COWSHED

Tuesday 14 April 2009

Companies/Wedding Vendors to Avoid Part II

Name: The English Tea Party

Situation: After reading about The English Tea Party company in a local magazine and then viewing their website I thought I had found the solution to our vintage crockery problem. I e-mailed Victoria Moy, the owner, and eventually received a response with a quote. And then the e-mails stopped. I chased. We called her telephone and it wouldn't even let us leave a voice mail. Eventually we sent an e-mail saying we would take our business elsewhere. We received a response stating she had been out of the country. We tried to set up an appointment with her but no response. Then 3 months later I sent one last chasing e-mail to which we received an e-mail from Margaret asking us what we still required. No apologies for the delay.

Reason to avoid: No customer service what so ever. Unreliable. Rarely responds to e-mails. Telephone not answered and no facility to leave a voicemail. Website out of date.

Time frame: First e-mail sent in September 2008. Initial response received September 2008. No response until end October 2008. 2 e-mails exchanged end Oct/start November 2008. No response received until February 2009.

5 comments:

Rosalie said...

They took ages to respond to my email too, and then I decided to go buy crockery so didn't look at other companies.

Anonymous said...

Ah! I was going to use them to rent a cupcake stand. Have you found somewhere else?

Rachel said...

@Jeniferf: We decided to purchase all our crockery ourselves. What sort of cupcake stand are you after?

I really couldn't find any other vintage crockery suppliers in Devon.

Jenifer said...

I just wanted any old cupcake stand. I wanted to rent because they are like £50 and when am I ever going to use it again? Oh well - ebay it is!

Victoria @ The English Tea Party said...

I am Victoria Moy - founder of The English Tea Party...The current date is 14th July 2011...I have just been informed of your post. May I take this opportunity in apologising for our company's slow reponse is getting back to you in September 2008. You should of actually recieved an automated reply, but I do believe the application was not 100% accurate. We actually shut our offices for 12 weeks due to a death. We have been operating for 5 years and take any complaints and or critcicism very seriously. We pride ourself not only on our quality of our peoducts but our service. We now handle hundreds of events each year not only in the Uk but also internationally and from time to time our clients may experience 48hr delays in communication. I can however assure you that the case of 2008 has not been repeated and I hope that you can now understand this. Best wishes
Victoria
The English Tea Party