Now and then I have a look around the internet to see what other granite worktop companies are up to. The other day I came across an article written by a company advising customers that they shouldn’t be paying deposits for their kitchen worktops. I read on with interest and realised that they were unfortunately talking a load of (hmm how can I put this politely), untruths. I’d like to dispel a few of their myths.
We are a very busy reputable company and need to work to tight schedule in order to deliver the service we promise. When taking an order we book templating and fitting dates in advance and enter into a two-way contract with the customer. We will produce and fit a granite worktop or quartz worktop (Silestone) of the highest quality and the customer will pay us an agreed sum for doing this work. We ask for a 50% deposit at the beginning of this contract not because we can’t afford to purchase materials (we have accounts with all our suppliers so this wouldn’t be an issue) nor is it because we have no confidence in our work (see our Checkatrade report to the see the quality of work we produce), it’s because we need a commitment from the customer as we are producing a bespoke product that will only fit their kitchen and cannot be resold if the customer changes their mind.
If a customer is nervous about paying such large deposit the option is always there to pay by credit card and be protected that way. Deposits have always been the standard in the bespoke worktop/stone industry so I was curious to see why this company thought them unnecessary. Looking into it further it became obvious, as they were using cheaper ‘blanks’ and doing all the cutting onsite there was no risk for them because if the customer changed their mind before the fit they hadn’t cut anything and therefore hadn’t lost anything. All reputable and established fabricators will require a reasonable deposit, so the question should be if a company doesn’t require one why not?