We don’t need any more enquiries from the likes of Oksana Kovbas

Honestly, this is probably the last year we will be providing fitting services in the UK at Cavendish deVere. Last year was hellish and I have to say that it is this new type of ‘customer’ that is just so demoralizing to work with – although in this case she never actually purchased anything from us at all.

Here is her ‘review’

Oksana Kovbas

Extremely expensive with terrible customer service. I requested a quote for carpet fitting in my house, which was completed in just a couple of days but came out to be a thousand pounds more than the actual cost. Another company provided a quote that was a thousand pounds cheaper.

However, that’s not the main issue. When the quote was sent to me, instead of my name, the customer name field read, ‘Crazy woman needs carpet.’ This is completely unprofessional and unacceptable.

I won’t say much more, but I strongly suggest reconsidering if you’re thinking of using this company. The glowing reviews seem questionable based on my experience. My advice: stay away.
Furthermore!
Following this morning’s offensive phone call, please see the attached pictures. Instead of offering an apology, you provided an unprofessional and untruthful comment. Further comments are unnecessary. Please refrain from contacting me further to for harassment! This is absolutely unacceptable and appalling! STAY AWAY!

I blame a large part of this on Google who encourages people to leave reviews but don’t police any of them and even if you get a spiteful ‘review’ like this from someone who hasn’t even purchased the service there is nothing at all you can do about it. Sure, you can contact Google but in the 11 years of Cavendish deVere we have never had a single response from them.  So, I can’t say I will be crying in my beer when ChatGPT search eats their lunch for them and puts them a long way down the pecking order for search. They have had it coming.

As for this damaged individual Oksana Kovbas. Let me fill you in the whole story. I’m sure you are not interested unless you a potential customer but you should probably read it if you are a potential  employer. She works as an Operations Manager at Doubletree by Hilton according to her profile on Linked in  so you would think she would know better.

She called us up on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas and spoke to Pavel, our very dry Polish Customer Service agent. After boring the pants off him for a full 15 minutes telling him about her new house purchase, that she works in a very exclusive company, that she wanted a very luxurious carpet for the cheapest possible price, Pavel told her that we don’t service that area of the market. We just don’t have cheap carpets to sell, its just not what we do.

But she insisted she needed a quote quickly – which I expect was used as a benchmark so she could find a cheaper company. So, despite not having what she wanted, telling her we are not the company for her and despite him actually not being at work, he agreed to send her an estimate. We are very fast at this, no other company has the capacity or software to send remote estimates without visiting so we send them out of goodwill even though we know we probably won’t do the project – and we hardly ever get any thanks for it – so we will be stopping doing it this year.

What is particularly galling is to get a 1 star review for it.

Having listened to the tape, Oksana talked for almost 15 minutes non-stop. She didn’t listen to anything that Pavel said. He asked her on 4 separate occasions for her name and she talked over him  every time. Despite trying to explain why he needed her name (to be able to find her in the database should she call back) she just kept talking and talking in a very strong Ukranian accent at high speed. I wouldn’t have know she was from the Ukraine but Pavel is originally from Poland so he guessed it.

Anyway, not having her name he adapted a template for a previous customer that was labelled  ‘Crazy woman needs carpet’ and sent her the estimate. No, he shouldn’t be labelling people ‘Crazy’ in the 21st Century because we live in a humourless, communist sh*t-hole now and someone might get ‘offended’ but what he didn’t realize was that label would end up on her estimate! Highly embarrassing and what’s more he hadn’t even meant to do it.

A week later she posted her review. I knew nothing about it so I spoke to Pavel and ticked him off. I then called to apologize to Oksana – which is when I realized that Pavel had a point.

I literally could not get a word in edgeways as she went off like a rocket. She told me that she had been crying all week over this incident, that she couldn’t sleep, that she had never been so offended, that she felt she had to leave this review as it had damaged her life, that she had thought about it all week before posting and she finished off by saying that I was harassing her and if I called again she would call the Police. Then she put the phone down.

Despite me just about getting my name and company name out, I never had the chance to say anything else, much less apologize.

And I just though ‘F*ck this’.  This spoiled, spiteful, entitled brat gets to leave a one star review with no comebacks when she hasn’t even had the service in the first place. She gets top disparage our company, accuse us of making up the reviews and over charging customers. That she is from the Ukraine, currently in the middle of a war with Russia where 1M people have been killed and she can’t sleep because she thinks someone has called her crazy is really all you need to know about this woman.

It is little wonder that the service industry is so bad in the UK. Yes, there are a lot of bad tradespeople. A lot. And a lot of bad flooring companies and fitters. But more and more we see a complete lack of respect from the clients and the general public, more entitlement, more bad behaviour and a lot less manners. So you think ‘Why bother?’ I think it is contagious. Does anyone care about anything anymore?

We like to think of ourselves as the good guys. Maybe we are delusional and we aren’t fit for purpose in this new age, I don’t know.  We are probably too old fashioned to still be providing services in 2025, after all we still speak to clients, answer the phone, call back people who leave messages, provide free guidance and advice, pass details of companies that can help if we can’t, do the work to the very best of our abilities and generally try to be responsible and trustworthy – and to keep a sense of humour while doing it. All very 20th Century.

It is so tiresome having to deal with this sort of nonsense daily and have someone spiteful be given the ability to damage that reputation because they are having a bad day or because they are a bad person – and to have no recourse to it.

And out of the 10,000 + projects we have completed and I would say 9800 of them went so very well, we still only have what 200 positive reviews? Despite offering to donate £25 to a cancer charity for children for every review on Google.  And we have what 7 bad reviews on Google and I think all of those were not even projects we carried out.

So, thanks very much Oksana and rest assured you won’t have to put up with this kind of thing much longer. And for the record – F*ck Hilton for employing you. I have cancelled my partner’s Honors card that I pay for and I won’t be staying at any of your hotels ever again – and I stay at them a lot – and I am very annoyed I just spent £6000 over Christmas at The Hilton Riviera Maya in Tulum Mexico over Christmas but I had already bought the f**king tickets or I would have cancelled it. And it was very average, and I will leave a review to that effect when I get around to it because at least I was actually a  customer!