Blinds To Go

I was pretty incredulous about going to BTG, but I couldn’t be much happier about our experience.
We were lucky enough to get Allison who was personable and very patient with us. She walked through a few options and gave us a quote on a corded an cordless set.
We were there the last day of a sale, so we put down a deposit to secure the price. It kind of made me nervous to do it without having more time to think, but we ended up saving some cash for sure.
The measuring process was a little nerve-​wracking. They give you a clear guide how to do it, but if you get the measurements wrong it’s on you so you want to get it right. When I called in and gave our measurements to another woman (not Allison) I expected her to go over it with us to make sure we were cool but she was a bit disengaged. This unnerved me a bit but ultimately it worked out fine so I’m not tripping on it.
The blinds were ready super fast – three days!
Doug is THE MAN. He installed the blinds super quickly and at a very very reasonable price.
Overall I’m very happy with the experience.

The first time we went into this store, there were 2 employees and both were busy with customers. We walked around for almost 10 minutes and decided on the product that we wanted. During that time, even though we were right next to one young man helping a customer, he never acknowledged us. I know he was with a customer, but a simple, quick statement like «Hi. We can assist you shortly» goes a long way toward making a customer feel that their business is appreciated.
As we were wandering around, the other employee did acknowledge us with a smile and «I can help you next.» If that hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t have ever returned. I don’t blame the employee for his lack of customer interaction as much as I blame the store manager (and any assistant managers) for not stressing it, again and again, and training the employees in the importance of customer service.
Anyway, when we did return, happily, we got the salesperson who had originally spoken to us. He was very helpful in pointing out different options for what we wanted and we did order 4 aluminum mini-​blinds. Of course, typical of most businesses, the lowest-​priced option came in a very limited (2 or 3?) number of colors, making them almost pointless for most people’s homes. So we had to choose the next, more expensive option. Again, typical.
The blinds came in within 2 days and we received a courtesy phone call and email telling us they were ready. The blinds were cut to our specific measurements, and included all the necessary hardware (which doesn’t always happen with packaged products).
I do wish that the mounting instructions were a bit clearer. The last step, where the blinds have to be hooked on a TINY plastic lip and then swung around to latch onto 2 other metal hooks, took us a bit of trial and error to get right. An important point, which we accidentally discovered, was not mentioned at all (too hard to explain, but it involved a large plastic piece that had to go in front of a metal bar).
Perhaps photographs, instead of drawings, would have made the instructions clearer.
The mounting brackets, obviously, have to be spaced so that they are near the ends of the blinds. And the directions do make it very clear that they can’t interfere with the inner operating mechanism of the blinds. However, you need to avoid 2 mechanisms inside there, spaced just a bit over 2″ apart. And — you guessed it — the bracket itself is 2″ wide, leaving you with about 1/​8″ clearance on either side. That was pretty tricky, attaching the bracket to the exact place on the window frame where that exact part of the header of the blinds would fit on there. It required a lot of measuring and remeasuring and even some re-​drilling of holes to move the bracket over.
Since this company’s purpose is making blinds that the typical consumer can install, they should put more thought into making that process clearer and easier for their customers. Getting those brackets in just the right place was quite frustrating and took way more time than it should have. Designing the blinds with more clearance inside the header for the bracket to fit would be a real customer service.
We’re happy with how the blinds look but I can’t honestly say I would do it again, knowing how unnecessarily difficult the installation process was. We’ve installed stock mini-​blinds from «big box stores» before and didn’t have those problems with mounting. The quality of the product itself is better from Blinds To Go, but that mounting process, and the lack of clear pictures to guide us, made it unnecessarily difficult.