John the Potter

It's only the personal attention and professionalism of Vicky Allen and James Davies in the Congleton branch that kept a protracted sale of ours on the tracks.

Through no fault of theirs, or our immediate purchasers, Vicky and James were misled by a different agent further down the chain on the status of a potential buyer. Despite pressure and frustration from parties in the chain Vicky maintained a professional dignity, personal and persistent approach and faith that the transaction would eventually pull together. It did.

BJB may not be the cheapest agent on the block but they they did what they told us they would do, namely sell our property (which a previous estate agent failed to do) and at the end of the day that's what you employ an agent for.

Yes, I recommend Vicky, James and the team in the Congleton Office.

Finally. Have a word with your head office branding designer - yellow and white as a banner text colour does not work online or on sales boards !

Our time in France is coming to an end and we are closing down our accounts.
For the past 8 years we have been with Britline and experienced nothing but outstanding personal service.
UK banks need to take note of how Britline (part of Credit Agricole Normandie) treat their customers. They are how banking in the UK used to be - dealing with a person rather than a chatbot, providing clear information and an app that works seamlessly, statements issued on time, message service that actually works and above all a team on the ground who actually care and try to help.
Bravo Britline - we'll miss you (and I can't recall ever saying that about a bank !)

We've used Trailfinders for many years and each trip has been meticulously designed and executed.

We've recently booked two trips to Southern Africa. We gave Helena in the Edinburgh office a broad outline of what we wanted to achieve and she came up with two well thought out exciting itineraries (not off the shelf routes) that tick all the boxes, suggesting new destinations and experiences.

Helena's expertise, attention to detail and friendly engagement were first class, it's staff like her that ensure we come back to Trailfinders time and again

Thank you Helena and the whole TF team.

We came across Travel Essence at the Manchester Destinations show in '23. We knew little about them: the UK arm of a pan European company.
We gave Kieran a call to help / inspire us planning a trip to NSW and South Australia in late '24. We are so glad we gave them a call.
Kieran took time to listen and understand our aims, needs and limitations. Willing to accommodate any tweaks he built the perfect trip for us.
Accommodation was spot on, recommendations for places to visit spot on, all vouchers, car hire and contacts worked well. Head Office support was superb.
We are so glad we used Travel Essence on what was to be our last trip to Aus, so much so that we've decided to do another trip to what is a wonderful country and are in touch with them again.
Thank you Kieran, Lisette and the whole team.

Purchased a bed settee form Wayfair. Online experience positive, from there it went downhill. They missed the promised delivery date, no negotiation over a new date just given a date and approximate time. Product comprised two heavy boxes, one of which was simply handed over in the street to the OAP wife with a cursory - ‘here you are luv’ leaving her to struggle to take it indoors.
Product itself is not fit for purpose. Two arms are supplied which are useless as the machine calibration of the connections to the settee are offset thus you can't attach the arms to the settee.

Cheap nasty product. Lesson learned - you get what you pay for. Two stars for price and ease of ordering - zero for product and service. We will not be back, nor have more time to waste on this company

I’ve been a customer of Caxton for a number of years. I have always found the online experience first class, am easily able to manage and move currencies for my travels, rates are competitive.
However, the responsive customer support team eclipse the online offering. If I have had any (thankfully few) issues or queries then the London based support team go above and beyond to resolve and inform both online or over the phone. They are responsive, personable and professional. Well done.

We've used Trailfinders on numerous occasions in the past for trips across the world.
On a recent visit to London I popped in to the Conduit Street Office on passing, just seeking inspiration on where to next.
Nothing was too much trouble even though it was getting on for lunchtime, phones ringing and a busy office. Chloe looked at our previous travels, took on board our aims, interests and what we sought from a holiday. She then came up with a suggested itinerary for a trip to South Africa - not off the shelf - that we followed up on the excellent Viewtrail app. Abi seamlessly took over with some tweaking on dates and accommodation (to tie in with a cricket schedule) and hey presto we have a holiday booked that ticks all our boxes.
Very impressed with the professionalism, knowledge, patience and enthusiasm of both Chloe and Abi in Conduit St. If Trailfinders HQ read this please pass on our thanks to their manager.
I heartily recommend Trailfinders once again, they're just streets ahead of other agents.

The online service at Audi/VW financial services is rudimentary and not customer focussed. The telephone service is even worse.
All I want to do was to stop my monthly service plan receipt being sent by post and moved online - if indeed a receipt is required at all. You can't request this online. 4 months of telephone calls with the call assistant assuring us they would stop hard copies has had a negative result - I now receive three paper receipts per month !!!!
These simply sit in my mailbox advising I am away from home, much to the interest of the local housebreaking opportunists.
Come on get with there 21st century and move online - you know, that thing that works on a screen - even banks use the internet these days.

After a rocky journey we now have a working personal alarm with fall detection pendant.
Initial contact with LifeConnect24 sales was positive and informative. The alarm kit arrived as promised. On installation the unit failed to work, further, the team at LifeConnect could not find our customer record. Once traced the customer services team arranged for the technical team to call us. In the end we had to call the technical team, on more than one occasion. They decided the unit was faulty and would replace. New unit arrived. This time the base unit worked but the ‘trigger’ pendant didn’t! Thankfully we could utilise the pendant supplied earlier, and complete the set up.

The system (faulty components apart) is easy to set up and the back up from the emergency response team is excellent. The customer service and technical teams (with two notable individual exceptions) didn’t cover themselves with glory however.

I think our experience is just one of those things, down to bad luck. Every supplier sometimes gets let down by product technical failure. We’re confident of plain sailing from now on.

Big shout out for the team at Longton (Stoke on Trent) Your Move, especially Charlotte & Alexa. Thoroughly professional, knowledgeable, friendly and understanding our needs as prospective purchasers.

Excellent Comms throughout, the agents knew their brief, the area and the properties they were selling, making excellent suggestions on viewings.

The transaction ultimately did not proceed, through no fault of the Longton team. However, our experience with Your Move Longton throughout was positive. We'd be happy to entrust them with any sale (or purchase) in the future.

Class Act.
We bought a Samsung QE50 tv from Richer Sounds Hanley, with a 6 year guarantee. Unfortunately the tv turned out to be a ‘Friday afternoon’ tv, constant picture flicker after it was warmed up, making it unwatchable.
We triggered the guarantee with Richer, after two unsuccessful attempts at repair by Samsung and no assurance that further attempts at repair would be successful Richer stepped in : ‘enough is enough’ for the customer and immediately arranged a swap, no quibble no ifs or buts.

The staff at Richer in Hanley could not have been more empathetic or helpful, even arranging a loan tv whilst Samsung attempted repairs. The staff genuinely cared about their customer , it’s their personal touch and expertise that ensures they’ll have us as customers for life.
A big shout out for the 6 year guarantee too, Richer were prepared to stand up to the manufacturer when they were being intransigent.
On the downside Samsung didn’t cover themselves with glory, their practice of taking an educated guess on which part / component has gone wrong and only supplying the engineer with parts in sequence (resulting in multiple visits and repair attempts) may appeal to their cost base but only works if the guess is right.

I have joined the litany of complaints about the Android 12 security update which has trashed my Nokia 5.3 making it unusable and ready for the garbage.
Nokia customer service is appalling, their technical prowess even worse. They deserve to go out of business - hopefully soon before many others suffer their incompetence.

Absolute garbage. They recently updated Nokia phones to Android 12, but there is a serious technical flaw in their phones which HMD / Nokia refuse to acknowledge - namely that if you factory reset the phone it crashes the phone and makes it unusable.
Nokia will not fix the issue unless at their service centre for which they charge! They may be able to come up with a fix but this will be online - of little use to their crashed phones. For more information look at the tales of woe on the Nokia community forum.
Customer service non existent, see the thread
Avoid Nokia products like the plague.

A big shout out for Naomi in the Leeds office who organised our recent trip to Australia. It was an excellent itinerary, adapted from one of the standard suggested tour routes to WA. Everything worked like clockwork. We have wonderful memories of our journey around some spectacular locations.
This was our third long distance tour organised by Naomi. We're now planning our next with her.
We can't recommend the team on the ground at Trailfinders highly enough - professional, friendly and efficient.

Had to make an amendment to a trip to the US due to family circumstances.
Minimal wait on the phone. Joe M in the Liverpool office was the ultimate friendly professional. Changed our itinerary, had useful suggestions on the amendments and executed the changes with no quibble, fuss or delay.
Top stuff, thank you Joe and all the team on the ground.

Just returned from a fantastic touring holiday to British Columbia and Alberta, organised by Naomi Fellows at the Leeds Office.
Naomi's recommendations, itinerary and schedule were absolutely spot on. Can't fault her service and attention, nor any of the Trailfinders agents we have spoken to over the years.
The only annoyances on this trip were with locally based tour operators and staff attitude/competence at Alamo car hire - none of this down to Naomi.
We're looking forward to our next trips with Trailfinders - keep it up guys, the travel industry situation will get better (?) and we appreciate the pressure you're under on the ground.

...to deliver service.
OK there are delays at times in getting through to the travel advisers but these are unprecedented times in the travel industry. Not only have the floodgates opened and travellers are back, but the airlines and government are making matters worse by constant withdrawal of schedules and changing of advice respectively.
My advice is to persist, only call if it's necessary and in the meantime use the rather excellent online Viewtrail facility where you can*.
You'll find that when you do get through the staff on the ground are superb, professional, friendly and helpful. From speaking to them they are aware of people's frustrations in hanging on and are looking at ways of improving their call handling system.

*I live currently in a remote region and the Internet - like electricity - is very hit and miss, so have to rely on calls at the moment.

User friendly website, clear instructions and seamless process to purchase travel insurance. Excellent value and cover.
Of course the true test of any insurance policy comes with how any claim is handled, hopefully this is a test we won't need to make.

(National) Customer Service were super in sorting out a local issue with mailing lists that I had. Attentive understanding and professional - thank you Michelle !!!

Excellent service from Stoke Audi. This is the second car bought from there, each time the process was smooth, friendly and professional.
It wasn't a given that we would buy another Audi, but everyone from Reception through to the Head of Sales made us feel welcome and valued as a customer. This was in stark contrast to some other local car dealerships who were simply uninterested in selling any car to us*
Handover was thorough even in these Covid influenced times which capped off an overall smooth purchase process.

If we buy another Audi in the future then we'll be back to the Stoke branch without hesitation.

* (Note for other car dealers - I know it's not the best of times in the trade with very few new cars to sell, but at least make an effort guys and girls! It was the Stoke Audi staff that in the end swung the vote in favour of an Audi - not necessarily the product, which tends to be overpriced)