Rutlands

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Forth paragraph down on the above definition explains it perfectly I think, especially "Fit for purpose" & "right first time":

Quality assurance includes two principles: "Fit for purpose" (the product should be suitable for the intended purpose); and "right first time" (mistakes should be eliminated). QA includes management of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components, services related to production, and management, production and inspection processes.[citation needed] The two principles also manifest before the background of developing (engineering) a novel technical product: The task of engineering is to make it work once, while the task of quality assurance is to make it work all the time.

BS5750 was the first quality management system introduced in the UK by the UK, before the invention of ISO9000.

Mike
 
Kieran62":36vz51nk said:
Afternoon,
YorkshireMartin. I put it here because I'd bought something that was faulty and was pleasantly surprised at how promptly the issue was dealt with; considering the many negative comments we've seen about Rutlands in the past, I was fully expecting a drawn out process.
MikeJhn. All companies have faults with stock, it is how they deal with complaints and remedy the situation that counts; I've had truly awful experiences with some companies that have dragged on for weeks before being resolved!

I'll be honest. In my view it reads like something an employee would write. As do the other posts in support, from Brian and Bob. You all have relatively low post counts and yes, I'm discriminating, because in all honesty, if a prolific forum user posted this, I'd be far more open to believing a corner had been turned.

Regardless of individual experiences, you must understand that this company is widely believed to engage in tactics which some people consider unfair, such as the well publicised allegations of removing any product ratings given by customers which they did not agree with. This is one possible explanation as to why all their products carry very high "ratings". Even Amazon, the literal pinnacle of investment in customer service, covering just about all sectors, cannot achieve such lofty praise across its entire product line.

As a company, you could literally give everything away for free and you still would not maintain a 4 or 5 out of 5 rating for all, or even most, products. Someone would complain that the sellotape on the packaging got stuck to their bacon sandwich, or something. No, really, they would. Anyone with any retail experience will have such stories to tell.

I'm not trying to be Cumquats with anyone, it just seemed rather spurious.

Personally, I believe in credit where credit is due and if I do truly receive exceptional customer service, I might be tempted to post about it in a forum, but it really would have to be exceptional and I'm not sure your story was. It's only my opinion, though.

Like most people, I'm far more likely to post about bad experiences, than good. That's just how human psychology works and it's a lesson learned early on in any marketing qualification.

Forgive my skepticism everyone. It'd my personal opinion only, more power to you for standing by your convictions etc.
 
YorkshireMartin":19ijn3s9 said:
I'll be honest. In my view it reads like something an employee would write. As do the other posts in support, from Brian and Bob. You all have relatively low post counts and yes, I'm discriminating, because in all honesty, if a prolific forum user posted this, I'd be far more open to believing a corner had been turned.

In my defence as a Rutlands customer, not an employee. I submit this following e-mail:

From: Bob [mailto: my e-mail address]
Sent: 28 July 2017 15:51
To: Customer Services
Subject: Xact Router Motor Rutlands Part No. RTX5003

Dear sirs, some time ago I bought a router table, insert and lift. At that time I thought that my router would fit into the lift but when I spoke to your office I was advised that I would need the router motor - Xact Router Motor Rutlands Part No. RTX5003 - and you agreed to give me a £20 discount on the purchase of said motor. I now find myself in a position to afford the motor and would like to proceed.

Yours sincerely

Dear Mr. xxxxxx,
Thank-you for your email.
I have checked your account and I can confirm there is a note to accept an order for 1x RTX5003 at £169.95, yes.
If you please call me on 01629 815 518 I can get this sorted for you.
Thank-you, best regards,

Three days later, the router motor was dispatched.

Unlike most people I'm prepared to write a positive review of goods or services as well as a negative review of shoddy goods or poor service.

I was a photocopier engineer for a multi-national company for many years and like most firms their products were made overseas either by themselves or a third party and yes there were times when it was impractical to unbox the equipment in the workshop and run it up to check for quality and make adjustments. The machine would arrive at the customer's and be installed and yes sometimes it failed right out of the box either through damage in transit or faulty manufacturing and then I or one of my team suffered the indignity and embarrassment of explaining the issue to the customer and how we were going to rectify the matter and maybe offer some recompense.

It is how those assurances are carried out and seen through to a satisfactory result is how companies keep their accreditation. Some machines or equipment cost a a few pounds such as calculators and other small office equipment whilst others would cost many thousands of pounds if buying a top of the range colour copier or multi function copy centre. It doesn't matter about cost of individual units it's how the firm works to maintain its customer service and professionalism.

If a machine failed in the workshop the customer never found out about it as the defect was remedied at that point or sent back to the supplier and a new machine unboxed.

Just because I'm a new member / poster please don't assume that I am some sort of agent for an outside source. I'm 63 and just getting into woodwork. I'm not good at it as I haven't done woodwork since my schooldays back in the 1960s and I was rubbish at then too. I do however enjoy my time in the workshop and yes I'm naive about what I buy and have made mistakes in some of those purchases. For instance I recently bought a set of Robert Sorby woodturning chisels from a seller on ebay and when I proudly showed them to my newly formed friends at my woodturning club I was mildly rebuked for not buying HSS tools, a mistake that I won't make again. That doesn't make Robert Sorby tools bad, they were 50 years old but had not been used and had languished in someone's garage until his demise.
 
Yes Martin,
I AM a Rutlands employee, but i am finding the 280 mile daily round trip tiring!
It's hard writing spurious 5 star reviews of the company and maintaining my own small business, but the satisfaction of trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people on forums makes it all worthwhile. Brian, Rob and myself spend hours concocting fake news about Rutlands and generating discussions, and it is good to see it is working;
if it hadn't been for that pesky YorkshireMartin, we would have got away with it!
Yes you post prolifically and I don't, but if you'd bothered to look at the my posts, you would have seen that they are all either asking advice or trying to help others on the forum.
You are entitled to your opinion, but remember what the great FZ once said, "Opinions are like aholes, everyone has one, and, everyone else's stink" :)
 
Kieran62":hcnlompm said:
Yes Martin,
I AM a Rutlands employee, but i am finding the 280 mile daily round trip tiring!
It's hard writing spurious 5 star reviews of the company and maintaining my own small business, but the satisfaction of trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people on forums makes it all worthwhile. Brian, Rob and myself spend hours concocting fake news about Rutlands and generating discussions, and it is good to see it is working;
if it hadn't been for that pesky YorkshireMartin, we would have got away with it!
Yes you post prolifically and I don't, but if you'd bothered to look at the my posts, you would have seen that they are all either asking advice or trying to help others on the forum.
You are entitled to your opinion, but remember what the great FZ once said, "Opinions are like aholes, everyone has one, and, everyone else's stink" :)

There are plenty of people, not saying you, who make a living doing exactly that, writing spurious reviews and before they do, they also build up a profile because to do it if it was their first and only post would result in an instant ban. It's pretty common tactic these days because the old "spam spam spam" methods no longer work as people got wise to it. It's also very lucrative for both the people writing the posts and the company's concerned. We get around 3 calls a week trying to sell us these services.

You seem to be offended, but if you look at the overall situation with Rutlands in recent years, what I suggested would not be an entirely unreasonable suspicion.

Don't take it personally, just looking out for us as a community, ok?
 
The problem is that I do take it personally and am offended when someone calls into question my integrity, bizarre or what?
Perhaps if you didn't come across as another "postcount" bully in what you said when you posted at midnight I wouldn't even have replied.
I've been a member here for over 7 years, I don't think many charlatans would have laid the groundwork so long ago for a single post referencing a piece of good service.
I'm well aware of Rutlands weakness over the years, which was the whole point of my posting in the first place.
Please don't bother to reply , because frankly, I don't care.
 
Kieran62":29jg4z01 said:
The problem is that I do take it personally and am offended when someone calls into question my integrity, bizarre or what?
Perhaps if you didn't come across as another "postcount" bully in what you said when you posted at midnight I wouldn't even have replied.
I've been a member here for over 7 years, I don't think many charlatans would have laid the groundwork so long ago for a single post referencing a piece of good service.
I'm well aware of Rutlands weakness over the years, which was the whole point of my posting in the first place.
Please don't bother to reply , because frankly, I don't care.

It's about protecting each other from outside commercial interference. I'd hope that if you were ever suspicious of a post, you'd question it openly too. It's not a personal attack to do so, its community spirited. If nobody ever did, the forum would be full of commercial spam masquerading as content, which many forums are.

I'm sorry your feelings got hurt, but I explained why I felt like I did about your post and the reasoning behind it.

For the record, when I mentioned prolific users, I meant the guys with many thousands of posts, not my own level of 700 (less than 1 per day on average).

Have a great day.
 
To the OP -

Unless I'm missing something at the time of you writing the opening post your problem hadn't actually being resolved , only an email saying it will be .
Before praising any company its probably wise to wait until any issues are resolved , fingers crossed the replacement will be OK .
 
My own experience of Rutlands is very mixed. I was waiting months for a £149 sander to come back in stock, when it was finally available it was now £189 and they claimed that was reduced from £269! That's really dishonest.

Then again in their summer sale I bought a 1100w 100mm hose dust extractor for £60 which I was delighted with!

Would I buy from them again? Yeah probably, but there's other places I go to first.
 
Kieran62":2hk4mxom said:
Yes Martin,
I AM a Rutlands employee, but i am finding the 280 mile daily round trip tiring!
It's hard writing spurious 5 star reviews of the company and maintaining my own small business, but the satisfaction of trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people on forums makes it all worthwhile. Brian, Rob and myself spend hours concocting fake news about Rutlands and generating discussions, and it is good to see it is working;
if it hadn't been for that pesky YorkshireMartin, we would have got away with it!
Yes you post prolifically and I don't, but if you'd bothered to look at the my posts, you would have seen that they are all either asking advice or trying to help others on the forum.
You are entitled to your opinion, but remember what the great FZ once said, "Opinions are like aholes, everyone has one, and, everyone else's stink" :)

Almost as good as my 900km daily commute. I particularly enjoy the 3 hour ferry ride each way from Dublin to Holyhead, gives me plenty of time to write 5 star reviews! ;)

It's always amusing when someones dislike of a company means it must extend to everyone else. I've bought from Rutlands about 5 times, orders ranging from about £50 to £300. 4 out of 5 times the orders went smoothly, once as previously posted, a part of my order was missing but was posted out to me the same day I contacted Rutlands about it. I've been more than happy with the quality of the items I've bought, a bench vice, various clamps, marking gauges, dust collect hose to name but a few. But not all is rosey as I'm sure Yorkshire Martin found out when carrying out his due diligence, in a previous post I criticised the Dakota version of Tormeks waterstone sharpening system.

Also regarding the price of things, keep an eye on the prices and if you see a bargain, bag it. Amazon are notorious for this as well but just use your head and you'll usually get a good deal. With that said, I've only had good experiences with Rutlands, why should I not relate that? I'll happily but from the again and recommend them to others, with the caveat not to get carried away with the sight of a sale sticker.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk
 
Hello,

It is funny how people's experiences vary. I have used Rutlands many times, and not had a single problem with them. Axminster, on the other hand I have had problems. Not that it would stop me using them again (the fact that they NEVER have anything in stock these days is stopping me using them anyway). Of course I have used Axi loads more times than Rutlands so I might expect a higher instance if problems. In the main, the problems have been sorted super quickly, but then there is my bandsaw that had a faulty switch on delivery that was never satisfactorily resolved; I got so fed up with the replacement parts continually being wrong and I needed to get some work done. Or the Jet drum sander with a faulty loading clamp. Not axi's fault, but 2 attempts to get me the correct replacement and me having to buy a 5mm spanner to make the replacement; there was a week wasted.

Mike.
 
I posted a positive review of the service I received from Ryan at Rutlands a few years back, as I was impressed by the service from this particular individual. This level of service is very rare in my experience so I felt a post was in order.

There are very few reasons why I would buy anything from this particular company and on this occasion it was due to an issue with a product (Something missing from a product supplied, which is a manufacturer fault not the supplier).

I would say credit is due to the individual who rectified the problem well and swiftly, as the OP has about Nathan. And that individual is a credit to the company. There may be many issues with how Rutlands goes about its business but at least some of us have had good dealings with them when it comes to back-up service. Many companies are notorious for very poor customer service, E.g. I've never had any good experiences only terrible ones with Utility Companies. So at least we know there may be problems with items supplied by Rutlands, however we also know there is a chance that the problem may be resolved easily and swiftly.
 
RossJarvis":1e7n9akz said:
There are very few reasons why I would buy anything from this particular company and on this occasion it was due to an issue with a product (Something missing from a product supplied, which is a manufacturer fault not the supplier).
.

Wrong in so many ways.

Mike
 
MikeJhn":1bv7fd6u said:
RossJarvis":1bv7fd6u said:
There are very few reasons why I would buy anything from this particular company and on this occasion it was due to an issue with a product (Something missing from a product supplied, which is a manufacturer fault not the supplier).
.

Wrong in so many ways.

Mike
It's not though to most people. Far eastern QA can be great (workshop heaven) but lets be honest, the default is distinctly average. If you know this, accept you're getting a bargain and if theres a fault that needs to be rectified, so long as it is fixed then its not a massive problem. If you have the money, buy from festool and get something that is set up out of the box - but theres a pretty big premium to pay for that pleasure.
 
It may not be to most people, but it should be.

The whole point is that the supplier/retailer is taking a big slice of the monies paid by us as consumers to just act as a post box, this is unacceptable to any thinking person, the retailer has a legal obligation to sell goods that are fit for purpose (read the consumer act) by accepting the sort of thinking that allows the retailer to act as a post box you are perpetuating the problem.

Consumer act: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/201 ... ts/enacted see chapter 10, sub clause 5

Mike
 
I'd like to think I am a thinking person... they may be acting as a post box, but in order to do that they have to have a warehouse, hold a vast amount of stock (although it doesn't seem like it at times!) pay a lot of overheads. If they then add the wage bill for someone to open every box and check all the parts are there and it all goes together perfectly, how much is your £50 bench sander going to cost? Its just not practical.
 
It is the retailers responsibility to sell items that are fit for purpose, how the achieve that should not be the consumers problem/concern irrespective of how they source their products, the JIT system of stocking has been the norm for many years because it reduces the size of warehouse and stock held, this reduces overheads and the amount of staff needed, indeed in the majority of cases the retailer does not even handle the item, this being sent direct to the consumer from the wholesaler.

The only way to address any bad service (being sent an unusable item is bad service) is to boycott the retailer, letting them know that you are doing so is equally important.

Mike
 
What an amazing thread. Makes me realise how true all the recent news about the number of people with mental health issues is.
 
MikeJhn":3p1c7coo said:
The only way to address any bad service (being sent an unusable item is bad service) is to boycott the retailer, letting them know that you are doing so is equally important.
Mike
And they'll be very pleased that you have done so, because the last thing a low margin retailer needs is customers who want a Mercedes for the price of a Skoda. Customers with unrealistic expectations cost them time and money that put the prices up for everybody.
 
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