UK Find-a-Will charges

[sandiep]

well 7th Aug I ordered a will
 21st Oct I received a letter saying I hadn't ordered correctl info and would have to reorder and pay again if I still wanted it
straight away I sent a contact saying I had ordered as per their Probate Form
today 4th Nov they have answered apologising and will send will ASAP
fingers crossed!

[mrcakey]

Think I'm moving further up the "longest wait" league table. 

Still waiting for a 30th July order. (As well as ones from 10/15/16 October.)

[ele002]

They seem to be dealing with complaints quicker than the original orders. Have they taken on someone who understands the service and is capable of doing their job correctly or are they taking them seriously because they've had their 'you know whats' well and truly whupped by the Probate Service?

[CarolA3]

This isn't addressed to anyone in particular.

Imagine you're running a business.  You know how many trained staff you need to get the work done, your staff can cope with holiday cover, sick leave etc, and you're going along nicely.

Then one day, in the middle of the summer holidays (22 July for example) the business owner tells you they've reduced the price of the product by 85%.  Permanently.  85% off.

Predictably, you see more orders coming in ......... and more ........ and multiples ........ five times as many as before ..............
How the hell can anyone be expected to maintain normal service levels in those circumstances?

Then the customer complaints start pouring in, slowing the process down even more 

Frankly I'm surprised they've got any staff left.

Carol (waiting for some overdue wills but not making a song and dance about it)

[Tickettyboo]

 I agree, its not the fault of staff at the level who actually deal with the influx, they are being treated unfairly if they are expected to deal with the influx with the same amount of staff or even just a small increase in staffing numbers.

This service is run by Iron Mountain, its not a small start up business tentatively working their way in growing the business, in 2018 they had a reported 4.23 BILLION dollars revenue.

This is from their website:
https://www.ironmountain.co.uk/resources/case-studies/h/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service

Based on that, you'd imagine that they would have the expertise to adequately assess the likely increase in orders and the resources to cope with an influx?


Boo

[jonwarrn]

Then one day, in the middle of the summer holidays (22 July for example) the business owner tells you they've reduced the price of the product by 85%.  Permanently.  85% off.

It isn't necessarily permanent. It's for 12 months. It will then be reviewed.

[jonwarrn]

Duplicate post!

[CarolA3]

Based on that, you'd imagine that they would have the expertise to adequately assess the likely increase in orders and the resources to cope with an influx?

Fair point, but HMCTS must have set the price and I wonder how much notice Iron Mountain were given.

Carol

[StevieSteve]

Also remember, that apparently the vast majority of Will requests before the price change were from the legal profession. They may have not realised that there was such a pent-up demand from private individuals.



I've been ordering 2 or 3 wills a month for a couple of years and the service has been excellent up to now - consistently arriving in 4 or 5 days against an expected timescale of 10. I did feel a little aggrieved that they had kept the cost at £10 given that there must have been efficiency savings against the old method of sending out photocopies by post which took about a month. Perhaps if they had staggered in a price decrease before now, they might have had a better feel for the demand

Anyway, let's hope they're building a library of pdfs that they can send out in a jiffy...