c52e100f_The_scoop_on__Veseys___Rating
[Author] Seedhead Toronto Canada (2 reviews) October 12, 2011 [Content] Veseys used to be a good company with a good reputation and consistently high quality plants, but in the last few years or so it has rapidly slid downhill, both in terms of the quality of their plants/bulbs and their customer service. Not sure if there has been a change of management or just some mediocre personnel issues. I suppose I keep ordering from them out of habit even after I realized they have been skimping on quality, but no longer. When the bare root perennials that I ordered hadn't arrived, their customer service rep named Pat had the gall to imply that my zone wasn't due to be shipped yet. Having been previously assured that they would go out in "early October," I knew there had to be a glitch. When I pressed her on it, she admitted that their stuff was late coming in this season. When I asked when they would be shipped, she very testily informed me "there are thousands of orders ahead of you." Never answered my question either. Not sure what prompted this attitude. I was not rude or nasty, didn't raise my voice and hadn't even complained yet, except to note that I had been told early October. Maybe she was having a bad day, maybe she has been fielding complaints from many other customers frustrated with the delays and was at her wit's end. Of course, it's not their fault if there was a supply delay on the import side, but it's inconceivable not to receive an apology, or acknowledgement that this might be an inconvenience to customers. And of course she should have been forthright up front about why plants are late going out this year. I hope that doesn't reflect on the company's ethics. I would have understood. Instead, she gave me a condescending gardening lecture as an apparent explanation of why the delay won't affect my garden. I'm an award-winning Master Gardener and, as we all know, best gardening practices are varied and subjective, not to mention subject to unpredictable weather patterns. I prefer to use my own expertise and experience as a guideline for planting, but maybe that's just me. I have never experienced customer service as rude and shoddy as this in all my years as a gardener. Clearly, Veseys is a shadow of its former self. Inexcusable! Company representative comment on October 18, 2011: On Oct 18, 2011 11:32 AM, Veseys responded with: To Seedhead, I am sorry for not responding to your comments earlier but I have been out of province on business and have only just received notification of your post. Allow me to begin by expressing my sincere regret for your recent experience dealing with our Customer Service Department. I agree with you wholeheartedly that our representative should have explained that the delay in your shipment was caused by our grower. Due to some rather unusual and unfortunate weather conditions across the continent this past summer we have unfortunately been subject to harvest delays by many of our growers. Because of this our shipments are substantially behind this season and this backlog has been causing stress in both our production and customer service areas of the business. While it is true that we ship by zone in the fall (starting with the lowest zones first), this shipping system combined with our grower delays has unfortunately put you in a position of receiving your order later than we would like. While I am not making excuses for the communication issues you have experienced, I do hope that you will take the other factors into account when considering our overall customer service reputation. I wish to assure you that our customer service department is operating at the highest level of professionalism, gardening knowledge and efficiency in our company's 73-year history. While that is certainly no excuse for the manner in which your issue had been handled, I do hope that you realize that we all have bad days and that your call was certainly an exception to the over 200,000 phone inquiries we have each year. So that you are aware, I have double checked with our customer service department to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to explaining the grower delays with customers. Trust me when I say that ethically our company operates at the highest of ethical standards and there was certainly no planned attempt to hide our grower delays from our customers. In closing I do thank you for your comments and would hope that should you ever have an issue (no matter how small,) with our company in the future that you would contact me personally so I would have to opportunity to find an immediate solution. Respectfully, John Barret, Director of Sales, Marketing & Development, Veseys Seeds Ltd. john@veseys.com [Rating] 
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The scoop on 'Veseys'