John Lewis run arround

pjaj

In January this year I purchased an own name gas hob for my daughter from John Lewis on line. Recently it's developed a minor fault, one of the igniters doesn't work.

I phoned their 0845 customer service number. I was informed that I would have to deal with the manufacturers - Electrolux. When I queried this, as I thought they were responsible for sorting out guarantee problems under the sale of goods act, I was told in on uncertain terms that I must call Electrolux and was given another premium rate 0870 number. This turned out to be discontinued and I was redirected to a 0844 line.

Wrong again! Since the hob was installed in London (not Oxfordshire where it was delivered) I needed to phone another service office, this time with a geographical 01895 number. After ploughing through yet another automated menu I finally managed to book a service call.

This just isn't good enough. I wasted a lot of time and would have had to pay for several premium rate numbers (OK they aren't that expensive, but costlier than geographic none the less - good job I'm on the right BT package and they were free) to get a service call that John Lewis should have arranged for me.

mrcol1000

pjaj wrote: »

In January this year I purchased an own name gas hob for my daughter from John Lewis on line. Recently it's developed a minor fault, one of the igniters doesn't work.

I phoned their 0845 customer service number. I was informed that I would have to deal with the manufacturers - Electrolux. When I queried this, as I thought they were responsible for sorting out guarantee problems under the sale of goods act, I was told in on uncertain terms that I must call Electrolux and was given another premium rate 0870 number. This turned out to be discontinued and I was redirected to a 0844 line.

Wrong again! Since the hob was installed in London (not Oxfordshire where it was delivered) I needed to phone another service office, this time with a geographical 01895 number. After ploughing through yet another automated menu I finally managed to book a service call.

This just isn't good enough. I wasted a lot of time and would have had to pay for several premium rate numbers (OK they aren't that expensive, but costlier than geographic none the less - good job I'm on the right BT package and they were free) to get a service call that John Lewis should have arranged for me.

I think there are companies doing a lot worse than thinking as a hob was delivered in Oxfordshire when it broke down the engineer would have to go Oxfordshire. If your that unhappy why not write them a nice letter and I am sure they will send you a voucher. But really you should read some of the other threads to see the genuine problems people are having.

dmg24

I agree that the retailer should take responsibility for the repair, but in this situation it made sense for you to deal with the manufacturer, as you had to arrange a time that was convenient for you.

I am struggling to work out how this took you 'a lot of time'. Slight exaggeration methinks?

pjaj

I take your point over the manufacturer, but it was more the attitude of the agent that I objected to.

OK it didn't take a lot of time in absolute terms (30 min including waiting for the first agent to phone me back with the wrong number), but seeing that I needed to make 4 times as many calls as I believe I should have, then relatively a long time.

Ivory_Tinkler

pjaj wrote: »

I take your point over the manufacturer, but it was more the attitude of the agent that I objected to.
.

But you didn't mention the attitude of the agent in your first post. If the agent was rude/obstructive then you have grounds to complain to John Lewis.

dmg24

Having experienced the JL Direct call centre (is it still somewhere in Scotland?), I would agree that they are a typical call centre, and not reflective of JL's usual high standards.

The Direct product is a real mixed bag. I think it is excellent when it works - easy ordering and very fast delivery (usually next day for me). However when things go wrong they don't know what they are doing, hence why it can be easier to speak with the manufacturer.

If your problem does not get resolved, I would go direct to JL's head office in London. Ask for either the Executive Office or the Customer Services Manager. Insist that you are not put through to JL Direct. You will get the problem sorted very promptly.

pjaj

Ivory Tinkler and dmg24, I agree with both of you. My general impression of dealing with JL in any of their shops is that the staff couldn't be more polite and helpful.

In this case the agent couldn't have been said to have been rude or obstructive, just not good at explanations. If he had said something like " I'm sorry, but because we have these made for us by Electrolux and we don't service them ourselves, you will need to contact them directly." rather than "No you have to go to the manufacturers" I would not have been so irked. But not worth taking it any further with JL.

I'm sure that, now I've got a call booked in for Monday the problem will be resolved. But if it isn't - I'll be back!

vyle

TBH I'm not too fond of dealing with the website call centre either (on the rare occasion I have to). I've had to call about five times to sort out customer problems and most of the time the person on the other end couldn't understand that I was staff calling to help sort out a customer query. The one time somebody did was excellent, but the other times, not so good.

If you did order from the website, if you have a problem I'd just recommend calling your nearest branch, because it's a geographical number, there are specialists you can speak to, and we'll sort out problems be it from the website or another branch.

SGE1

http://www.saynoto0870.com/ is the answer! You get alternative (geographical) numbers. Very handy, especially when you're out and about and need to make calls from a mobile.

vyle

SGE1 wrote: »

http://www.saynoto0870.com/ is the answer! You get alternative (geographical) numbers. Very handy, especially when you're out and about and need to make calls from a mobile.

or just call the local store, which is a geographical number and has people trained in the particular items, rather than a call centre with a script.

pjaj

Well the engineer came today and took one look at the hob and turned it off! He left it unrepaired , but with a notice on it saying it mustn't be used. It appears that there was a change to the rules in Jan 2008 making the installation of hobs without flame monitoring devices a no-no in flats. There didn't appear to be any information to this effect on the JL site either in the product description or the article on choosing a hob (unlike other internet retailers I now discover).

So now we are faced with replacing it. But I still want JL to repair it under the guarantee so that we might be able to recover some of the cost by selling it second hand. It's still legal in ordinary houses.