Let's Knit Magazine - Your knitting, your style

KnittingOma - 25 July 2008 08:55 AM

Leighb - 25 July 2008 08:50 AM

I hope you get this before you post your letter, Nessa.  I had an email from Dave Higgins, but he hasn’t put his title down, but he said my comments were being passed to one Russell Morris, MANAGING DIRECTOR.  Hope you can alter your letter easily so it goes to him.  Good luck, I suspect you’ll need it.  Wonder if we should forward a link to them for this thread?....

Thanks for that Leigh...I’m going to use that information and change the letter.  Thank God for computers.....hopefully the letter will get into the right hands and I will get a response...thanks for telling me.  I’ll let you know.

What a good idea about sending them the thread link…

Thanks Nessa, then they would see how “revolting” the little people really are....

They are too big a company to want bad publicity amongst the very people who use their products Leigh...they need to know how we feel.

I do like Sirdar yarns but lately there have been too many things wrong with some of the stuff I’ve bought.

Yes wouldn’t that be nice if it were the case.  Although I suspect that they make enough money from the wool shops themselves so couldn’t give a damn how we, the KNITTERS feel.

Sorry about the rant ~ but I really wasn’t happy with the way things went when I had to contact them.  Hopefully you’ll get on better if you’re “physically” writing to them, Nessa

I’ll let you all know if I get any response..

Don’t worry Leigh there are plenty of other companies out there to transfer business too. I won’t be holding my breath even though on occasion I have been a little disappointed by Sirdar quality.
I had good customer service from Wendy though. I had a problem with a pattern early this year and emailed them and was very pleased to have a phone call back from one of their pattern checkers who went through it with me agreed one part was a typo and another part could be a little ambiguous. She also called back again a few days later to make sure I had resolved the problem and had found the rest of the pattern ok. They were also very helpful in finding a stockist of the said pattern/yarn as I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere. I could also have bought the pattern direct from them but not the yarn.

knitternicky - 25 July 2008 09:14 AM

Don’t worry Leigh there are plenty of other companies out there to transfer business too. I won’t be holding my breath even though on occasion I have been a little disappointed by Sirdar quality.
I had good customer service from Wendy though. I had a problem with a pattern early this year and emailed them and was very pleased to have a phone call back from one of their pattern checkers who went through it with me agreed one part was a typo and another part could be a little ambiguous. She also called back again a few days later to make sure I had resolved the problem and had found the rest of the pattern ok. They were also very helpful in finding a stockist of the said pattern/yarn as I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere. I could also have bought the pattern direct from them but not the yarn.

Wow Nicky that sounds fantastic!  Don’t think there’s much hope of that with Sirdar!  And I would prefer the money went in my LYS pocket first to be honest.  But that may just be cos I bitter and twisted

Ah well it’s done everyone, I’ve emailed Mr Higgins at Sirdar and copied the address of this page onto the email.  Hopefully he’ll get onto the site ok, may have to sign up I suppose, but we’ll wait and see what happens.

Well of course we might use the pattern books, but that doesn’t mean we will use the yarn !!!  I’ve just knitted a cardigan for Freya in sirdar and found a huge knot in it, x Janet

hello and welcome to the forum Emma, hope your 2nd pregnancy is a healthy one, we’ll avidly follow the updates on your little’uns.

Is there going to be a riot outside the Sirdar factory? this is going to be interesting to watch!

suse - 25 July 2008 03:55 PM

hello and welcome to the forum Emma, hope your 2nd pregnancy is a healthy one, we’ll avidly follow the updates on your little’uns.



Is there going to be a riot outside the Sirdar factory? this is going to be interesting to watch!

There may well be, Suse, so if you know where the Sirdar Factory is - I’d keep well and truly schtum!

Re: FW: Sirdar reputation
From: Russell Morris ()
Sent:28 July 2008 11:39:56

Dear Mrs Bates

Thanks for your email this morning and the link to Lets knit forum. I have already viewed the comments from the three pages and as you warned me, some of the reading is a little painful.

I should firstly agree that the situation with our website has been something of a disaster.

We embarked on a new site some two years ago with a local company and things have not gone to plan. The good news is that we are now only a short time away from going live with the new site. I would hope (and I say this with a sharp intake of breath due to the problems we have experienced to date) that you will be able to see the new site within a couple of weeks. We are currently giving the site a final once over to try to ensure that the massive wealth of information is correct.
The new Sirdar website will show all of our current leaflets (along with sizing and yarn usage charts) and yarns (by colour) and we are very confident that you will be able to navigate the new site far more easily than our old one.

Regarding some of the other comments on the forum, I would comment that having spent almost 19 years at Sirdar and having started my career with the company as a sales representative I do appreciate how important it is to look after our customers and I am not simply meaning our retailers (although they are of course very important to us), but also our consumers, who ultimately pay our salaries.
The aim at Sirdar is very simple, we strive to have satisfied customers and in the main I feel we achieve this, although I am also a realist and understand that we don’t get it right every single time. However when this occurs and when we are alerted to something that’s gone wrong we do our best to put it right.

It is of course very difficult for me to comment on the specific items on your forum, but I would be happy to look into any individual issues which your members have.

Please let me know if I can help either yourself or your other members further

In the meantime kind regards

Russell Morris
Managing Director
IMPORTANT - Signature and disclaimer

Sirdar Spinning Limited
Flanshaw Lane
Alverthorpe
WAKEFIELD
West Yorkshire
WF2 9ND

Telephone 01924 371501
Fax 01924 290506
Regd. In England 3975238

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As you can see from the above - we have had a response, for what it is.  I have emailed him back and have also spoken to Nessa (via email obviously!) and sent Russell Nessa’s details - Ness he is going to look out for your letter and respond to it personally apparently.  I think it’s all a bit lame personally, but we’ll see what response Nessa gets.

Leigh xx

Good,lets hope they will do something.

well he sounds honest, the site has been a disaster and they know it and he’s trying to put it right, and he has read the forum comments and winced.

As for individual compliants he can only respond individually and would need details of yarns batch numbers etc.

Overall its not the usual blah blah blah letter, but actions do speak louder than words.

I think it is a fantastic response considering any previous complaints have hit a brick wall. I’m eagerly awaiting the new website especially as my LYS stocks mainly sirdar and so hopefully will be able to order new stuff through them and help them to keep their sales up.
Lets hope the gentleman follows through on his words, if not we have a little people power going on here in order to put him back on the right track.