Good service from Gaugemaster

[sandy]

At beginning of the year i bought a Garratt loco from Hattons. Had it out the other day and noticed i had lost a tank cap from one of the tenders. I rang up Hattons asked if they had any spares like that. They dont keep spares it seems even for things they have sold.
Searched the net and found that Gaugemaster had Heljen spares so rang them. They were so helpful, and in the post 2 days later they arrived no charge gratis.
What wonderful service.

[IanS]

For others https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/magen ... pares.html may prove useful if you know the part number you need.

[Walkingthedog]

Sandy most model shops don’t keep spares. Can’t really expect Hattons to have spares for the vast amount of stock they have. Running a spares department would be a full time job, cataloguing them and keeping track of what goes where. Gaugemaster are the Heljan spare stockist for the UK.

Glad they had what you wanted. They have only recently taken over from Howes for Heljan spares.

[sandy]

Sandy most model shops don’t keep spares. Can’t really expect Hattons to have spares for the vast amount of stock they have. Running a spares department would be a full time job, cataloguing them and keeping track of what goes where. Gaugemaster are the Heljan spare stockist for the UK.

Glad they had what you wanted. They have only recently taken over from Howes for Heljan spares.

I know that WTD but my point was Hattons should have been able to advise me where to get the parts. They did not offer any help at all.

[Walkingthedog]

I suppose so but probably have to put a fiver in the swear box if they mention a competitors name. Had it been a fault they would have dealt with it.

[Mountain Goat]

It is not nice when a company does not make suggestions because they would need to state their competition. Where I used to work at one time, we had a store policy (Unlike most stores who did the opposite) where if we did not have it or could not easily get it, we would recommend someone who did.
Do you know that that gave us more customers then stores of other companies becaiuse people came to us first to see if we had what they were looking for, as they knew if we didn't have it we would help them get it, and most of the time we had it so we generated sales through having this policy.
I have suggested it to other stores I have worked in and they just don't see it working so they don't want to try it, but it 100% works.

These days I avoid businesses who are not helpful. I once had a spot of trouble with my car just outside a well known Crosshands car dealership. The battery of my keyfob on the car was suspect so I went into the car dealer to see if they had one. The sales staff opened it up and said "Yes we have these. We use these on our brands of cars as well". He went out the back to get one and a mechanic came out with him and said "This is a Volvo keyfob. Sorry but we have a policy of not selling any product to any other car manufacturer but for our own" and they refused to sell me a battery.
Do you know that despite being a customer of theirs in the past, I have made it my own policy never to use their company to buy a car or a product since that date! Can you blame me?

[sandy]

I think in future Hattons will be the last place I will look if they cannot be bothered to offer any help with something they sold to me.

[Walkingthedog]

I have always had terrific service from Hattons but I know how you feel. Plenty of other places.

Was the bit missing when you bought it? If so you return it.

[sandy]

No IIt must have fallen off while I was handling it. It was there when I first had it.
I did not try to make out it was missing from new, I told them I had lost it . Probably went up the vacuum cleaner. Such a tiny piece, it covered the tender top body screw hole. Never mind I got a replacement from Gaugemaster by return of post.

[Walkingthedog]

As long as you ended with a satisfactory result.