1st Choice Stairlifts Avis 

After an extremely positive experience in purchasing the chair, I have to say the after sales experience has been awful.
We have an elderly relative with us who relies to get up the first flight of stairs, it has a motorised seat and foot plate which suddenly stopped working.
All seemed ok when ringing for an engineer, appointment booked reasonably promptly, engineer rang the day before and said he was local so could he pop round, great, until my son rang to say they had charged £145 to remove a piece of plastic from the mechanism!
I rang the office and spoke to Nicky (Nicky needs to consider an alternative career as customer service is not on her list of strengths!) who said that the engineer had found a piece of plastic that had caused the mech to jam, could not provide me with any evidence to support their claims that it is not a piece of plastic from the chair, so I asked to speak to the company director only to be told they do not accept phone calls and only deal with complaints in writing! Honestly this is 2024!!
I have the piece of plastic, it’s certainly not something from the house and would suggest it is in fact part of the chair.
Ripped off a 76 year old very ill disabled pensioner of £145 for 10 minutes work, just as well I wasn’t home otherwise you wouldn’t have been paid!
Absolutely shocked and disgusted, and she has been saving to purchase a new system to take her from bottom to 2nd floor, it certainly won’t be with this company!
I am in complete shock over her treatment! and the response that the company director does not take phone calls from their valued customers!!

COMPLETE SATISFACTION WITH THE SERVICE.
From my initial phone call to Connie, the visit from Kieran and the installation by Mark, I cannot fault the service given to my Mother. The appointment was for 8.30 and at 8.30 Mark arrived. He talked me through the process of the installation, did not hurry the job, but left the stairs spotless and was kindness itself when explaining to my 94 year old Mother how to use the stairlift. I have read the previous reviews and while I cannot comment on the experience of others, both my Mother and I would have no hesitation in recommending 1st Choice Stairlifts.

I am now especially in the past few months now my dear elderly frail 90 year old mother's Official Carer..she broke her neck last year from a very bad fall in her home sitting room, and also later on in the coming days she also once again.. very bad luck as would have it fell down the stairs coming back down from using her upstairs toilet!..she also has Diabetes among many other unfortunate medical problems....she applied months ago for a Grant from the BCC Accessible Homes people (My dear old mum is 'financially challenged' as they say or/and 'not got a lot' ..especially as now we have discovered and noticed that these stairlifts can be astronomically expensive!)...and to which eventually she received, a great big thanks to BCC Accessible Homes for their help and support. 1st Choice Stairlifts were the people that they used..it was eventually booked in..and the installer came three days ago now to install the stairlift and rail etc..'the Flow X'..initial impressions that it was considerably BIGGER than we had invisaged..in particular the actual rail that seems to almost jut/come out half way across and along her stairs..so if you are like me anyway and other peoples able bodied and needing/wanting to go up and down the stairs you just may bang and scuff your knees and shins on the rails and bendy bits etc..as I have done so already only on day three since installation so us able bodied people such as my sister, friends etc...so obviously we will all have to look out and get used to the narrower staircase space in future course.. or perhaps we will have to wear skate board knee and shin pads!''LOL!''..So perhaps it was intended for considerably bigger staircases...WIDER ones anyway. Mum says it is painstakingly slow and time consuming going up and down the stairs but I guess it has to be that way for health and safety/disability reasons etc...Also there was some confusion from 1st Choice over the weeks as we were told by them, and also BCC Accessible at first from them anyway in that it would be installed on the 'left' side..the correct side along the wall and then parking near or/and in front of the toilet, but 1st Choice seemed to first say the left side heading towards or/and in front of her toilet the correct side...and then say or change their minds again and say the otherside, the stairwell side right side and then parking in front of her bedroom? 'Wrong' side? The installer who came thought it was going on the left side too once again''LOL!''.. until he went to his van..perhaps looking at his brief or work notes and then he said that was wrong and that it was going on the right side..not left side as was first envisaged heading towards the toilet..correct side..as on the stairwell side at the top there would be a big gap at the top of the stairs where she would have to travel from infront of her bedroom a few feet away to the toilet and to be careful not to fall down/through that big gap at the top of the stairs.... Although no real explanation was given for this 'left' 'right' side change over installation? Also noticed yesterday that she is not able to get out her Zimmer Frame 'IF' the stairlift is upstairs in the parking position in front of her bedroom door even if the stairlift is folded up as it is in the way and the gap is smaller from her bedroom doorframe and the base of the parked folded stairlift as her Zimmer is too wide to fit and travel through to go to the toilet etc...so we'll have to think of something there...the installer who came was pretty quick in installing it...not a big talker ''LOL!'' guess he was in a rush to get on with his job..didn't seem to want any tea/coffees etc...even when I asked him three times..which is very unusual for a tradesman/woman these days:).....I gave him a bag of oranges...and a bottle of beer at the end for his for his work anyway..Besides all that all everything is going quite well with the stairlift so far in these early days anyway...mum is using it anyway which is the main and very important thing....as she struggles to walk and stand because of her medical problems... before I had to keep 'shadowing' her up and down the stairs in case she had another horrendous fall down the stairs again!..The stairlift itself looks rather posh, swish, and robust....mother likes the colour of the blue chair also anyway!:)..the unit looks very well made too..:)

1st choice fitted a stair lift at my mothers property was terrible job pulled back a brand new carpet to lift floor boards leaving them loose then poorly put the carpet back leaving it creased and saggy stained the carpet with brick dust from drilling the wall to fit the back box .spurred off a socket leaving the front loose and dangerous skirting boards left loose . When contacted them they tried to say they didn’t drill anything and saggy carpet was to be expected awful service start to finish

Everyone we saw or spoke to is polite and knowledgeable, they left no mess and the stair-lift suits us perfectly, thank you

1st Choice Stairlifts was established in February 2004 by Colin Major and Coral Affleck-Major

RE: 1st Choice Stairlifts, 25 Harris Road, Calne, Wiltshire, SN11 9PT

Found these people to be very expensive compared to other local companies. Insurance and service cover also nearly double in price of similar companies.

Personally I would say look around as there will be other companies cheaper and who will provide just as good if not better installation, servicing and overall costs.

This company might be small but their prices are not, obviously an area of service that does not have any proper regulation or standards so charges are whatever they want it to be.

Do look around, you will find better and cheaper... Your 1stChoice -- look around!

*** 1stChoice Stairlift Reply****

What a load of rubbish you spill. Almost sounds like you are a reputable business.

The only proactive approach to feedback from customers is to keep and advertise the best and trash the rest. I know 100% you do this because my relative left negative feedback about your business and traits which they were subject to when doing business with you. They left feedback both on your web-site and Facebook and each time you had it removed.

I also viewed negative feedback left on your website and FB by other customers, since reviewing your reply and checking again they are also missing, very strange that. You seem to be manipulating what you want potential customers to see.

You also make it sound that you have been in business for 50+ years but you have only been established since 2004 (14 years). Your experience is just a compound figure of all the staff at your business who have worked in the industry and then added together. This is a blatant attempt to hoodwink people into believing you have traded and gained excellence of many years.

My message remains to the innocent readers out there, stay away from 1st Choice Stairlifts. There are better, cheaper, and less deceitful mobility traders out there so do look, it will be well worth that little bit extra in time.