Recently, our shower broke. We came home and it was continously running, the only way we could stop the water was to turn it off at the mains. For those who know about showers it was the exposed thermostatic shower valve that had broken, for people like me it's the bit with the handle to turn on the water and adjust the temperature.

So, off I went to the local Bath Store which had been advertising a sale on
TV, hoping there would be a suitable shower valve with money off. I took the old one with me as I'm not an expert at these things.

The staff in the store were polite and helpful and had found me a suitable
replacement within 10 minutes. I left the store happy with my purchase
which had been £199 in the sale, reduced from £249. The order arrived a few days later.

However, it soon became apparent that what they had sold me was totally
unsuitable. Once I got the package home I could see that the width between the two pipes was not the same as the old model (you cannot check this accurately in the shop as the valves are displayed attached to the wall), I called the plumber to double check and he confirmed that not only were the pipes a different width apart but they were also 1/2" diameter whereas my old model was 3/4". In summary, an entirely different size, to fit this would have necessitated taking tiles off the wall and moving the pipes - a big job.

So, I returned the product for a full refund which a week later still isn't
back in my account (I have been assured it will be there within 10 days).

It seems that the staff, although friendly and polite, don't know very much
about the product they are selling. With such technical products, you really
would expect the staff to have been trained to a level where they can advise customers on a suitable replacement for a model they have in front of them!

I have to say with hindsight I feel like they just wanted to get a sale even
if it meant the product would be returned as unsuitable. Maybe their
commission/sales targets are based on sales regardless of refund.

In complete contrast to this experience, I then went to Jem bathrooms in
Greenwich, the man there said straight away that there was nothing wrong with the valve exterior, all I needed was a new cartridge to put inside.

He gave me the customer service telephone number of the manufacturer and model number and said if I had any problems to ring him. He did this even though he could have sold me a new, exact match which would have put £275 in his till.

I rang the helpline of Hudson Reed (the manufacturer) the next morning.
Within 2 minutes I had a brand new cartridge on it's way to me absolutely free of charge, didn't even have to pay for the delivery. Extremely helpful
customer service and a saving of £275 (which is what a full Hudson Reed valve would have cost). Brilliant.