Dolphin Bathrooms: The Rest of the Story (Dolphin Bathrooms in General)

Member Name: Jennifer Brenner

Product:	Dolphin Bathrooms in General
Date:	15/03/02 (7515 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Eventually took responsibility for very poor fitting

Disadvantages: Unsupervised fitters , Irresponsible, unresponsive customer service

Here is an update of my March 15 opinion (which I have left intact below).

Dolphin's fitter (an employee, not a subcontractor) arrived as booked on March 26, and fixed all of the problems I reported and put some finishing touches on the bathroom that improve the quality of the installation. Dolphin also has reimbursed me the £376.50 I paid Pimlico Plumbers to stop the leak from the defective cistern the original fitters installed. Three senior persons in the management of Dolphin's Worcester office have explained to me that the warranty services representative who told me that Dolphin's credit terms are 60 days (twice, in writing) was misinformed. The operations manager has sent me a letter of apology for the treatment I received, and the sales manager for the Worcester office called me with personal apologies as well.

I should note that I did not get these responses by dealing with the warranty services department; I wrote directly to the operations manager and to the sales manager. The warranty services department stonewalled my faxed letters and requests for urgent service, even when I copied the person responsible for my file on my correspondence with Trading Standards, the OFT and her own management. Fortunately the managers have now given me their direct dial numbers, so I won't have to deal with the ineffective subordinates.

One senior representative admitted that the company has gone through unprecedented growth in the last year and has not put in place the infrastructure required to deal with it. He said that they are well aware of this problem and are trying to sort it out; he mentioned as an example a plan for dealing with the refuse problem described in my March 15 opinion.

I would recommend that anyone who decides to use Dolphin for an installation take the following precautions:

- wait another year, until they have developed an adequate infrastructure;

- it is likely that they
will use bonded independent contractors for your job, as this is common practice among home remodelling companies (I have learned). Insist that a field manager come to the job site often during your installation to check on their work. Do not sign off on the job until he has inspected it himself.

- if you are not getting any responses, or inappropriate responses from their customer service department, contact their supervisors early and often; it seems that their junior employees lack discretion and common sense.

- be prepared to do a lot of leg work yourself, as their own internal communications are poor. For example, I had to follow-up myself about the arrival time of the new fitter, and when he started work he had to chase down the cistern I had asked them to order 12 days before. Their warranty services department also failed to tell me what time the field manager would be coming to inspect the second fitter's work, and it was by chance that he caught me at home.

March 15 Opinion:

Dolphin is not value for money. Currently I am having a very bad experience with this company and I encourage other consumers to read this and consider carefully before engaging Dolphin.

I hired Dolphin because I wanted to avoid the problems that are normally associated with independent contractors. What I did not know is that Dolphin charges its customers a premium and then hires independent contractors whom it does not supervise. The result is that I have paid approximately £7000 for a leaking, unfinished bathroom. Dolphin has refused to provide its so-called "warranty services" in a timely manner, and I have been obliged to hire and pay out of my own pocket an independent plumber to fix at least one of the critical problems that Dolphin's fitters left behind (our managing agent's plumber fixed the others), and to engage in DIY.

Here is a summary of the major problems:

The fitters ne
glected to tighten the cold water pipe to my bathoom sink, resulting in a leak into my downstair's neighbor's flat;

They placed the toilet too close to the bathroom wall, contorting the pan connector so that the toilet does not flush waste away entirely and causing the pan connector to slip off and leak as well;

They installed a defective cistern that began leaking critically because they had tried to cover the defect up by sealing it with timber adhesive, which is not meant to be used with water and failed. They should have reported the defect on the first day, and ordered a new cistern instead of trying to hide the problem;

They used inferior plastic sealant which has since hardened and detached itself, and I have been obliged to reseal my bath myself to prevent more leaks;

They dumped the refuse from my renovation in the alley to our back garden and our refuse room, even though my contract included the cost of disposal. Dolphin rectified this problem 4 days after I reported it.

<br>There are additional "cosmetic" problems, such as failing to grout behind the cistern and failing to seal the openings in the tiles through which the pipes go, which renders the fitting of poor quality.

The field manager surveyed my bathroom five days after I reported the first leak, however, Dolphin "warranty services" manager refuses to send a fitter earlier than approximately one month after I reported the first problem. In the interim, their fitters' work continues to deteriorate, and I have been obliged to hire and pay an outside plumber on an emergency basis to deal with it. Dolphin also refuses to reimburse me promptly for this expense, insisting that their credit terms are 60 days. Bear in mind that they insist on a 25% deposit when the salesperson visits to design your bathroom, and the remainder upon delivery of materials.

The "warranty services" center has ignore
d the letters I have faxed to them describing the defects their fitters left behind that require immediate attention, and the behavior of one of their representatives has been simply gratuitous (apparently it is my fault that they can't send a fitter earlier because I refuse to have the same fitters back again). I can only describe their attitude as "customer be damned." I have enlisted the Trading Standards for Worcestershire Council to address my complaints with Dolphin, but this has had no effect.

The current situation is that they have booked one of their "senior fitters," supposedly an employee of Dolphin rather than yet another independent contractor, to do the remedial work approximately 4 weeks after I reported the first problem. I continue to cope with the shoddy work their fitters have done and to watch for additional emergencies.

I will update this opinion as there are new developments.

Summary: