Let's start with good stuff:
- Quality product. According to staff, slats made in Germany and electric motors from France. Looks good, works well.
- Skilled professional installers in the Phoenix, AZ area. They got shutters installed in a few hours including overcoming a few quirks in our home's construction.
- Flexible on payment method and, mostly, good to return calls and answer questions through the sale and payment stage.
Here's where they lose stars:
- "SELF-INSTALL" option. Their website specifically advertises you can install the shields yourself and they'll help you with phone support. See here: https://www.rollashield.com/can-i-install-these-shutters-myself
"Yes! Roll-A-Shields have been self-installed on thousands of homes across the U.S., and even in Canada and Mexico. We build the shutters to your specifications, box them up along with installation instructions and then ship them to you. Many customers will pick up the shutters at our Tempe shop rather than shipping them. And, if you need help, you can give us a call for phone support!"
My salesman looked unhappy when we said we wanted to install a few of the units ourselves to save money, and acted as if no one had ever used this option before -- even though Roll-A-Shield ships nationwide including areas where they may not have an installer to refer you to. Next, my installers (who were otherwise professional and friendly) seemed irritated whenever our self-install shutters came up. They unloaded them roughly, leaving them chipped and scratched, and said they didn't think I would be able to install them and refused to offer tips or guidance. They said something like "maybe there are videos on the internet." They threatened if they came back to install them "it would cost more" than if they had just done it. I asked if there were any basic install instructions or install hardware, they said no, as if this were a silly question. I later called the Roll-A-Shield help desk and they told me "if there were instructions, they shouldn't have been included." The phone staff could not answer even basic questions about what size installation screws were recommended and the phone rep's tone came across as "didn't you know what you were getting into?" (no, it looks like we didn't). So, the advertised "install it yourself" option, and the experience of any customer ordering outside of the Phoenix/Tempe area, is questionable at best. I don't recommend it!
To get 5 stars, I'd like to see this option either removed or fully supported as advertised. We shouldn't spend a lot of money to get attitude from multiple people about wanting to do the self-install they advertise, and even the most basic diagram or general instruction sheet, including the needed install hardware, would be appreciated. This experience makes me unlikely to use Roll-A-Shield again which is a shame since parts of the order process and the end product are very good.
[By the way, after spending more money on top of the expensive Roll-A-Shield product, we reverse engineered the other shields in our house to figure out the right hardware, and got all of ours installed ourselves.] read more