Williams & CO.

[jase158]

I have used Williams and Co a lot of times recently and below is a few of the problems that we had, none of these were williams fault, but they still went the extra mile to help us get them sorted!!

1. European plug on a geberit toilet seat, (Suppliers fault not williams) Williams sent another one within 2 days (usually 3-4 weeks to get delivered) and even picked up the first one free of charge
2. Delivery driver refused to take delivery off the lorry, (aspray couriers fault not willliams) Williams rang them back as they should of had a tail lift and forklift, driver came back and hand balled the items
3. Delivery not arrived by 12, (delivery companies fault again) Williams rang the courier, found out the delivery driver was ill, gave us an estimated time.
4. Forget to look up an item/ order an item on-line (my fault), rang Williams, they explain exactly what I need and when it will arrive.

I have highlighted these items because I want to explain exactly what happened, rather then just saying "they're brilliant". Problems are a thing of the past with williams, no more waiting 2-3 weeks for replacement items, no more stress or grief. One call and they really do go the extra mile to help you out. All sorted out very quickly and very brilliantly by Williams in Fareham.

And obviously the usual great stuff that they always do:
1. next day delivery on most items
2. on line ordering
3. great prices
4. stock most items or can get from one of their stores very quickly
5. Prices are fixed, no changing prices every half hour, no haggling, just honest low prices
6. promotions
7. free tools
8. great service

Nothing is ever too much for Williams, always there to help.
I always get the feeling that they want to help you get on with the job, rather then worrying about the pennies,

Great service, fast delivery, knowledgeable staff.

 

[Ray Stafford]

stuff

This is the reply that I had typed to Jase's original post.

--------------------------------------------------------------



Thanks Jase, much appreciated.

If I was being entirely honest (which, as a merchant, I am congenitally incapable of being) I would have to confess that we have dropped the ball rather more in the last three weeks or so than I would like.

With moving several £million in stock, plus all the equipment, technology etc, and having a spate of illness and compassionate leave which has taken 5 or 6 people out of a 17 man team, its been tough. Not having a working phone system also hasn't helped us communicate with customers when things have gone wrong. Although our switchboard number works, none of our direct dial numbers have worked for the last fortnight.

Our carrier have their own problems, as the grandfather rights of 7.5 tonner drivers all expired last month, so the entire haulage industry is desperately trying to cope with getting their workforce through the CPC training - meaning that a percentage of the nations drivers are off the road on any one working day.

I know that all sounds like a pathetic set of inadequate excuses - which is fair enough. Customers shouldnt have to care about our problems.

We are doing our best to keep on top of everything, and to put things right where they go wrong. I know that several forum regulars have had issues of varying severity - indeed at one point last week we had a van drive 600+ miles in a day to sort out a problem for a forum stalwart.

We'll keep doing our best, and in the meantime, thanks to all for your patience.

Best regards

Ray

 

[village idiot]

From jasse's post, I get the feeling he is praising Williams & Co, not slating them. So I wonder why he thinks his review was a problem.
Personally, if he had not complained about the post being removed, I would have been suspicious that Ray put him up to it🙂

 

[Dotty]

All's well that ends well.......

 

[Ray Stafford]

From jasse's post, I get the feeling he is praising Williams & Co, not slating them. So I wonder why he thinks his review was a problem.
Personally, if he had not complained about the post being removed, I would have been suspicious that Ray put him up to it🙂

LOL.

A "put-up" review would never read true. I don't think I am breaking any confidences to say that we did cause Jase some difficulties, but I hope that the efforts of my colleagues in the sales team helped turn things around, which Jason was graciously acknowledging in both his posts.

As my response makes clear, I think that we have fallen short of our normal standards more often than I think is acceptable recently. Sure, there are mitigating circumstances, but your customers don't want to hear about your problems, do they? Similarly, you guys don't want to hear about mine!

We will fix our problems, but we will fix them faster thanks to frank and honest feedback from our regulars, which we appreciate.

Now, FFS, can we get back to taking the micky out of Adam's girly drinking habits?

 

[rpm]

Dunno Ray can we? Is Adam still with us?

 

[SimonG]

****e happens, its the world we live in, deal with it, accept it and move on. Lifes too short.

Somebody once told me that you shouldnt worry about things you have no influence over. If you do have influence over it then stop worrying and change ut. 🙂

 

[rpm]

if #7 is a reply to #6 then it was a simple enough question to ask tonight.

Goodnight.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Dunno Ray can we? Is Adam still with us?

Dunno. Apparently, he has a new phone, which will probably keep him busy for the next few weeks, working out what all the buttons are for, and which one orders the cherry brandy and creme de menthe.

 

[villa_tom]

Dunno. Apparently, he has a new phone, which will probably keep him busy for the next few weeks, working out what all the buttons are for, and which one orders the cherry brandy and creme de menthe.

is that who text me tonight 🙂

 

[Ray Stafford]

is that who text me tonight 🙂

probably. I had to ask "which Adam are you?"

 

[newcastle phill]

Everyone please kiss and make up.
Yous guys have got me in pieces here

Wheres the love gone...

I don't wanna read about unhappy people..
I wanna read about ridiculous special offers with free postage...
I wanna read about unbeatable deals and how it changes lives.
I wanna hear people cry with happiness at give away prices and rejoice when they tell the grand kids who drift softly off to sleep with tales of williams and co special service...

I want it.....

I...I....wwant..

I want it to be how it used to be...williams and co slaying competitors prices and unleashing 10,000 first class horses who will surely burst into flames if they dont make that 12am deadline. .. and give you the parts and the money back too..

We can do this

 

[Dotty]

Dunno Ray can we? Is Adam still with us?

Can you imagine the bitchslapping you'd all get if there was no Adam for me to pick on?

 

[villa_tom]

probably. I had to ask "which Adam are you?"

Do you have lots of strange men's numbers in your phone then? 🙂

 

[SimonG]

if #7 is a reply to #6 then it was a simple enough question to ask tonight.

Goodnight.

No #7 was a drink induced insight into my world 🙂

Think I will have a babycham nightcap.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Do you have lots of strange men's numbers in your phone then? 🙂

Yep. Several hundred at the last count.

Not many as strange as you though.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Everyone please kiss and make up.
Yous guys have got me in pieces here

Wheres the love gone...

I don't wanna read about unhappy people..
I wanna read about ridiculous special offers with free postage...
I wanna read about unbeatable deals and how it changes lives.
I wanna hear people cry with happiness at give away prices and rejoice when they tell the grand kids who drift softly off to sleep with tales of williams and co special service...

I want it.....

I...I....wwant..

I want it to be how it used to be...williams and co slaying competitors prices and unleashing 10,000 first class horses who will surely burst into flames if they dont make that 12am deadline. .. and give you the parts and the money back too..

We can do this

BARMAN!

I'll have a pint of whatever Newcastle Phill's drinking if you please. And right smartly!

 

[Dotty]

There's an investigation going on in the loo.

Don't think Phil's drinking. Think he's mainlining.......

 

[villa_tom]

Yep. Several hundred at the last count.

Not many as strange as you though.

If you've got my number then well done 🙂

only special people get my number 🙂

 

[Ray Stafford]

If you've got my number then well done 🙂

only special people get my number 🙂

I did have your number, but I deleted it after writing it on the walls of all the public bogs in Portsmouth.

So if your love life is looking up, and you find yourself "doing favours for sailors" - that's why.

No need to thank me. I would have done the same for any villa-tard. 🙂

 

[Dotty]

If you've got my number then well done 🙂

only special people get my number 🙂

So that's me, a mucky film strumpet called gemma, an actual gay man, Ray and the seedier segments of pompey with your number.

Quite a clique.....

 

[villa_tom]

So that's me, a mucky film strumpet called gemma, an actual gay man, Ray and the seedier segments of pompey with your number.

Quite a clique.....

Just the way I like it 🙂

 

[markfxy]

You'll never find me in one of those Williams places:teeth_smile:

 

[Millsy 82]

Our carrier have their own problems, as the grandfather rights of 7.5 tonner drivers all expired last month, so the entire haulage industry is desperately trying to cope with getting their workforce through the CPC training - meaning that a percentage of the nations drivers are off the road on any one working

Is that why aspray have been a bit useless at the moment? As that was my only bug I had 2 orders turn up late 1 by 1.5 hours I was furious as the parts I needed where on the van and then when it got here 1 bit was left at the aspray distribution center! Can't complain this morning apart from they turned up too early I was hoping for at least another cup of tea before unloading one of those massive great boxes. Lol.

Apart from that top notch service great prices and free tools!!!!!!! Any chance of a core drill next? Lol.

 

[rpm]

No #7 was a drink induced insight into my world 🙂

Think I will have a babycham nightcap.

No worries Simon I`m much the same most nights after 10pm :tounge_smile: I sometimes get a little crabbie thats all.

 

[EPH]

Everyone has problems from time to time, we as a company do as I'm sure many on here do to. Human error will always happen, I judge the lads that work for me (suppliers too) on how these mistakes are put right and learnt from.

 

[Rickster123]

Is it safe to come back? I blame villa Tom, trouble follows him around like a bad smell!

 

[rpm]

Yeah think your safe to surface AP lol

 

[Rickster123]

I'm off fishing for the night. I've left a fiver on the bar, fill ya boots!

 

[Ray Stafford]

Is that why aspray have been a bit useless at the moment?

Asprays do our internal transport (inter-branch distribution) as well as the ecommerce deliveries, so we get about 30 or 40 deliveries a day from them. To be fair, their regular drivers are generally very good, and almost every problem we have had involves an agency driver.

If its a customer delivery and we have a problem, its almost always either an agency driver, or a delivery that should have been on a tail lift vehicle, but isn't. We are working on the latter - and Aspray are upgrading their fleet to include more taillift vehicles, but that takes time.

Hopefully this whole CPC thing will work itself out after a few weeks and their staffing will settle down again.

 

[billybob150811]

I went into Williams (belvedere ind est wednesday 930am) with my gas safe card said I want to buy sum stuff the guy behind the counter said you cant just come in here and buy stuff (whatever next)you need an account and it takes a few weeks I left (I don't want credit just a valliant 831)that's honest feedback

 

[newcastle phill]

Now that does sound like a strange way of doing business but I do know from looking at their site its trade only. But surely if your there with a letterhead and cash ??? Something could have been worked out

 

[villa_tom]

I went into Williams (belvedere ind est wednesday 930am) with my gas safe card said I want to buy sum stuff the guy behind the counter said you cant just come in here and buy stuff (whatever next)you need an account and it takes a few weeks I left (I don't want credit just a valliant 831)that's honest feedback

it protects the trade doing business like that though surely.

Id rather buy something from somewhere where I had to have an account and couldn't just walk in off the street and buy things like anyone can do in plumb centre.

Im not sure how but id imagine it helps with keeping things at a good price 🙂

 

[Toxic Ted]

I went into Williams (belvedere ind est wednesday 930am) with my gas safe card said I want to buy sum stuff the guy behind the counter said you cant just come in here and buy stuff (whatever next)you need an account and it takes a few weeks I left (I don't want credit just a valliant 831)that's honest feedback

Thats not right, you don't have to have an account cos i don't and i'm in the Slough branch most days paying cash. Can't see what the problem is if you've got trade ID like a gas card........perhaps our friend Raymondo can shed some light on it......Ray.....RAY

 

[Nostrum]

The issue's I've had with William's are as follows:

Too many plywood boxes to dispose of. (I've been cutting them up today to make racking shelves in the new van.)
Too much bubble wrap to dispose of (the bin mans caught on so I need trade waste)
I received two free rubber mallets in succession, what's the world coming too?
I messed up an order date and when they changed it and got it to me on the right day (within 24hrs), my order had been changed from 20 lock shields to 1 by mistake.

On the plus side, biscuits are back on the menu! Yeehhaa!

To be fair I've had a few issues with things outside of Williams control and so far they have been more than amicable regarding their resolution.

As a suggestion, would there be any way of getting foam corner protectors stuck on the radiators?

 

[Irish]

The issue's I've had with William's are as follows:

Too many plywood boxes to dispose of. (I've been cutting them up today to make racking shelves in the new van.)
Too much bubble wrap to dispose of (the bin mans caught on so I need trade waste)
I received two free rubber mallets in succession, what's the world coming too?
I messed up an order date and when they changed it and got it to me on the right day (within 24hrs), my order had been changed from 20 lock shields to 1 by mistake.

On the plus side, biscuits are back on the menu! Yeehhaa!

To be fair I've had a few issues with things outside of Williams control and so far they have been more than amicable regarding their resolution.

As a suggestion, would there be any way of getting foam corner protectors stuck on the radiators?

Lol that barsteward bubble wrap grrrrrrrrrr

 

[village idiot]

I went into Williams (belvedere ind est wednesday 930am) with my gas safe card said I want to buy sum stuff the guy behind the counter said you cant just come in here and buy stuff (whatever next)you need an account and it takes a few weeks I left (I don't want credit just a valliant 831)that's honest feedback

I went to their Beddington Lane branch on my first visit. Never been there or heard of them before, but Ray sent me the address. Turned up with my work outfit, company name and Gas Safe logo. Asked to make a purchase in cash and no one felt the need to question my professionalism or trade. After the purchase, I asked for a trade account form which I filled and all went well.
If I have any complaint, it is that the branch staff should cut down on the pleasantries. They chat too much. I just want to get in and get out

 

[Scott_D]

Can delivery by a tail lift van be requested on the website?

 

[Ray Stafford]

I went into Williams (belvedere ind est wednesday 930am) with my gas safe card said I want to buy sum stuff the guy behind the counter said you cant just come in here and buy stuff (whatever next)you need an account and it takes a few weeks I left (I don't want credit just a valliant 831)that's honest feedback

Hi Billybob

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. We don't require customers to have an account, and for those that do, it normally takes a day or so at most. You mention Belvedere Industrial estate? We don't have premises at such an address. I was wondering if either this is an autocorrect problem (we do have branches on Belgrave Ind Park, Southampton, or off Beddington Lane in Croydon) or are you perhaps confusing us with someone else?

If it is us - then a thousand apologies. We do stress to our staff that we would rather they erred on the side of caution (ie p1ssing off a tradesman) than on the side of serving a retail customer. However, the gas-safe card is actually the example that we use in our induction training as a way of establishing trade status.

Ray

 

[Ray Stafford]

Can delivery by a tail lift van be requested on the website?

No, but we will automatically request (and pay for) a taillift vehicle if the consignment weight is over about 40 kilos, unless we know that there is handling equipment the other end. The problem is that not enough Asprays vehicles have tail-lifts at present, so sometimes we don't get what we ask for.

In fairness to the regular Asprays blokes, many of them have been really good about helping customer break down heavy loads and handball them off. Unfortunately, sometime it doesn't work out quite so well.

I really wish that we could use our own drivers for the whole country, but that simply isn't feasible at the moment. We just aren't big enough.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Too many plywood boxes to dispose of. (I've been cutting them up today to make racking shelves in the new van.)

I'm afraid the boxes are staying! Before we used them, approximately 1 in 10 boilers were getting damaged in transit. Since we started packing them in the boxes, we have shipped over 1000 boilers, and I think three have been damaged in total.

If you have a local free-cycle, I understand that both boxes and bubble wrap get snapped up very quickly

I received two free rubber mallets in succession, what's the world coming too?

Meh. Can't please some people. 🙂

I messed up an order date and when they changed it and got it to me on the right day (within 24hrs), my order had been changed from 20 lock shields to 1 by mistake.

Oops - I hope we sorted it?

On the plus side, biscuits are back on the menu! Yeehhaa!

I am also a fan, because if I am working late, and feeling peckish, I can wander round to the ecommerce packing station and help myself... 🙂 Don't tell the warehouse manager!

To be fair I've had a few issues with things outside of Williams control and so far they have been more than amicable regarding their resolution.

Always a pleasure dealing with a customer who is honest enough to admit when its his mistake, as well as when it ours.

As a suggestion, would there be any way of getting foam corner protectors stuck on the radiators?

Happy to look at it, although I think it may need something more robust than foam.

We still aren't happy with our shipments of small quantities of rads. Bizarrely, we ship about 50,000 rads per year in pallet quantities with few problems. Its the small shipments that give us difficulty.

 

[Chalked]

I can't fault Williams , had a delivery. A week ago. Didn't turn up. Until 2pm ( fine by me) had a phone call from Williams saying the lorry was involved in an accident. I thought, a likely story! Lorry turned Up at 2 with a shaken driver with a damaged lorry. He still turned up tho!

you can't please all the people all. Of the time, but if you can please most, most of the time. Your doing well.

 

[Dotty]

At least you all get deliveries you can complain about.

I only ever get as far as this....

"Name?"
"Croppie."
"Northern Ireland Croppie?"
"Yeah, why?......... Hello?"
Brrrrrrrr.................

Williams..... Pfffttttttt........

 

[Rickster123]

And they don't like you wandering in and just drinking free coffee and lounging around. P.s I'm fishing and on the forum isn't technology amazing!

 

[Toxic Ted]

And they don't like you wandering in and just drinking free coffee and lounging around. P.s I'm fishing and on the forum isn't technology amazing!

Thought you loners went carping for the solitude.........you got your Tizer travel mug?

 

[Nostrum]

It was supposed to come across as tongue in cheek :aureola: Pete did well in re-scheduling the delivery for the correct day which was pretty good. I think it was just a mis judgement as I orderd one of everything else and to bump up the value to over £100 I ordered 20 lock shields as stock.
I imagine when he was changing the ticket it was inputted as 1. I still got the delivery and still got it free so no problems.

How about using cardboard instead of bubble wrap? Preferably cardboard that doesn't have 'trade only plumbing' stamped on it, it's a bit of a give away! Also surely more Eco friendly and possibly cheaper?

I feel pretty bad binning rolls of bubble wrap all the time, it just seems like such a waste (and takes up more space than you'd imagine!)

The boxes are good, how expensive to you would it be to return them flat packed, surely 5 at a time could make it worth while or no? they can't be cheap?

 

[billybob150811]

sorry ray it was belgrave ind not belvedere bit off the beaten track for me but I will pop in again if im around there as for account I like cash I can get stuff I want where I want lot of places don't like cash (don't know why, I do)

 

[Ray Stafford]

sorry ray it was belgrave ind not belvedere bit off the beaten track for me but I will pop in again if im around there as for account I like cash I can get stuff I want where I want lot of places don't like cash (don't know why, I do)

Thanks Billybob.

In the meantime, I will have a word with Lee, our manager down there.

We like all forms of legal tender. And one or two illegal ones... 🙂

 

[Ray Stafford]

At least you all get deliveries you can complain about.

I only ever get as far as this....

"Name?"
"Croppie."
"Northern Ireland Croppie?"
"Yeah, why?......... Hello?"
Brrrrrrrr.................

Williams..... Pfffttttttt........

You missed out the cackling laughter from our end.

 

[P J F PLUMBING]

Sorry

 

[Ray Stafford]

Well I've had two bad experiences in the last week or so cost me a good bit to very disappointed

Sorry to hear that Peter. Can you drop me a PM with the details?

 

[P J F PLUMBING]

Yea no problems

 

[Ray Stafford]

Sorry to hear that Peter. Can you drop me a PM with the details?

Don't feel the need to edit your original post Pete. I know that we don't get everything right, and if its only fair that if we get the praise in public, we should also get the stick. 🙂

I only suggested a PM for the details, because if you have to mention any particular individual staff members, I would prefer that to be in private.

 

[PlumbersMate]

My boys love the bubble wrap.

 

[Nostrum]

My boys love the bubble wrap.

Happy to send you all mine if they like it that much?

 

[kay-jay]

I stanley knife that bubble wrap. Takes up far less room in the bin that way