Bewildering
Following us reading a plethora of 5* star reviews for Alex @ Joycentric Joinery we contacted him to ask him to come and quote for a refurbishment of our staircase and bannister rail on the landing and to replace them with an oak and glass finish. Alex asked us to send pictures of the staircase and bannister which we did and then he was in contact numerous times with messages and voice notes to confirm the look and finish we wanted. We asked if he wanted to come and physically see the job, but he said that he priced all jobs like this as all staircases like ours are standard. We wanted to see some oak with the factory finish and with the untreated finish as Alex said he did a lot of jobs with the untreated finish and then they were finished afterwards with wax…. obviously, we wanted to see them so that we could decide on which to use. We were willing to travel to him to look at them, but he then told us he was working not too far from us so he would call with samples which he did last Tuesday evening (21st July). While he was at our house Alex looked at our staircase and explained how he would do the works, how everything went together etc which was reassuring. On the following day we received a new message from him which started “Hi…. I’m just sat here looking at everything and have some bad news” because in the rush of all his jobs he had messed up on the price and wanted to increase the quote by roughly 10%…. he said that he had got the price of the glass wrong, also got the price of the feature step wrong and the cost of the spray finish to the oak was more than he thought…. absolutely unbelievable!! To compound matters he needed to push the date of the job back a week as he had got that wrong as well…you couldn’t write it!!
He then gave us three options…
1) Accept the additional charges
2) Do not accept it and use someone else.
3) Lose the feature step or finish to bring the cost down
We messaged back to say we were bewildered as to how many errors there had been in his quote but after considering everything, we contacted Alex again and despite us budgeting on his original price we said we would go ahead at the new price.
We then received a further message from Alex telling us to just leave it and he will book another job in that he had…and his comment was “good luck with the job!”
We obviously messaged again to ask why he didn’t want it when we had given him the go ahead at the new price and he said our reply had made him feel uncomfortable about doing the job, so it was best not to do it.
This is a first for me as I never write reviews normally because things don’t always go to plan and I understand that but to say I was amazed at his response and reaction is very much an understatement…never have I known a company that doesn’t want to see a job before they price it - nor have I known anyone that can get a price so wrong when this is their business and they do this week in and week out and then just dump the customer when they question a large increase on the quote they originally received…when we haven’t altered our requirements from the outset.
If anyone asked me then I would say to stay well clear of Alex and Joycentric Joinery as it was totally unprofessional and I am astonished at how he treats his customers as though it was us that are in the wrong.