In the beginning - I couldn't be more thrilled with the service and selection at Crest. After a few bad experiences with a few other lighting companies (see my other reviews), we stopped here and worked with Christin to re-light our entire condo. Christin even came out to our condo to make sure our designer had everything on the design that we needed.
During the order / quote process, Christin matched any prices I would find on the web or with any other competitors. We went back and forth a few times, and in the end, I was happy with our purchases.
However - that's when my review had to be amended. It turns out that what was ordered for our living room / dining room was not correct. Given our concrete ceilings (which was well known to Crest), a two circuit monorail was 'supposedly' needed - not the single monorail. My contractor even expressed his concerns about the single monorail during the pickup, but was told (on two different occasions by 2 different people in the store) that it would work. Lo and behold - it didn't. Which was fine - I wasn't annoyed that Crest made an error in the ordering. What annoyed me was that it took over a week for Crest to reorder the two circuit monorail. Not only was my contractor calling / emailing / stopping by on a daily basis, I, too, was calling. Christin and James (another Crest employee) just were not returning calls or fixing the error. And finally, when James sent the invoice - I started going through it and found errors (ordering the wrong length - or too many parts, etc.). It wasn't until the third rendition of the invoice that we were able to place the order. Attention to detail and communication they were both lacking.
And with this reorder - I should have been owed a refund. According to my first phone call with Alisa at Crest, "it's a wash" between what we returned and what we ordered. No - actually, it's $70 that I was owed. $70 is $70 and I wanted the money refunded. But three phones and several emails later - Alisa would never call me back. Yet another employee who did not believe in communication.
More problems arose two weeks later when it was determined that the new two circuit rail that was ordered was the problem. The circuit wouldn't align and therefore lights came on and off intermittently. When my contractor brought it back to Crest, their staff electrician couldn't figure out what the problem was. Two weeks later, the manufacturer (LBL) came into Crest and was able to get the lights working, but there was zero correspondence with us. We spent a good part of two weeks in the store trying to get answers. Their communication is awful and they never return phone calls.
I know nothing about monorails and all the different components that go with them so I was relying on Crest to help me on this. Given their location in the city - I would think that many of their customers who do monorails live in condos with concrete ceilings and that they should know the parts they need to order. I was trusting them to order the correct parts and then follow through when the error was made. Again - I was fine that they ordered the wrong circuit with the monorail (given how many parts come with one), but what I wasn't fine with was how long it took them to rectify the problem.
We have since gone into Crest and gotten a full refund for our lights (though that, too, took an additional two weeks of working with Bob - who would not return calls and process a refund on lights that had been returned to their store weeks before). I cannot begin to describe how frustrating it was to deal with the company and their lack of communication. Had they just communicated with us about the problems, maybe we would have continued working with them.
In the end - it worked out for the best, however. We have since returned to Lightology and got a much better design for almost $2000 less. It turns out that Crest was trying to sell us a more expensive and clunky lighting scheme. Working with Lightology proved to us that the people at Crest Lighting just did not have the skills or knowledge about lighting. read more