Kitchen
Secret #21
What is the best kitchen guarantee available?
Everybody
wants to be happy with their brand new fully fitted kitchen.
Everybody
wants to be in a position where they’re gazing at their new kitchen
cabinets in wide-eyed glee, very happy indeed - not even thinking about
the guarantee.
Unfortunately some
guarantees aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on. They don't
mean anything atall.
In the past, some
kitchen companies have offered a guarantee for 25 years. When analysing
the small print it did however culminate in meaning that as soon
as the kitchen flat-pack arrived at your house, the guarantee itself
proved to be as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I’m sure that some of you would like a chocolate teapot, but that isn’t
the point! Too many people think about a kitchen cabinets guarantee
before purchase and not enough people think about ensuring that they’re
happy with the kitchen once it’s fitted.
Too many people
aren’t happy with their new kitchen. Small things are wrong with it.
The plinth isn’t fitted on properly. Doors are squint. You phone up
the kitchen company and they’ll phone you back when they have a fitter
available. One finally comes back to your house – not the same fitter
as before. He doesn’t have the right equipment with him to sort out
your problem – he promises to come back later. He doesn’t. You phone
back the kitchen cabinets company. They won’t have any more fitters
in your area for the next couple of weeks.
Great guarantee.
Don’t waste your
time concerning yourself with the length of the guarantee.
A guarantee doesn’t
matter if the job is done properly to begin with. If you have taken
the time to make yourself of all the other Kitchen Secrets, you’ll have
a great knowledge of the domestic kitchen cabinets industry. You’ll
be in charge of when to buy and when to not. If that’s the case then
you won’t have made a reactive decision and suddenly purchased something
you might regret in the future.
As soon as you
receive delivery of your new kitchen you will be asked to sign that
you have received it in satisfactory condition.
A lot of kitchen
companies will ask you to accept delivery of the kitchen by yourself.
Without the fitters. Don’t sign until you are happy with everything.
It doesn’t matter if the delivery driver is left sitting in his van
for half an hour. You have to check to see that the quality of the product
is the same as the quality shown to you bythe kitchen designer. You
need to check the doors, the worktops and the handles.
A lot of companies
also expect another part of the balance payable upon delivery. You
need to decide whether this is fair or not.
With regards
to the guarantee, what you need to do is isolate everything down to
the fitting.
If you’re happy
with the delivery of your appliances and furniture, then you know that
the only thing that could go drastically wrong is the fitting of your
kitchen. This is why you need to stay on the right side of your
fitters. They have total control over whether your final product will
be a success or failure. (refer to Kitchen Secret 20)
However, apart from
looking after the kitchen cabinets fitters yourself, the only significant
‘lever’ that you have over the kitchen company is the value of your
outstanding balance due. We’re not talking about having self-employed
fitters and you paying them directly after the kitchen is fitted – we’re
talking about actual cash due to the kitchen company. If you’ve already
paid the kitchen company much more than half of the cash due to them,
their incentive to correct any problems diminishes. You need to keep
that ‘lever’ as significant as possible.
There is one other
way of improving your guarantee and it relates to Kitchen Secret 19.
If you have chosen to purchase your kitchen via the finance package
offered from the kitchen company, you will probably have paid a small
deposit. Should this be the case, then the finance company tend to ‘back
up’ the guarantee offered by the kitchen company. This does offer increased
‘peace of mind’ as they would act as an independent body within a dispute
and also maintain the guarantee after kitchen company liquidation. However,
as we have emphasised already, the best guarantee that you have is to
check, double check and check again yourselves that you are happy with
everything. Don’t rely on anyone else.
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