Budget Blinds

We've used Budget Blinds for the last 10 years and have recommended them to numbers family members, colleagues, and friends, until now.
We moved into a new house in June, 2014.  We, once again, hired Budget Blinds (Maris Walter, our sales person) to dress all the windows in the house. Like in the past, they came out, they gave us a consultation, and we wound up ordering $8,000K worth of window treatments. 
Since June, here is what's happened.
1. Two rooms of treatments were snagged and coming apart at the seams
2. Wrong color and size of cords were installed
3. Valances were measured incorrectly and needed to be reordered and installed
4. We were told that it would take 3-4 weeks for the entire houses treatments to come in and we didn't receive everything until late November and still waiting on resolution on damaged treatments
4. Our Main Living Room's treatments were installed in November and the installer and myself noticed small tears in the seams on all three windows.  Pictures were taken by the installation person and sent to my sales person.  She NEVER followed up or had anyone call us to acknowledge the problem or let us know what they were going to do to remedy the problem.
Finally, it's almost March and received a voicemail and email from my sales person's assistant.  Better late than never, I suppose.  She called to let me know that they wanted to take down one of the window treatments in our front room that was torn and send it back to the manufacturer.  In other words, remove a main treatment in a room where one full window would be bare and the others not.  Also, they still wouldn't let me know what was going to be done.  Would they fix the treatment? Not fix it? How long would a resolution take?  Will we go another eight months without resolution?
They also called to tell me that the wrong pull cords were in and ready to be installed.  To be honest, I've moved past this a long time ago.  The cords are the least of our problems.
To wrap up my review, I received an email from my sales person letting me know that they expect payment in full on all treatments.  I had paid in my invoice full other than the torn treatments in my front room, which I was waiting for them to resolve before I submitted payment.  They blamed the manufacturer with the delay on all these issues and would not take any blame for this entire nightmare and just treated me like someone who doesn't pay their bills in their final email.  All in all, over the last ten years, we've spent about $20,000 with Budget Blinds.  I think they know that we pay our bills.  I just don't pay for something that's damaged without resolution.
I will never use this company again nor recommend them to anyone I know.  Since this has happened, I've already heard from several people that they have ALSO had a horrible experience with this company.  I wish I would have asked around a bit more before hiring them again.  There are other companies out there that have better customer service and workmanship.  I think it's worth spending a little bit more money to get better products and customer service.

Overall, our experience with this Budget Blinds was pretty terrible.  After we ordered the blinds it took several weeks to get an appointment for the installation.  On the first visit, several of the blinds didn't fit so they would have to come back and finish the job. The installer told us the company would call and schedule the next appointment.  This never happened.  After several days with only partially installed blinds in our bedroom we gave up waiting and called them.  It was really hard to sleep when the sun it blasting into a window with only partial blinds.  It took us several days of having to constantly call and email them for them to finally make a second appointment.  When the owner finally came to install the new blind section in out bedroom it was still the wrong size. This lead to another series of having to constantly call and email in order to get another appointment.  The main problem always was that they never returned calls or emails in any sense of a reasonable timeframe.  In the end, it took almost a month to get all the blinds in and be correct. 
We are now going the same situation again because one of the blind segments in freying bad enough that it gets stuck going down.  We made an appointment to have the blind section fixed and they never came during the scheduled timeframe and never called to say they wouldn't be able to make it.  When we called them to reschedule, they didn't seem to care that they had missed their appointment.
Overall, you pay way less than the competition for the blinds but the service after the sale is terrible.

They were very punctual in returning my initial call.  I was scheduled for an estimate.  They came out and were on time.  I knew exactly what I wanted, however, the person did bring materials in to show me.  Didn't waste any time.  Order was placed and when the blinds arrived, they called and we scheduled installation.  The same person who came out for the estimate also installed the blinds.  Again, very punctual and professional.  I love the blinds.  They are of great quality. I thought the price was a bit high, however, when the blinds were installed the quality was much better than I anticipated.  I definitely recommend them.

I would definitely not recommend THIS franchise of Budget Blinds.  I have worked with other franchises that did quality/timely work in other cities, but this one in Chicago is HORRIBLE.  I have really had some bad service from them.   The franchise owner is David Murray.  I had a meeting with Mr. Murray on July 27th, 2010 and ordered drapes for 2 rooms, the front living room and the bedroom, and wood blinds for the living room.  I placed that order in July and paid them $1644.38 deposit.  I didn't hear back from them and I kept calling them and did not get a response for about 3 months. It took them 3 months to set up a date to come and install and when they came to install, they didn't have all the hardware they needed and they were only able to install the wood blinds and none of the curtains.  They did not tell me that ahead of their visit and I had to take a day off work and the job was still not completed!  I had to wait at least another 6 weeks until November 15, 2010 when they finally installed the drapes. The drapes didn't look right and I asked how long the header for the panel was and it was only 14", not what I ordered, they still had the wrong hardware.  The installers told me they couldn't leave the drapes unless I paid the balance due.  I refused to pay the entire balance, but ended up paying them $1244.38 and holding back $400 until they ordered and installed the correct hardware.  They finally called and scheduled to come and take a look at what they needed to order on March 7th, 2011, a full 4 months later!   The girl that came out and looked said that we were supposed to have 21 inch headers instead of 14 inch. She said she would make sure that those got ordered. Then in the bedroom the header wasn't installed correctly and needs to be re-attached with longer bolts into the concrete ceiling.  I was told not to use the drapes because they might fall down.   I'm still waiting to hear from them again, it's now been 5 weeks since she was here.   I would never recommend them to anybody, but at this point I just want them to finish the job so I can use the drapes and they look right.  It's very poor service. 

I have realized Budget Blinds will treat you well once they get your business and payment, but once that is over, their customer service is out the window. Sometimes, less expensive isn't always the case! I have learned my lesson the hard way.

The only problems we had were with scheduling. I made my first appointment and no one showed up because whoever took the appointment didn't put it in the calendar (or something like that). I gave them a second chance because they came on the recommendation of a friend, and for the second appointment, the salesperson arrived 10 minutes after the 30-minute window I was given. When we made the installation appointment, it was cancelled at the last minute, after I had already waited around most of the morning. But that being said, I think we got a really good blind at a good price. The salesperson did a good job of recommending something that would work in our space, and I think it's much better than what I had originally envisioned. With the custom blinds, we were able to get one wide blind instead of multiple blinds, which looks a lot nicer and blocks the sun better. Plus, Budget Blinds has the "no string" blinds, which looks really clean and uncluttered and is easy to use. In the end, we're happy about how things turned out. If the scheduling hadn't been such an inconvenience, I would have given As across the board.

David was pleasant to deal with. He came out on a Saturday to show me samples and measure. He was not at all pushy and came up with the best price. Installation was smooth. Installer was neat and cleaned up after he was done. One of the cellular shades in the bedroom had a lot of tension in the cord and they came out to fix it (took about 10 minutes) at no charge. They were good to deal with.

This was the easiest company to work with. They measured correctly, installed perfectly faux wood blinds quickly and on time. You can't beat their prices and service. Dave was very professional, patient and pleasurable to work with.

PRODUCT QUALITY IS GOOD, AND THE SALESMAN HAD CREATIVE IDEAS OF WHAT WOULD BEST SUIT US. INSTALLER WAS CLEAN, COURTEOUS, AND VERY GOOD. HOWEVER, THEY ENDED UP SHIPPING THE WRONG BLINDS TO THEMSELVES, AND IT TOOK A LONG TIME FOR THEM TO GET THE CORRECT PARTS. IN THE MEANTIME, THEY PROMISED US 10% OFF. BUT THEN THEY WENT AHEAD AND CHARGED US FOR THE ORIGINAL AMOUNT OF THE QUOTE. WHEN WE CALLED TO ASK ABOUT THE 10% OFF, THEY ACTED LIKE THEY HAD NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE. FINALLY, WE DID GET A CREDIT ON OUR CREDIT CARD, BUT IT WAS A REAL HASSLE.