W.A Brown & Son Funeralcare

WA Brown provided a very good service for my fathers funeral. Their combination of compassion and professionalism meant that everything went on the day and there were some lovely touches. Thank you.
Aug 2nd, 2020

Nov 10th, 2013

ABYSMAL CUSTOMER SERVICE. W A Brown & Son are a franchise of COOP Funeralcare. When the dust had settled following my mothers funeral in December 2020, it cost me sweat & tears and lack of sleep to finally put together a 6 page letter of complaint listing 9 serious areas for improvement in their customer service. My first point in the list of failings was that no one was even answering the phone on that first day and there was no answer machine to leave a message. I had to chase around and around causing major stress in the first days of bereavement. We live in the country and this was the only funeral home in our village so it was natural to think they would be the most convenient option. They told me porkies about certain things seemingly because they thought thats what I wanted to hear, then they didnt follow up on what was stated and offered, coffin materials were not as promised, the list goes on. I will not stress myself further by listing all of the failings here. In a nutshell, although I admit the actual funeral service on the day was as fine as it could be during so-called Covid times (and I thank W A Brown & Son for that), the customer service before and particularly after the service was abysmal. To make matters much worse, I received no acknowledgement or reply to my letter of complaint. Instead they kept chasing me for payment like a criminal and threatened me with court action. A local friend who used the same company has told me the same thing happened to her even though she had paid promptly, causing her mega stress after losing her husband. Coops internal communications between so-called customer service and accounts/credit control department are seriously flawed. I was forced to invest major personal effort time and time again to contact them and repeat the long saga. It was ME who had to remind THEM that my letter of complaint stated that I would settle a reduced bill once I had received an official response to my complaint. I demanded a written response from management explaining what they were going to do so as not to repeat the same mistakes with future clients. Of course COOP Funeralcare couldnt even find my letter (sent Recorded Delivery AND emailed) and I had to resend it. 18 MONTHS LATER I have finally received an official response and an almost reasonable apology with acknowledgements of lessons learnt not to be repeated, so they say. I generally believe in giving people a 2nd chance. However, when it comes to funeral care, there really should be no room to make a long list of mistakes; they should be getting it right first time. There is no 2nd time for the bereaved 'customer'. One of my 9 points was that COOP Funeralcare are VERY QUICK TO SEND THE BILL (day after funeral) but SHOCKINGLY SLOW TO SATISFY. This company is keen to receive your money but less interested in offering a professional cohesive service. The Date of my experience spans from Dec 2022 till I finally received an acceptable written apology in November 2022. Please also check reviews for Coop Funeralcare on TrustPilot, there are streams of reviews complaining about poor customer service.
Nov 29th, 2022