Not the experience that we had hoped for

Hi Maija. I took quite a while to respond to this appalling review. Even now still, I am extremely upset by what you wrote here and I needed time to process that someone would want to hurt us to badly. This response is not the response you will be looking for, instead it’s my true response to you. Too often people think just because they’re a client, they can say whatever they want and everyone will believe them (because their the client, right). Unfortunately too many people take advantage of that and know that a business has to leave a ‘professional’ response rather than getting into it with a client. Well, I am not going to give you that because what you wrote is absolutely not true.
I had a look at your profile and you ONLY write bad reviews, you never have anything good to say about companies so this shouldn’t actually come as a surprise I guess.
I really don’t know what your motive is or if you’re just out to make a company look bad when you’re having a bad day but let me start at the beginning.
You came to our showroom and chatted to Rhonda, she then emailed me your potential order and I sent you a quote. On our quote t’s and c’s, the lead time is displayed which stated 6-7 weeks. You don’t even have to get into the t’s and c’s, it’s below the payment terms, before the actual t’s and c’s start, which is in the first few lines.
The lead time is also displayed on our website where I assume you looked before you came to our showroom.
You confirmed your order and paid, an invoice was sent to you along with the payment receipt and the exact same t’s and c’s are on the invoice - lead time being displayed again.
When sending your POP, you asked for an approximate completion date. I replied with a confirmation email which has the lead time, again, displayed in my email to you. You never expressed any issue with that, in fact, you even responded to that email with no mention of the lead time being an issue. This was the email thread at the time, showing your response to that specific email:

From: Maija Groenewald <maijagroenewald@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, 09 October 2022 at 23:00
To: Bianca Smith <bianca@madebyfynbossie.com>
Cc: Errol Groenewald <errol_groenewald@msn.com>
Subject: Re: Quote QU-0665 from Hand Made by Fynbossie for Maija Groenewald

Hi Bianca Thank you for your email. I have attached a POP with regard to the deposit payment for our order. Please let me know if you need anything more from our side. Would you be able to give us an approximate date for delivery? Thanks and regardsMaija
On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 at 09:10, Bianca Smith <bianca@madebyfynbossie.com> wrote:

Good morning Maija & Errol,


I trust you are well and having a lovely day thus far 🙂
Thank you very much for your order with Fynbossie. It is confirmed and been added to our production list. 

We will get in touch closer to the end of the lead time (5-7 weeks, give or take, on standard orders) to advise when your order will be delivered.


Once the payment reflects, I will send you an updated invoice and payment receipt.  Please send me your full address for delivery. Let me know if you have any questions. 


Enjoy the rest of your day. 🙂

On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 at 13:48
Hi Bianca
Thank you for the update.
Our address is:******** Cape Town

Kind regards
Maija————————————-
So here everyone can see that you were most definitely informed of the lead time and not once did you express any issue with that. Rhonda has never and will never give a lead time of 3 weeks to a client. We haven’t had this lead time in 3 years so there is no reason for her to give this sort of lead time when she has always given the correct lead time to clients and no one (except you) has said she supposedly said this. 
This is again a case of, the client is always right so when I told you this can’t be right, you weren’t happy at all.

I don’t know what happened between the 10th of October and 27th October but all of a sudden, I receive a very weird email from you:

Hi Fynbossie Team
It's with trepidation that I write to you after reading all the terms and conditions on our invoice - I'm afraid to even ask questions.  
I see that we are required to pay the outstanding balance of our account, but we still need to wait at least another two to three weeks after this time for delivery. We will do this, but we take away any leverage that we may have in the event of non-delivery, damage, incorrect order, etc.  All the balls are in your court.
When we came to the show room, we were told that the lead time was approximately 3 weeks at that time, but as we can see from your terms and conditions, it is double that. (We paid our invoice a few days after coming to the showroom).
We would never have placed the order if we had known that the wait was almost two months - it is just too long when we actually need the furniture in our new house.
It's hard not to feel both angry and disappointed - however wonderful our furniture may be when it eventually arrives. 
Please tell customers the whole story about lead and delivery times so that we can make more infomed decisions.
You now have us over a barrel - and that is never a nice feeling.
SincerelyMaija Groenewald
——————————-

I still have absolutely no idea where that came from after our last interaction was normal and peaceful - no issues at all. Then I receive this?
I replied the below to you which was a normal email but now you accuse me of making you feel ridiculous. What you feel is on you. Do not put that on someone else because I never made you feel ridiculous in any way. I just answered you.
But I’ll tell you why you weren’t happy with my response, since you’re telling me what I made you feel. I didn’t say that we’ll have your order done sooner or within the 3 weeks like you accuse Rhonda of saying - that you didn’t like as you wanted me to say you’re right and we’ll do whatever you say. On the contrary, I said that your correct lead time was given multiple times and Rhonda definitely couldn’t have given that lead time.
Here was my reply to you which was in no way what you claim it to be:

Good evening Maija, I hope you had a wonderful day 😊 I am a bit sad to read this email and that you feel afraid to ask us any questions. Questions at Fynbossie are always welcome and just an email or phone call away. The due date on the invoice is automatically generated by Xero and this is not when it has to be paid. The balance is payable before delivery and we will get in touch with you when your order is ready for delivery, then the balance payment can be made. Unfortunately we have learned the hard way in the past by delivering and taking clients’ word that they will make payment, hence us having to get the payment beforehand.We pride ourselves on our after sales service so should there be any hiccups afterwards, we will always assist in getting it sorted. Regarding the lead time, are you able to advise who exactly told you our lead time is 3 weeks, as I would like to follow this up? I apologise if anyone gave you the incorrect lead time in the showroom.Our lead time hasn’t been that short in 3 years and although it would be great to have it so short, we are also blessed with a lot of orders so unfortunately this lead time is not possible at the moment. We do have the lead time stated on the quote and invoice which clients can refer to before deciding to place their order. I just double checked the quote I sent to you to make sure all the correct t’s & c’s are on there, and I see the longer lead time is displayed there which was 6-7 weeks before we changed it to 5-7 weeks.On the 10th of October I sent the confirmation email to you and Errol which stated the lead time of 5-7 weeks on your order but I did not get any feedback from you at the time, regarding the lead time. Currently we are estimating to have your order completed between 14 & 21 November but I will make a note on your order and try our best to get it done sooner, not rushing it and compromising on quality of course. We will get in touch when your order is ready for delivery. Have a lovely evening further 😊
——————————————————
So you obviously weren’t happy as you didn’t get your way. Other clients would ask us in a polite way if we can try and prioritise their order, but you went about this completely the wrong way.

You replied quite rudely to my email above and I just left it there. We didn’t do a thing wrong and you clearly just wanted to fight with someone.

I then did actually make a note on your order (no, I wasn’t lying in my email despite what you may think) and we DID have your order completed sooner than your deadline. We couldn’t actually get hold of you for a day or 2 otherwise it would’ve been delivered even sooner. Of course, you won’t mention this as you can’t say anything positive, only negative things.

Regarding the dressing table, the issue that you have here is with the inside of the table (not drawers) which of course doesn’t get finished the same as the outside but still looks neat. No one except you, has a issue with this. Nevertheless, I still said we’ll make it look nicer for you - never did I have a issue with doing that.
The runners - yes, sometimes some things are faulty. It’s not our fault and we don’t manufacture it but again, I said we’ll have a look at it and replace it if need be. You turn it around and make it all seem so bad but actually it isn’t. We never once had a issue to collect and fix but you make it sound like there was no after service.
The wheels on the couch sliders were forgotten - that I definitely can admit to and I apologised for that. We corrected this. Unfortunately floors are never level so it’s not our product that’s faulty here.

Regarding the design comment - we never once said this was a Fynbossie unique design. You came with the custom order to us and requested the couch slider to have wheels. Now you want to make us look like liars by saying we say this is a design unique to us when you actually came to us with the request.

You say you were ‘less than impressed’ with the quality of the items received but you ordered 4 items and never once said there is anything wrong with the TV unit or sideboard - 2 big items. So how can you say this when clearly these 2 items meet your expectations? Although, you won’t admit that as you only have negative things to say. I’m sure you will find something negative to say about these 2 items now, after I’ve mentioned it.

I honestly don’t know what happened in your life that you feel you have to do things like this to a company - it’s really sad that you wrote these things but I feel I stated our case quite clearly with my lengthly reply.

You really have no idea what impact you have with this review and what damage you cause but I hope it made you feel better by writing it.