John Lewis home delivery

bargainbetty

On Tuesday I ordered a folding bed for my spare bedroom, as a friend is coming to stay over the weekend. Ordered it online, and due to the time of year and backlogs in delivery services due to weather, I paid the £9.95 extra to guarantee a pre-10.30 a.m. delivery on Thursday morning. My friend agreed to wait in for the delivery for me, so I didn't miss work.

Come 11.30 a.m. I get an email telling me it is on the van for delivery 'pre-10.30 a.m.'. However, my friend needed to leave as they had things to do. I called John Lewis, who after whining about how hard customer service was, refunded the delivery cost and rescheduled it for today as no-one could be home any later.

I was told that the Complaints department were a different team, and I would have to email or write to them. The lady then gave me the same email as her team used, explaining that 'complaints get sent up to a manager, y'know, for escalation'. Jeez.

Today, I waited in until 10.00 a.m., then called the courier direct. It wasn't even on the van scheduled for delivery today. I started off for work, and they called me back to say I couldn't have it tomorrow or Sunday either, so would Monday be fine. I told them that wasn't good enough, as I needed it for tomorrow. It's not much good to me on Monday, and I need to find one to buy this evening or tomorrow morning - I certainly don't need two.

Back to John Lewis, who refused to refund me until I 'refused delivery'. They actually tried to tell me that I should wait in for the delivery on Monday, and then refuse to accept it. Then, and only then, would my money be refunded. :mad:

I got very calm and told the woman on the phone that my contract with John Lewis had been made in good faith. They had made a purchase agreement and failed to abide by it. My contract was with them, and not UKMail (Zed at the main call centre is brilliant, btw). If John Lewis couldn't deliver it within the agreed time, then they could give me the money back now. I didn't have it, so could not return it, and given that the delivery was already going to be four days late, how long might the return take?

She then told me that she would call the couriers, and ask for it to be returned, keeping me on hold while she did it, as once she had the return confirmed by email, she could refund me. I got sick of it, and told her that she needed to get a manager who could authorise a refund right then and there, after which she could go collect the bed herself for all I cared - it doesn't need to be my problem and I certainly don't need to be on hold. Cue approx 30 seconds of hushed conversation, followed by an agreement to refund in full.

Obviously, the refund confirmation they sent me was wrong, so I had to call again to have two different people work to fix it, but at that point, I had given up expecting anything like real customer service. They couldn't deliver it, and didn't bother to tell me either way. Waste of time, waste of money.

Back to the Argos catalogue then.

bargainbetty

Small update - the bed was delivered, after the cancellation, on Saturday morning. I needed the damn thing so accepted it, and then called the Customer Services again to pay for it again. Turned out they had no clue about the delivery, they considered it cancelled and returned!

Not wanting them to turn up on my doorstep demanding money later, I went through the whole thing, explained about the waste of time and cost of calls. They apologised profusely and agreed to reduce the price of the bed by half by way of apology.

A small result after all the irritation, and a nice gesture on their part.

wealdroam

bargainbetty wrote: »

A small result after all the irritation, and a nice gesture on their part.

I would call that a great result.

A 50% discount in exchange for a bit of aggro.
Fantastic customer services recovery action.

jezebel

Wonder if I can get them to give me issues with electrical delivery if I get half off

SonjaLiK

wealdroam wrote: »

Fantastic customer services recovery action.

my thoughts exactly.

We've ordered something as well, two Lego sets - one arrived a day late, the other is now 2 days late and don't know if it will arrive today.
When we called, they immediately offered to refund the delivery price as we, like you, paid extra to have it delivered on a certain day (as it was meant to be our son's birthday pressie).
Hopefully the refund will happen.

For now, given the weather conditions and expected delays, we are content with their services.

bargainbetty

wealdroam wrote: »

I would call that a great result.

A 50% discount in exchange for a bit of aggro.
Fantastic customer services recovery action.

Probably worth mentioning that the initial refund still hasn't shown up on my account, and I got another email from someone else in Customer Services apologising for the delay in responding, and asking if he could help......

Here we go again....

gingercordial

I had awful trouble with John Lewis after my wedding. We mainly had vouchers off our wedding list, plus a couple of small things like candles, so we went in to the store to put all the vouchers towards a nice chair we wanted. Arranged delivery and my husband took a day off work to wait in. The morning of the delivery, not before, and by e-mail not phone (so I might not have checked) we got a message to say the chair wasn't in stock so wasn't being included in the delivery. So a wasted day off for him, since we could have picked up the other stuff in-store and only included it in the delivery since the chair was coming anyway.

Rearranged delivery of the chair for the following week... then another notification that it wasn't coming. Called up, found out that actually the chair had been discontinued so we were never going to get it. Asked if we could perhaps purchase the display model, which was still out on the shop floor (would have asked for a discount of course). No, they don't sell them in case they are damaged therefore unsafe. We could either have a refund as store credit/vouchers or just onto a credit card - took the money of course!

But as we finished the call, the lady said almost in passing I might try johnlewis.com, because sometimes they have different stock. I did, and the chair was still for sale, 10+ in stock, and I ordered it and it arrived a few days later! It is still available even now, not discontinued. Now I know different departments/parts of the businesses are run separately but I still think it's nuts that the shop's delivery service couldn't have sorted one out from the online department, especially for a wedding list!