Jul 21, 2009 05:38 PM
25686 Views
Guys,
READ THIS CAREFULLY! . I am taking some pains writing this to ensure that no other customer gets harassed and hassled, as I have been, by services offered by Hometown and its staff. Especially the modular kitchen team.
Firstly, the offer they posted re: 40% discount on kitchen is nothing less than a marketing gimmick. They had inflated the price by a 40% mark and were proudly giving away 40% as discount. I got fooled in thinking I would be saving 40% but it turned out that the final price was the same as compared to all other quotes I had taken from other reputed modular kitchen firms.
As I had already invested sometime looking and finalizing the kitchen decor at Home town, I thought of getting it done from them as money wise it was not differing a lot from others. This is where the never ending saga of follow up and chasing started. One of the senior staffs from home town assured me that my kitchen material would be delivered in 3 weeks and fitted in another week . so a completion in 4 weeks was promised. I was constantly re-assured of this as I insisted of confirming the order only if was to be done in 4 weeks. I had my house warming ceremony in 5 weeks, so it was absolutely critical we had the kitchen done before the big day.
Now read on, you would be baffled to read, how the super in-efficient staff of hometown dealt with this after I made the 50% down payment. 3 weeks down the line I called one of their staff, he had no clue what the status of my order was. After another week of chasing and emailing hometown customer support, some one had the courtesy to call up and say that there is a delay as the lamination color we chose for our kitchen was out of stock at the factory, Classic example or a lame excuse,
We were down 6 weeks from day of order and I was getting different dates of material to arrive .Now again, this was me chasing them and not them informing me, Finally the material arrived on 18th June, 8 weeks after the order, so forget the 4 weeks completion time, its a good 4 weeks late in the material dispatch itself. . no to mention that my house warming ceremony happened without a kitchen, a disappointment I say,
Now, after the material arrived, I had to pay the remaining 50% to get the installation started. Note, nobody bothered to inform me to come and pay up, when asked the desk executive says " we did not have your number", when my contact number was specified in bold in the contact information section of the order copy, . had I not shown up, it would have been delayed further,
Alas! the team arrived for installation, shocker, one frame is just too big, dustbin holder missing, boxes for one side of kitchen are too big, the carpenter team were confused which piece should go where, they nearly had the wrong cabinet put until I explained them the drawing, so at end of day 2, an incomplete installation was done, with a few things left .
Its been 4 weeks since then and as I write, I still am awaiting one trolley cabinet to arrive, skirting to be done, things to be tightened, handles that are not upto the mark. I say a complete disaster . If I had a voice, that could reach far and east, I would shout "DONT EVER EVER get a Kitchen done at HOME TOWN Pune." . Unless you have loads of time, money and a relentless appetite to follow up and chase people on matters,
I sincerely hope hometown take note of this and do something actionable to esteem their business ethics. I have still not given up on hope and am waiting for the kitchen to be finally complete.12 weeks, and still counting,
Murtaza
