Andrew Johnson

I needed to make a claim for a damaged alloy and it was all arranged with the repaired with no grief. Dropped the car off, the work was done and I could pick it up. Alloy was well repaired. Essentially, it was all you ever ask of an insurance policy: claims handled quickly and without aggravation!

We had a solar and battery system installed. Our roof isn't a typical British build and required a bespoke approach to installation with additional work. Michael was able to work out a solution where I feel other suppliers would have just deemed it impossible. Work undertaken was high quality, completed to time and really neat and tidy. Communication throughout was excellent as has been the follow up post install. Cost was very competitive and the choice of system installed has worked very well for our purpose. I'd highly recommend NowEV.

Good: we received an email the day before giving an approximate time for delivery of two sofas and could track that through the day. It was reasonably accurate which helps.
Not so Good: Actually trying to arrange delivery (or re-arrange) was terrible. There is a contact number to use if the original day/time was inconvenient and I spent from 10:30am to 17:30 trying to re-arrange over 3 different phone calls before giving up. That gives you some idea of how long you can expect to stay on the phone - they do have a queue callback option but I found that didn't work, YMMV. The delivery chaps were given no overshoes and wouldn't take off their shoes so had to walk over our brand new carpets to deliver and put together. Really, they should be given, and told to use, shoe covers. Finally, they were extremely enthusiastic wielding their cutting knife for the packaging and damaged one of the sofas: so having waited months for them to be delivered, they were damaged (not excessively, but still...) and need a repair already.

Prices are good, especially with Intelligent Go for EV charging. However, the Smart Charging feature of the app is unreliable and stressful to rely on - still, it is possible to fallback on to just charging between the cheaper hours. The worst thing however is the terrible, terrible customer service as it's pretty much non-existent. If I contact by phone, the person answering never has a clue and has to pass to the relevant team; typically a promise of a call later in the day which never comes, nor does a response to my query. If I contact by email, it's just a black hole: if a response is received it's usually well over a week and typically never answers the query; firing back a response re-initiates the pointless week+ response cycle. The date of experience for this post is just when I made it: my experience of terrible service has been for the last year and a half when I joined. The only thing keeping me with them is the good price.

Order was fulfilled as requested, well packaged and received quickly. Couldn't ask for more than that and wouldn't hesitate to order from JB3D again.

Had what I needed and the checkout experience was quick and easy. Dispatched straightaway and arrived when expected.

Actually booking was easy enough, the problem arises when I had a question. There is no way on the website to get in touch with you: no email, no phone, no chat, nothing. I had to message and chase up via Facebook.

EDIT: it is nigh-on impossible to get any sense out of anyone at cottages.com. The only way to contact someone is via a PM on Facebook or their chat. They are unhelpful with the only response being "we're just a booking agent". In other words, once you have paid them, they think their responsibility ends. It's no way to conduct business. Info they send out about a booking has incorrect local contact details on it and they refuse to do anything about it, except reissue. Basically, you may find yourself relying on your credit card company and/or ABTA to resolve issues because this company doesn't care. Any problems when you arrive at your property? Good luck because this company won't help you.

The status of my parcel was "out for delivery" for 4 days and was delivered on day 5! It is impossible to actually find out what is REALLY happening, because not even your contact agents have access to information (i.e. from the depot itself.) So it's just frustrating for a customer. Not only that, you flagged the parcel up as "thanks for changing the delivery date" when I did no such thing - this was just the depot covering up for poor service. You need to ensure that the status is accurate, maintained and honest; you also need to provide your call centre agents (whoever is on 'chat') with access to better information.
EDIT 30/05/23: I contacted Yodel as requested by their responder. Apparently it was my fault for changing the delivery date, even though I didn't. Apparently, only customers can do this and yet...I didn't, not via the app, nor online. So, depot can change the delivery details but it's still the customer's fault. Today, I was informed that Yodel would be collecting a parcel from my address: the parcel was on the doorstep (for two days now) and my wife and I were in all day. The status on tracking is now "We tried to collect your parcel but it wasn't available". They didn't try and collect it, just changed the status and now I've got to start over. I have no choice to use some other organisation because Yodel are chosen by the recipient (Nespresso.) I stand by my 1 star rating as the service is just rubbish.

Very good service and not expensive. Sent a 86cm x 46cm x 21cm parcel, dropped it off early afternoon and it was there the next day. No hassle, no aggro.

Code bought, delivered, installed and accepted within about 5 minutes without any hassles.

I booked two days with CAT: an on-road training day followed by day 1 of the Academy Driving course - Performance Driving - at Millbrook. What attracted me to CAT was the 1:1 tuition, no sharing of the instructor and sitting around waiting, plus using my own car. The fact it was Millbrook meant I was expecting a safe environment to take my car to.

My expectation was to get a better understanding of my car and gain a lot more confidence and competence in driving it. These expectations were definitely met and I had such great fun doing it. The two days were, without reservation, the best training days I've ever had since learning to drive.

Colin was my instructor for two days. He is patient, able to explain things in a clear way, inspires confidence (at least he didn't show any nervousness about being a passenger!) so is able to get the knowledge over in a way that you can put it into practice without worrying about messing things up. There is no chiding, no criticism, just questioning, prompting and trying-again. The main thing though is that he concentrates on what YOU want to get out of the training - it's not (necessarily) a set curriculum. This is played over and over to make sure you're moving towards your goals. Incidentally, my wife also undertook the same course with Paul and had the same things to say.

Did I learn a lot? In short, yes. My cornering skills are better and safer; my understanding of my car at its limit gives me great confidence in handling 600bhp safely and getting more out of it; observation is significantly better; I could go on.

If anyone is thinking it is a bit expensive I can tell you it is worth every single penny spent. Part of it is hiring out Millbrook of course but having this level of dedicated instruction in a safe environment really allows you to achieve what you want out of the sessions. At no point did I ever think my car was at risk of being damaged. I don't think you could buy that elsewhere, frankly, and I will certainly be going back for more.

Highly recommended.

Ordered a test print to check on the quality of the printing and the paper; also ordered the sample pack so that I could see the range. My print came within a couple of days, well packaged; the sample pack took a lot longer but again was well packaged.

My print matched my colour-calibrated monitor very closely. Preparation wasn't onerous to work out as they essentially print what you send them: so all prep, e.g. sizing, was done up front.

Sample pack clearly wasn't skimped on: full A4 examples of their paper types with different images to suit the paper. Every image was different and I did think it would be useful to see the same image on papers, where it made sense, to give an idea of how these affect the final print but that's a minor point.

Pricing is expensive compared to the other on-line print shops but the quality is better and in overall balance, worth paying for.