John Lewis -Very poor customer service

andrewward2001

I recently ordered a camera online from John Lewis for store pick up the next day. The day of collection I checked my email and found one from JL saying the order had been cancelled due to "failure of security checks." I called customer services and was told they had no idea why and that that was that. I therefore purchased the camera online from another retailer (at a cheaper price) and didn't go to JL where I had planned to buy other items.
I wrote to customer services complaining about the poor telephone response I had received and received no reply. After 2 weeks I called to ask what was going on and was met by another non committal response with the representative unable to give any reason as to why the order had been cancelled despite being asked (politely) to do so.
All in all very surprising and disappointing as I have been a loyal customer of JL for many years and have spent a lot of money with them online and in store. They have already lost over £1000 of my custom as a result and I will shop elsewhere in future.

Anyone else had similar experience with JL Customer "Service"?

CoolHotCold

I do believe the online JL and in store JL are run by different departments and the online area seems to do particularly bad when it comes down to CS. If you search this forum you will find people complaining about JL online.

12bdebt3

andrewward2001 wrote: »

After 2 weeks I called to ask what was going on and was met by another non committal response with the representative unable to give any reason as to why the order had been cancelled despite being asked (politely) to do so.

Just because you ask him politely to do something does not mean he is suddenly able to accrue knowledge of something he has no information about.

Plus, you know the reason why it was cancelled: Failure of security checks.

They cancelled an order because of a fault. They didn't take any money off you for it. They emailed you letting you know about the fault. The customer service team which would not have been the people working in the warehouse don't have any information about the fault to give you, no matter how nice you ask.

You say you have been a loyal shopper at John Lewis for years but decide to leave them over a minor inconvenience that you've needlessly escalated.

andrewward2001

It isn't unreasonable to ask for an explanation as to why an order was cancelled. JL had 2 weeks to investigate but either don't know or don't care (and didn't respond at all unitl I called them). It doesn't bother me that much - I'll just shop elsewhere. I would have thought JL would want to know why valid orders were being cancelled unnecessarily - if they needed more security details I would have been happy to give them to them.

vyle

Failed security checks would be stuff like:

You typed your address in wrong, or your name, or failed to enter your verified by visa/master card secure code.

the seller tries to use that information to charge the account. if the bank says "nope, that's not right" then that's that. It's between you and your bank. the shop doesn't get any more information and can't obtain any more.

Whenever I'm selling somethign and a card gets declined, that's it. If the customer takes it personally, they're an idiot.

Just because you've bought something somewhere a lot doesn't mean they can snoop into your bank account and check that YOU have typed things in correctly. and really, would you want them to?

Also, JL aren't going to know it's a valid order. The fact it was declined by the bank puts it as an invalid order.

andrewward2001

With respect, some readers are missing the point. Yes, it is possible I typed a card number incorrectly, Amex didn't authorise the transaction etc etc. If that's the case, let me know when I call and we can go from there. Don't just dismiss genuine enquiries with a don't care attitude and if I take the trouble to put an enquiry in writing, have the courtesy to get back to me.
Look at it this way - I want(ed) to shop there again so wanted to ensure the same issue didn't arise again (assuming it wasn't my fault) . If I think it might, I may as well shop elsewhere - which I have done. Resolving the issue at an early stage would have been to Jl's benefit, not mine.

vyle

Yeah they should have replied to the letter (but then perhaps it got lost in the post, we'll never know) but either way they're not going to be able to tell you what got rejected, only that it was.

Imagine you were a customer services rep and you'd been told by the bank that the reason for the failure was that the customer typed the billing address wrong. As soon as you tell a customer that they've made an error it's a sure fire way to get an earful and then a complaint levelled against you.

My colleague in after sales checked a customer's sound system and said "it's working fine." They got shouted at and did indeed have a complaint against them and a stern telling off from management for daring to tell somebody they had done something wrong.

Whe it comes to financial stuff, people get even angrier. I've been threatened with legal action against myself from somebody who was outraged that his card was declined. He actually called me a c### and said, "Don't f### with me, I'm a lawyer, I'll sue you."

So yeah, the 'don't get involved other than to say it failed' approach is the safest for everybody's sanity. But I do agree that letters should be answered promptly.

Azari

andrewward2001 wrote: »

With respect, some readers are missing the point. Yes, it is possible I typed a card number incorrectly, Amex didn't authorise the transaction etc etc. If that's the case, let me know when I call and we can go from there. Don't just dismiss genuine enquiries with a don't care attitude and if I take the trouble to put an enquiry in writing, have the courtesy to get back to me.
Look at it this way - I want(ed) to shop there again so wanted to ensure the same issue didn't arise again (assuming it wasn't my fault) . If I think it might, I may as well shop elsewhere - which I have done. Resolving the issue at an early stage would have been to Jl's benefit, not mine.

I can see your point.

JL should have contacted you and told you that the order was suspended because of the failure of Credit Card security checks and then informed you of exactly what information they had used to try and authorise the card.

That way you would have immediately known whether to either submit the correct information or contact your CC supplier to find out what the problem was.

Do they hold a telephone number for you?

If so they should have pro-actively checked with you. That is what 'Book People' did when I accidentally transposed two digits when entering my CC details.

I think you are quite right to be annoyed at the lack of basic common sense by JL. (The last people I'd expect to hear being accused of poor CS.)

Azari

vyle wrote: »

Yeah they should have replied to the letter (but then perhaps it got lost in the post, we'll never know) but either way they're not going to be able to tell you what got rejected, only that it was.

Imagine you were a customer services rep and you'd been told by the bank that the reason for the failure was that the customer typed the billing address wrong. As soon as you tell a customer that they've made an error it's a sure fire way to get an earful and then a complaint levelled against you.

My colleague in after sales checked a customer's sound system and said "it's working fine." They got shouted at and did indeed have a complaint against them and a stern telling off from management for daring to tell somebody they had done something wrong.

Whe it comes to financial stuff, people get even angrier. I've been threatened with legal action against myself from somebody who was outraged that his card was declined. He actually called me a c### and said, "Don't f### with me, I'm a lawyer, I'll sue you."

So yeah, the 'don't get involved other than to say it failed' approach is the safest for everybody's sanity. But I do agree that letters should be answered promptly.

See #8.

They should have contacted him either by phone or by asking him to phone them and then told him what information they tried to use. That way the situation would have been resolved quickly and efficiently and they would not have lost sales and, potentially, a customer.

vyle

Azari wrote: »

See #8.

They should have contacted him either by phone or by asking him to phone them and then told him what information they tried to use. That way the situation would have been resolved quickly and efficiently and they would not have lost sales and, potentially, a customer.

In an ideal world, there would be somebody for every customer who keeps an eye on the transactions and immediately rings the customer if there is a finance issue. That obviously isn't going to happen, because the amount of orders a company the size of JL takes, they'd need thousands of call centre workers just for that side of things alone.

Book people are nowhere near the size, so the number of customers and therefore percentage of erroneous orders is going to be small.

Op got an email to say the order failed, so it's not like he was left in the dark.

Hell, even when I have to call the card operator for a sanction on a card, all I ever get is a yes or no. I never get any details as to why. In some way, small companies are better, because they can do things personally, but their prices are also higher.

In automated, online, big business, most staff never see what's happening behind the scenes.

Besides, let's say JL did store why the check had failed, for every complaint on this board for them NOT holding the detailed financial info of the customer, there'd be 10 people saying, "how dare they have my financial information! It's my business!"

You can't please everyone.

Azari

vyle wrote: »

In an ideal world, there would be somebody for every customer who keeps an eye on the transactions and immediately rings the customer if there is a finance issue. That obviously isn't going to happen, because the amount of orders a company the size of JL takes, they'd need thousands of call centre workers just for that side of things alone.

Book people are nowhere near the size, so the number of customers and therefore percentage of erroneous orders is going to be small.

Op got an email to say the order failed, so it's not like he was left in the dark.

Hell, even when I have to call the card operator for a sanction on a card, all I ever get is a yes or no. I never get any details as to why. In some way, small companies are better, because they can do things personally, but their prices are also higher.

In automated, online, big business, most staff never see what's happening behind the scenes.

Besides, let's say JL did store why the check had failed, for every complaint on this board for them NOT holding the detailed financial info of the customer, there'd be 10 people saying, "how dare they have my financial information! It's my business!"

You can't please everyone.

You haven't read (or understood) what I have written.

No matter how many cards JL authorise each day only a tiny proportion will fail and these should be flagged for action. Even if that action is nothing more than sending an email asking the customer to phone.

Once they are on the phone they can tell the customer what information they submitted to the CC company. They don't need to know why the submission failed. Once the customer knows what information they have submitted they can immediately tell if is correct and either resubmit (to JL) correctly it or query their CC company if the information was OK.

It's absurd to say that JL cannot give decent customer service because they are bigger than 'Book People'. It's just a matter of scale.