Dunster House Ltd.
Post Delivery Customer Complaints Procedure
2. Why can’t you speak to our Customer Service team on the phone?
3. How to submit your complaint
Customer service policy
Thank you for taking the time to visit this page. We hope if you have come to this page in order to find out how to make a complaint, that this will be resolved to your satisfaction as soon as possible. Otherwise, we hope you find the information you are looking for.
Hopefully, you’ll never need to contact our Customer Service department but if you do need to, it’s reassuring to know we’re here waiting to answer your query!
Our Customer Service department will deal in writing with any issues you may have after delivery. For any pre-delivery queries, we will forward your enquiry to the relevant department to be dealt with and you will receive a reply as soon as possible, depending on the nature of your query.
We, at Dunster House, welcome all forms of feedback about our products, service and anything else you may wish to comment on. All of your lovely positive feedback allows us to direct praise at those who deserve it, keeping morale high throughout our entire company and leading us to continue to provide the excellent service which we aim to provide.
However, we also know that we are not perfect; nobody is. And anyone who tells you they are, are lying to you!
We believe that if a customer ever needs to make a complaint or share with us some criticism, that this should and will be taken seriously and never simply dismissed without a proper and thorough investigation.
Due to the vast range of products which we do sell, and the volume to which we dispatch on an annual basis, over the 25 years we have been in operation, we have found that dealing in writing is the most efficient way of queuing, categorising, prioritising and responding to all of your after delivery enquiries.
Our Customer Service Department is open Monday-Friday, 8.30am to 5.00pm.
Why can’t you speak to our Customer Service team on the phone?
We have found through experience in our many years of operation that dealing with post-delivery enquiries and complaints in writing is the most effective for our line of business.
1. Having too many lines of communication can actually cause Customer Service to suffer. This makes it harder to prioritise over multiple platforms such as phone calls, social media, email etc. We don’t want anyone to get forgotten so we ask that all communication is made in writing.
2. It will enable us to give you a better quality of response.
a. People will call because they want an immediate response. We understand that you may think you just have a simple question. The truth is, our Customer Service representative on the other end of the phone may not have the answer immediately and may need to speak to a different department such as sales or dispatch.
b. With an email enquiry, we can spend an appropriate amount of time looking in to the issue and formulating a professional response.
c. With a phone call, we are on the spot. We could give an instant answer, but it may not be the exact answer you are looking for. Or we could say, “we’ll look in to it and get back you” – but this doesn’t give you any information and just delays the actual response.
3. It ensures that there are no mixed/missed messages
a. We can take your exact query to the relevant department if needed and get an answer to this specifically!
b. With the nature of the product, it can be easy to give wrong information over the phone regarding components. Some components are very similar and are only unique to each other by a few mm or an angle sloping the other way. If we provide a response on wrong verbal information it could lead to the product being built wrong.
4. It ensures a record of all communication is kept – a paper trail, albeit electronic!
5. It allows easier categorisation of incoming enquiries leading to faster analysis which will ultimately lead to better service in the future!
If you try to reach us by telephone using any phone number you have for us regarding any after delivery enquiry, please be advised that it will be politely explained to you that our Customer Service Department deals only in writing and you will need to submit any such enquiry in this medium. Our switchboard phone operators are not trained to answer any of your post-delivery questions, so, please be informed that when they say they cannot answer your questions or they cannot transfer you through to anyone who can, they are only following company policy and are trying to politely explain this to you.
We understand that this may be a stressful time for you if you believe you have found a fault with your product or have any cause for concern. This may cause you to become emotional on the phone. If the phone operator attempts to explain our policy to you on multiple occasions. Please be aware that you may be transferred through to an automated message which explains our Customer Service policy. Please do not misinterpret this as rudeness or impoliteness or a refusal to comply with your request.
It may be that you are in the middle of building your product when an issue arises. We understand this can seem like an inconvenience, especially if you have organised and paid for a third-party contractor, to help you. Here are some of our recommendations to help keep this kind of situation to a minimum.
1. Please check that all the parts you have received for your product are present and correct prior to commencing assembly and prior to engaging the help of a third party to help you. We would hate for you to have to incur additional costs. We don’t believe it is unreasonable for you to do this.
a. This doesn’t mean that you need to check every single piece of timber at the point of delivery. Only that you check pack labels against your delivery note e.g. your pack states PS601-1 and your delivery note states PS611-1, this would immediately identify there has unfortunately been a delivery error.
b. I.e. don’t book a builder/installer before you have received and fully checked over your product and are satisfied with the quality and standard.
2. Please read all of your instructions, cover to cover, as many times as you feel it is necessary to fully understand the scale of the task you are about to embark on.
a. All the installation instructions should be included with your delivery
b. If not, or if you would like to view these prior to delivery, you can download them from our Customer Login Area:
ii. You will need your order number (beginning ‘SO’) and email address to obtain a password if it is your first time. You can then use this password to login.
3. If you still need assistance, please contact our Customer Service department in writing.
You really have to understand the scale and nature of the project you are about to undertake and plan accordingly. This is not just some set of flat-pack furniture you’ve bought online or from a furniture shop and should be given adequate thought, consideration and planning before beginning.
How to submit your complaint/query
In writing to our Customer Service Department
In the first instance, all complaints should be submitted, in writing, to our Customer Service department. This can be done by email to [email protected] or via a letter addressed to:
Customer Service
Dunster House Ltd
Factory 1
Caxton Road
Elms Farm Industrial Estate
Bedford
MK41 0LF
You can also fill in our Customer Service Web Form.
Our Customer Service team aim to respond to all queries, in writing, as soon as possible. You should receive a response on the same day that yours is submitted, however, it is often much, much quicker than this.
What should I include?
It must be the invoiced customer on the order who submits the complaint. Our Customer Service team will search our order database and if they are suitably convinced that the complaint has come from the invoiced customer on the order, they will be happy to deal with you.
If it is not the invoiced customer (it could be that a partner/parent/sibling/builder/friend/child of the customer) who contacts our Customer Service team. In this case, we will politely request the permission of the invoiced customer for this person to act on their behalf.
There is some information which the Customer Service team will require from you, so, including as much information as possible in your first email will help to significantly reduce the time to resolve your query. One or both of these two pieces of information is essential to finding your order in the first instance:
- Order Number (begins ‘SO’) – can be found on your delivery note or order confirmation email
- OR delivery postcode.
You may need to, or be asked, by our Customer Service to provide various methods of supporting information regarding your query. This can include, but is not limited to:
- Photos
- Videos
- Measurements
- Component reference number from your installation instructions
It may speed up the time for you to get a resolution to your query if you supply this supporting information in your first email. However, please bear in mind that there is a 20MB limit on emails coming in to our Customer Service inbox so you may need to resize attachments or send them in separate emails.
Obviously, if you have missing parts, it will be pretty much impossible to photograph these! But you would need to inform us as soon as possible, ideally within 2 days of receiving your product. We appreciate this is not always possible but it would certainly be essential to let us know before you start building.
What happens next?
Firstly, if it is your first email to our Customer Service email address, you will receive an automated email confirming that it has been received and it will be looked in to. If you do not receive this automated response, it may mean that your email has been rejected. Please check:
1. That you have typed the address correctly
2. There are not any large files attached to your email and the overall size of the email doesn’t exceed 20MB.
Our Customer Service team will queue your query, it will be categorised, assigned to one of our helpful team members and you will receive a response as soon as possible. Our Customer Service team aim to answer all of your emails on the same day, however, this is not always possible if you email after 5.00pm.
If you are not satisfied
1. Escalate to Customer Service Manager
If you are unable to resolve your issue with a member of our Customer Service Department, you can ask that your query is escalated to a Customer Service Manager.
The Customer Service Managers at Dunster House work closely with their teams, and with middle/senior management to ensure that we are consistently bringing the best possible levels of service to all of our customers.
The Customer Service Managers constantly monitor and advise on the work of the Customer Service team, but may take over communication with you directly. This also allows for constant ongoing training to always give you the best service.
2. Ask for the contact details of our Director to write a letter
A letter can be written to a Director. The details of which can freely be obtained by asking our Customer Service team. This option should only be explored if you fail to resolve your issue from dealing with the in-house Customer Service team.
The letter will be read and reviewed by the Director, but often passed back to the Customer Service team to respond under their instructions.
3. Contact an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Service
If we have been unable to provide you with a satisfactory resolution to your query, you can ask our Customer Service for details of an Alternative Dispute Resolution service. This service will act as an impartial third party in an attempt to understand the issue and to come to an amicable conclusion for all parties.
Summary
This is the ‘Post Delivery Customer Complaints’ procedure for Dunster House Ltd.
These steps should be followed in order if you have a complaint to make about the service you have received. I.e. you cannot skip any steps and you should exhaust our internal complaints procedure before attempting to take any further, external, action; if you feel this is what you would like to do. Hopefully, our helpful Customer Service team will be able to deal with and resolve your query.
You should not expect to be able to speak to a member of our Customer Service team or liaise with a Director immediately after making contact. As a company of our size and stature, this is why we have a dedicated Customer Service team to answer all of your post-delivery queries.
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