PorthouseDean Structural Engineers Reviews

Hi Abbie, sorry for the delay formalising a reply to you on this. Again, we're really sorry about your experience. I can understand the pressure you must be under, and I would be just as frustrated if I felt like my problem wasn't being acted upon with the same urgency I was feeling. Please rest assured that your comments are taken seriously. Our operations senior management team have now reviewed your comments, and have been through the audit trail, including emails and call recordings. In response: - The contractor's pack we provided showed bespoke design information specific to your project. We do include standard connection details in our package to make the process more efficient and cost effective for the consumer. This tends to work relatively well, and although there are sometimes cases where further information is needed the Contractor's Pack does seem to have been sufficient in this case, except for a phone call needed to clarify a few construction queries, which isn't out of the ordinary. - Our target is to respond to emails and phone calls within a working day. From the audit trail it looks as though we broadly achieved this. - We're sorry that you were unable to get through the phone menu on the 23rd. We can see that you tried to call various lines without success. Akhil responded to your voicemail the same afternoon, however clearly you were looking for something more immediate than that. I hope you understand that we only have a limited team available (5 in total), sometimes working on different projects, sometimes at lunch, and sometimes in meetings, so it is a challenge to make the lines accessible at all times. We will however review our scheduling and availability to see if there is a way to improve on this. - We think the voicemail message may be not operating as intended as regards to the 10:30-11:30 working slot. We will review this and make sure it is working properly. Please accept our apologies for the confusion caused, and thanks for bringing this to our attention. - Our senior management listened to phone calls and checked emails and didn't interpret Akhil as being defensive or rude, and we believe he answered the questions sincerely in the best way he could, however we do apologise if it came across rude. That certainly wouldn't have been his intention, and indeed Akhil gets many positive reviews about the standard of his customer support. - Regarding the bolts sticking up, this doesn't need to be the case. There are are various ways to deal with this, as discussed over the phone. This relates more to construction approach taken by the builder and steel fabricator than the engineering design in itself, and I'm glad we were able to resolve this - as we were the queries relating to galvanizing and welding of the shelf plate. As I have said, we're sorry that you've had a stressful experience here. That's not the kind of experience we've built our reputation on over the years; although it certainly can be a stressful industry to be involved in. We think the one thing that may have helped here is having a clear escalation process. Whilst we aren't an emergency service able to answer calls 24/7, this could be better. For that reason in our emails we have now added a link which allows the user to fill in a form to escalate their project (or request) if they so wish, which has an SLA time to first response of 1 hour by a member of the senior management team. Whilst we appreciate it is probably little comfort to you now, we do hope this goes some way to prevent this situation recurring for others in future. Thanks for your feedback, and apologies once again from the team. Regards, Sam Dean

Hi Flinn, thanks for your kind words. I'm glad to hear that we resolved the issues you experienced. Nevertheless, it's regrettable to hear that there were issues with the original document. We will be carrying out a thorough investigation to identify the root cause and adjusting our processes accordingly. It shouldn't be happening. Please accept our apologies, and rest assured, we will take steps to prevent this situation from recurring. Regards, Sam Dean

Thanks for your generous words, Stephen. The team will be delighted. :)

Thanks for your feedback, Elliot! Chris and Akhil will be pleased to hear that their efforts are valued.

Thanks for your kind words, Amanda! The team appreciates it. :)

Thanks for your review, Dave. Glad we can be of service!

Hi Paddy, I'm sorry to hear you didn't have a great experience with us. Without further detail about the specifics I'm unable to investigate any further, unfortunately. We process anywhere between 200 and 300 quote emails every month, so it is hard to establish which one is yours. If you could get in touch by dialling 0161 820 3230 and press 1 on the main menu, one of the engineers should be able to provide an explanation as to what happened in your case. When a quoting engineer requests drawings following an enquiry, that is usually because the architectural information provided isn't sufficiently developed for us to be able to do the job. I'd imagine there are very few instances where we wouldn't quote if we could quote, because I can assure you, we do want the work! :) If it was the case that the information wasn't sufficient then the engineer should have explained what was needed, however, again, I'm unable to know exactly what was said as I don't have the specifics. It sounds as though it may be an issue with communication, because I don't think it's unreasonable in principle to ask for further information if we're unable to do the job with the information supplied. I'm sorry if you feel that we wasted your time, however you should have received an acknowledgement email saying that we aim for a 2 day response for quote requests. It sounds as though we achieved that, and if the information was insufficient then we couldn't actually have gone through and done the work even if we wanted to. Further time would have been needed for your architectural consultant to formalise the necessary detail, which one would normally expect to take a fair bit longer than 2 days. Again, we do apologise for any miscommunication. I appreciate it's additional effort for you, however it would be great if you could get in touch with our team so that we can establish exactly what happened and see if there are any learning opportunities. Thanks for your feedback. Sam Dean

Thanks for your kind words James! 😊

Thanks for your kind words, Kyle. We're glad to be of service, and Justyna is delighted to hear her work is appreciated. All the best on your project. Remember we're always here to help, so feel free to get in touch if you need anything further.

Hi Umayr, thanks for your kind words. It means a lot to the team! :)