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So, Towsure Products appear to have learned nothing since the last complaint listed on this site in 2009 when David Glossop responded to numerous complaints regarding poor service.  Having recently ordered and paid for 2 camping chairs, matching footstools and an airer on line, the debacle of what happened is just unbelievable.

We received no confirmation of our order, payment and no delivery date.  No, it wasn’t in the spam folder either.  3 days later, a neighbour from the next street knocked on my door to inform me that they had a parcel belonging to me.  They had taken the parcel in for the same house number as mine but was told that it was not theirs either.  Fortunately the honest neighbour put 2 and 2 together and found us.  I then had to carry this very large box to my house on the next street as it was too big for the car!  The box was over sized for the products which were thrown in loosely with no protective wrapping and arrived scratched and without the foot stools which subsequently appeared to be out of stock.  OK you’ve guessed it, Towsure’s site did not state these were out of stock or else we would not have ordered them.  The airer  fell to pieces as I took it from the bag probably due to the inadequate packing.

Contacting Towsure, I enquired why my parcel had been delivered to the wrong street and house, the salesman replied that as I had filled out the online form, it must be my fault.  I have become accustomed to filling out my address which matched theirs so they blamed the carrier UK Mail! I eventually got an insincere apology  which sounded as if it dropped from the tip of their tongues many times a day and I subsequently arranged to return my products.  But in the meantime the price of the out of stock footstools mysteriously landed back in my bank account.  AGAIN! Towsure failed to advise that this had been done.  Why not wait to refund the full amount when the returned products landed?  Funnily enough, UK Mail found the correct house when they collected the parcel.  I have yet to receive the remainder of my refund although I anticipate it landing without any further correspondence.

Whoever the Director of Towsure is now, they certainly need to motivate their staff and train them to deal with customer complaints given that they seem to get quite a few.  Nothing appears to have been learned by their experiences and yet another customer is lost.  This one will look elsewhere, where the customer is appreciated and are dealt with friendly welcoming staff.  1 complaint generates many many more.  Towsure look out there are better companies chomping at your tail!

Emmet

Good morning Emmet,

To enable me to fully investigate your complaint, if possible please could you email me your order specifics (order number or invoice number) and I will check as to why a product would show as available when it was indeed out of stock.  If this is the case then we can collect and refund you the chairs if they were not required without the footrests, I totally accept this is an integral requirement and given the facts you may well not have proceeded to purchase.

As for the courier, they should not delivery to any alternate address without our authorisation, this I will take up with our account manager. 

Stock is a contentious issue and the vast movements of stock can make life difficult for our operations.  We now update the web site hourly to prevent stock discrepancies, however if one is available and a customer checks, this may have been purchased off the shelf by the time a customer travels to collect.  This can happen, so we advise customers to call and reserve to prevent this occurring.  We also feed stores once a week with a full 40 foot articulated lorry, and when this stock is transferred moves vast stock from our warehouse depot into the store receiving, again could have a cross over if a customer orders between movements.  To this event we would move stock direct from store to a customer should this happen to fulfil order requirements.

We plan to vastly change our operations next year and use a different platform for the web site that will have many enhanced services i.e. live stock link, click and reserve etc that will alleviate many issues customers have experience with stock in the past.

and1145 & SGThomas again I apologise you have experienced issues, please message me if I can assist in any way.  Stock management issues are not foolproof with any company, this said we are doing everything we can to tighten up our web management as we are aware sometimes we have run into issues.

We are still a little fish in a big pond, a small family run business who have always prided ourselves on a personal service.  I am not going to lie and say we don't occasionally run into difficulties, I can however assure you we will do everything possible to rectify a problem to a customers full satisfaction.

I am always available to intervene where necessary.

Kind regards,

dglossop at towsure.com

Mr Glossop

I will email you and provide you with my order number via your email address.  However, the parcel was collected by UK Mail last Wednesday at 11:15 and we have yet to receive our full refund. I refer you to my comment on the 01/08/13 in this thread. For some reason you provided a refund on the stools seperately instead of awaiting the return of your goods and providing a full refund.

Communication continues to be a major problem within your orgnisation as well as stock control. Whatever system you are using isn't working although I suspect you may be using a similar system to 'just in time' to prevent the necessity for over stocking?

If you haven't got it right after 4 years then there are fundimental problems which are being missed.  You applaud yourselves on your automatic telephone answering for being one of the largest manufacturers and suppliers of leisure products but obviously have not grasped the requirements of the customer, ie. GOOD service which includes providing the customer with the product they require in an efficient and timely manner in good condition.  Towsure have been trying to achieve this for the last 4 years.... and failed!

SalomeDaly...

You are talking rubbish! What difference does the fact that you see this as my first post after 2 years make?  You are also wrong about the credit of teh foot stools.  They did not arrive because they were not in stock!  However, you allude to you having problems with Towsure so yet another cutomer that had a problem?  Finally, I have many years of writing both my home address and email address when completing forms.  Stop making comments that you have know nothing about and if you do, then read all of it first!