantages: Smell of Fish! No Local Store. Some Isles Cluttered With Overflow Stock.
RICHADA 01.04.2006 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Morrisons (Shop)
Feb 2nd, 2009
exceptional by (2%):
very helpful by (96%):
helpful by (2%):
