Alleen’s Window Decor

Let me preface this review by saying I had nothing but pleasant experiences with majority of the actual store representatives I dealt with, both at the St Clair location and the College location. Danika at the College location was particularly helpful. The older gentleman who came over to do measurements was also helpful and the guy who came to install the blinds was good too. No complaints there. I don’t even usually give bad reviews because I empathize with the service industry. However, I had to write this months later after my experience when I purchased two sets of blinds in April 2013.
My qualms and reason for this lower rating review is more for other reasons as listed below:
1) it is really, really expensive relative to competitors I.e. blinds-​to-​go. I live in a condo where everyone has the same sized balcony window and bedroom window and my total value* of the blinds I had installed was just around $ 1600 for everything. Someone in my building got his done at blinds-​to-​go for just under $ 500. Granted, my blinds were Hunter Douglas brand and one of them is a motorized duette blinds but we both have roller blinds for the sliding doors — the price difference for just the bedroom window is kind of ridiculous.
* I say «value» because I purchased a voucher for $ 1500 value for the price of $ 750 off an auction and supplemented about $ 100 to get motorized blinds as without motorized blinds, it would be a couple hundred below the $ 1500 threshold so might as well make full use of the voucher value. I bought the voucher before I moved into my new build condo and had gotten an initial quote in-​store from measurements off the condo layout illustration and it was just over $ 1500 so I bought that voucher thinking I was saving 50%.
Now that I have those motorized blinds, I actually rarely bring them up since they are fairly transparent (I didn’t get black outs as I’m not super light sensitive and I like some sun coming in the morning to wake me up)
2) they are custom blinds, like blinds-​to-​go as well, but it took almost a month to be ready. Then when I was informed they were ready, I had to wait for Margarita in the installations department to call me to set up an appointment. She took almost a week after it had come (as I had asked Danika, who told me they arrived already) to actually call me. I understand people are busy but to just call to set up a date and time is not really that difficult or time-​consuming. Or just email me options! I followed up many times before I heard from her. Finally I got a date for the following week. At this point, I was waiting a month and a week for blinds and my place became a sauna.
3) the day arrives for installation but the installation guy said he only found one of my blinds in the truck. The bedroom one, the one I was hoping to get ASAP so I didn’t have to sleep with street lights shining in, was missing and he called Margarita to ask about it to no avail. It went poof. The guy installs my roller blinds, it looks nice and he was good, no issues there. I then wait another 3 – 5 business days for them to locate my missing motorized duette blinds. They finally find it after a few days and then Melanie, who works in the St Clair office calls me to apologize and whatnot. I voice my complaint about how long this has taken as now I have to wait FOR ANOTHER APPOINTMENT and she says she will have Margarita call me ASAP for a new date. Finally, I get a call and surprise, they can’t squeeze me in so I have to wait until the next, next weekend. The same guy comes back and installs it then.
4) after this fiasco of expecting all my blinds to be installed in one fell swoop, then finding out they misplaced one of my blinds, then having to reschedule things to book yet another appointment to install said missing blinds thus waiting another week, with no attempt to squeeze me in ASAP appointment, I was really frustrated. Melanie at the store called me to check in and I told her it was finally all installed but I wasn’t happy because, they’ve gotta admit, they totally messed up and where they could’ve made up for it (locate the missing blinds quicker than almost one week, squeeze me in day of or next day after locating it, etc), they didn’t. I asked about compensation and she said, «you already got an amazing deal with the voucher!» (Now realize, I didn’t) and that she would speak to higher ups about whether it is possible, then she’d call me back.
Needless to say, I never heard from her again.
So is Hunter Douglas as a brand worth that much more? No! I would just go the blinds-​to-​go route next time. And the ridiculousness I dealt with post-​sale and lack of really trying to make it right, probably because I had used a voucher, not cool.
I live in a condo and in an online group where we discuss and recommend services, I will definitely not be recommending this place to all my neighbours.