The developer who worked on my property before I bought it had an STS fitted garage door installed…read more 16 months - less than a year and a half - later both the electrical AND manual mechanisms failed. I can't lift it, and I can't winch it up, its entirely inoperative - it's basically a steel wall. OK, fine, these things happen.
The problem is, this happened the day before I was due to have a new driveway laid. Work had to be postponed because they need access to the driveway under the door in order to complete the work. Another problem is that I now I have £10,000 of bonded resin that's just sitting in the rain on the pavement outside my house, not getting laid.
I'd move it all into the garage but, you know, the door doesn't work.
Obviously, this isn't ideal. Quite an urgent fix but, despite this being a complete failure, locking me out of my garage, preventing me from completing other, essential, work, they've shown absolutely no interest in getting the repairs done quickly. I've explained to them half a dozen times that it is absolutely essential that somebody comes out to repair the door as soon as possible, I've begged, I've pleaded, but apparently, my address just isn't on their rounds next week. Which sort of suggests they do repairs so often they actually have rounds, and with that being the case its kind of just too much trouble to come and fix my door. They were quite happy to take a, frankly pretty outrageous, £125 call-out fee from me in advance before even booking a slot, though, so that's nice.
After a week of trying and failing to get my door sorted, and repeatedly explaining to the point of exhaustion that this absolutely needs to be fixed as a priority, they put the owner on the phone, for what it was worth, which was nothing. He should definitely not be customer facing. He did absolutely nothing to remedy the situation, and accused me of speaking to him 'disrespectfully' when I stopped him from giving me the exact same, unhelpful, information that I'd been given for about the fourth time that morning. At one point, when I suggested that he look a bumping somebody in the calendar, he told me that he wasn't prepared to inconvenience 'paying customers' in order to fix my issue, which I think should tell you absolutely everything that you need to know about the standard of STS's aftercare service.
Let me explain something to you real quick, my guy: You earn respect. You don't get given it freely. Neither you, nor your company has done anything to earn mine.
Then he tried to convince me his company is incredible, he's sold many, many, doors (why do I care?) and that somehow its mine/the developers fault that the door they fitted failed after only 16 months, and then devolved the conversation into a shouting match. 'Come and see my shop! You don't know what happened to the door before you moved in!' - Again, I don't care. I just want the thing fixed - 'You didn't even get the door fitted!' he bellowed repeatedly and unhelpfully. I just want my door fixed, fella. Hell, even just open would have been a result. There is absolutely no point telling a customer with a broken garage door how great your garage doors are.
As an addendum. The company that I'm using to do my driveway, who have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my garage door, have rung me this afternoon to say they're sending somebody out to see if they can repair it this weekend. It's not their door. They aren't charging me.
That's how you do customer service.
To sum up my personal experience with STS.
Their doors are unreliable and don't last beyond a year and a half. When the do break, their customer service is absolutely atrocious, literally the worst I've ever dealt with. They've no interest in even the short-term care of their product. Their callout fees are extortionate (God only knows what they actually charge for repair). Their warranties are entirely inadequate. They're unhelpful, uncaring, and the owner is has absolutely no respect or time for his customers.
