Custom front door - everything that could go wrong did go wrong
It's taken me a while to decide how to write this review. I could write a novel about our experience with Vinyl Window pro but I'm going to keep it to the highlights that hopefully you will find useful when comparing companies.
I chose Vinyl Window Pro for a custom front door for our home. This was a splurge item that we decided we were willing to spend more money on. We also ordered a new 3 pane sliding door as ours was broken.
Jeremy was the salesman and did a good job explaining everything or so I thought. I did get another quote from a well known company and ended up choosing Vinyl Window pro because they offered staining/painting of the door and the hardware was included whereas the other company didn't include those two things. Vinyl Window pro was the more expensive quote but I liked that it included everything. We picked an 8 foot fibreglass door with sidelites and a transom window.
In retrospect, I should have recognized some red flags during the ordering process. Jeremy didn't go over any of the fine details with me. We didn't go through all the options that the door had, such as lock mechanisms and hardware choices. He showed me the sample door in the showroom that locked in two places, so I thought that was just how the door came. We picked a stain color from his samples and he placed the order.
From this point on, everything that went wrong pretty much did. The door was late, well, maybe Vinyl Window Pro was not informed of how long it would actually take and over promised on delivery date. The communication was horrendous. I had to constantly call for updates when deadlines would pass and we still had no door (which happened at least 4 times).
When the door finally arrived, it was the wrong color. This was a big deal. They actually tried to talk me into keeping the door and tell me that it looked nicer than the color I had picked. Not once did they offer any compensation for this mistake. They didn't offer to replace the door and wanted to get it stripped and re-stained. There were some quality issues as well, such as peel and stick trim and gaps on the sides of the doors filled with a terrible caulking job. The door also only locks in one place and was not the locking mechanism that I was shown in the showroom. I've never been treated so terribly by a company, I was actually in tears as I was threatened that the installers would not leave my house until we paid them the full amount even though there were so many issues. At this point, I stopped dealing with the company entirely and passed all communications with them on to my husband. I was done.
We had to call Vinyl Window Pro repeatedly until they finally decided to replace the door entirely. In the end, they did replace the door, it is the right color and all the quality issues are fixed. This was after months of frustration. We eventually had Tisha assigned to our door and my husband wanted me to write that he was great to deal with. He did come to our house to supervise the installation of the new door and we did appreciate him doing that. The installers did take the time to ensure that it was done properly. In the end, we got the door that we wanted and are happy with it.
I placed the door order August 2015 and our new door was installed May 2016.
If I were to do it over again, I would choose a local company (VWP is out of Ontario). Vinyl Window Pro is the only company I have ever used (and we've done a lot of renovations) that insists on payment the minute the installation is finished. Most other companies ensure you are happy with the product before requiring payment. I was not happy that even through everything we went through, never once did they offer any type of discount for the headache we went through. They had the worst communication I have ever experienced. A company's true colors come out when things go wrong.
My final comment, is that we never got a call from them to ask about our satisfaction with the door. Once the new door was installed, we never heard from them. I'm not surprised being that we had to call them for everything. But knowing the history with our door, a phone call to follow up would have been appreciated.
I realize that mistakes do happen and I think I would have been frustrated, but okay with dealing the the wrong door color and finishing quality problems if this company had handled it well. It was the way they treated me, the utter lack of communication and customer service that is that made our experience with Vinyl Window Pro as bad as it was.
I will never recommend this company and never use them again.
The only reason I didn't give them a zero, is because they did end up replacing the door and doing the right thing. Also, our sliding door installation went fairly smoothly. There is some bad caulking around it, but that's something that we can fix ourselves.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $10,000.00
- Company Response
Hello Jennifer and Brent,
I'm terribly sorry to hear about your experience with our company. We do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that it has caused you. We also apologize for the factory making a mistake on the color of your door. We did however really try our best to own up to that mistake and offer you a discount on that door in which you refused. We also offered to have a professional painter re-stain it for you to be the correct color which you also turned down. I completely understand your choice in declining our offers and wanting a whole new door all together and so we respected your decision and provided you with one after winter as per your husband's Brent's request. Customer service did not follow up with you because they tend to follow up 5-6 months after the installation so that the customer has had use of the product for a longer period of time. I understand your concern about the company following up but the Calgary General Manager Tisha made it a priority to make sure that he went himself to your home. He overlooked that everything was running smoothly with the installation of the second door. He personally wanted to make sure that at the very end, you were happy with the outcome of your new door. We do apologize for the misunderstanding about the lock. The lock on the showroom door was not a standard lock but an upgraded $400 lock. The factory made the door based on the work order that they received and this specific lock was not requested. Jeremy has been to your house many times during this whole process by his own good will. The reason being is because he cares about all his clients and wanted to personally confirm that everything was to your satisfaction.
We do apologize for how long the whole process took. We take pride in the quality of our products and your door specifically was one of our top of the line, completely custom doors and couldn't be rushed. Ontario is a very common location for factories in Canada. Although our factory is located in Ontario, you were dealing with Calgary locals in our Calgary office and have visited our established Calgary show room.
Once again, I do sincerely apologize on behalf of the whole company for your sour experience with us. We do wish we could have done more to meet your satisfaction.-Avi, Toronto General Manager