Tesco Complaints - Who to Escalate To?

scotnan

kirsteenatom wrote: »

I have been battling tesco for a couple of weeks now. They cancelled my order and didn't bother telling me. It just happened to be my birthday weekend, the order was due between 4 and 6pm with a dinner party starting at 8.

I also had my seven month old son waiting for baby food (I had run low and had stupidly trusted that my delivery would be on time rather than popping out to the local shops).

i then spent 45 minutes on their maze of a phone system, sometimes waiting in silence 10 minutes, being cut off, passed to different people and finally being told my order had been cancelled due to staffing problems. Not even an apology was offered.

I have been emailing customer services and getting cut and paste replies that have just made me more angry. They offered me £10 off my next order - what a laugh! I have asked them to pass my complaint higher each time, but i'm just getting nothing back, so have tried emailing the boss after reading this thread.

Not holding my breath, but sometimes you just get soooo cheesed off you can't let it lie - know what I mean?

I also had to cancel my birthday lunch on sunday with friends to go food shopping.

at Asda.

Kirsteen

OMG I had to look twice at this to see if I'd posted it, cos that's EXACTLY what happened to me too.
They just don't seem to care, do they :rolleyes2

olly300

scotnan wrote: »

OMG I had to look twice at this to see if I'd posted it, cos that's EXACTLY what happened to me too.
They just don't seem to care, do they :rolleyes2

Maybe you two should contact Watchdog. Strangely companies respond when they have to face the media.

AnnoyedwithTesco

Recently I wanted to buy some groceries for my daughter who is in halls at university. I tried to order on the Tesco website but was informed via the website that the address was listed as business address so the order could not be made. I phoned up to see if something could be done and was told that all I had to do was email the tesco online team and they would be able to change it. I did this only to receive a reply telling me that I would have to sort it out with Royal Mail. I decided to try another supermarket as I didn’t see why it was my job to sort out their system. ASDA were the next supermarket I tried and surprise, surprise no issues at all with delivery and I could make my order. For two days I was given the run around by Tesco only to be told I had to sort it out , shopping with ASDA took me ten minutes. This is typical in my experience of Tesco customer service, they are so big now and have the monopoly in so many towns they don’t care about customers. My advice to anyone wanting to order food for their children at university is to go to ASDA

geri1965_2

Asda don't deliver everywhere though.

disco23

AnnoyedwithTesco wrote: »

Recently I wanted to buy some groceries for my daughter who is in halls at university. I tried to order on the Tesco website but was informed via the website that the address was listed as business address so the order could not be made. I phoned up to see if something could be done and was told that all I had to do was email the tesco online team and they would be able to change it. I did this only to receive a reply telling me that I would have to sort it out with Royal Mail. I decided to try another supermarket as I didn’t see why it was my job to sort out their system. ASDA were the next supermarket I tried and surprise, surprise no issues at all with delivery and I could make my order. For two days I was given the run around by Tesco only to be told I had to sort it out , shopping with ASDA took me ten minutes. This is typical in my experience of Tesco customer service, they are so big now and have the monopoly in so many towns they don’t care about customers. My advice to anyone wanting to order food for their children at university is to go to ASDA

Who also run a seperate system linked to businesses. You were lucky this time with Asda. Do not blame Tesco for this as if they opened for business uses there would be less on the shelves for you and you would be moaning that their profits increase even more. You cannot have it both ways!

disco23

scotnan wrote: »

OMG I had to look twice at this to see if I'd posted it, cos that's EXACTLY what happened to me too.
They just don't seem to care, do they :rolleyes2

You are exactly what i have just talked about. NOT GUARANTEED SERVICE!!! read your terms and conditions!!! When underpaid workers do not turn up for work (there can be several in a day believe me!) the whole system gets !!!!!!ed up, and potentially stores have to cancel tens of thousands of pounds worth of orders. Who's best interests is this in....NOBODY'S, so why would they not phone. Well....every order has to be collated and redirected to head offices where regular phone monkeys have to abandon work to call and take twice as much abuse as normal for their pittance of a wage. They do call and mark off lists of people as they go. As other areas of the business have their set work force, not everybody can be called all of the time. Not only that, but a large percentage of customers who use the service cannot even be arsed changing their details online. It's not the first time i tried to call to report cancelled order to be told that Mrs Jones moved house 2 years ago. Companies are not out to get you. Get it in your heads that companies want to keep you as happy as possible. Like is said, who's interests is it in for them not to phone you??? Thats right, nobody's.

I'm here for the weekend, so if you need inside knowledge on how things work with major retailers, I've done most of it, so will be able to advise you on next steps and how to obtain better results.

kitekat

disco23 wrote: »

How??? Are you really nieve enough to think he has time to personally write a response to your issue. It's the same phone monkeys who write these responses as would write your standard letters. How stupid can you be. This will be the same for most Chief Execs. I bet it only did the trick for you because more money was thrown at you.

I only know this as I worked on behalf of a major food retailers head office and know how the systems work. Here are a few pointers:

When complaining, be nice. It might sound stupid, but it gets you better results. This goes for all formats of emails, letters and calls.

Stop writing letters containing irrelevant information such as the product you bought was for a dinner party and it tasted strange and you were all embarrassed. Companies will only try and resolve the problem with the product in question. Please do not also try and redeem costs for your meals at the Hilton which you obviously had to purchase because of this.

I would challenge any of you in your well paid jobs and think that most people in these call centres are taking 7-8 hours of constant abuse in a day for roughly £13-£14k per year. It is a soul destroying job in which makes you lose the will to live. Would any of you swap your jobs for this? Be nice to the people on the other end of the line if you have to call regardless of how angry you are. It will be a quicker, simpler and more satisfying process for all parties involved.

Also, be reasonable, you are probably all guilty of being to quick to jump at the chance to slate companies like Asda and Tesco as they are making so much money, but that is business. If you had a business which was doing well and had shareholders to keep happy, you would always be trying to increase your share of the market. Thus, stop asking for huge sums of money for mouldy grapes for example. You should realise that by law companies are only legally supposed to refund you for the cost of the goods in question. Anything more is a bonus to the customer.

Someone touched on the fact that supermarkets did not resolve their issue. Was this because perhaps you were being unreasonable???

The chain in which i worked for had a process in which if letters, emails etc arrived then the employee could not continue with work until that piece of work was processed, so if one of the market leaders does not respond to you it is more than likely the case that the correspondence was lost in transit. Make copies of your letters and send them once again if necessary. Another point... we're all big kids now, use computers to write letters and failing that write with clear handwriting. Some responses never see the light of day because people are too !!!!!! to make it clear.

I would say that you should all take a step back and realise that all supermarkets have to follow due dilligence. This means that even if you complain to a store about a product which we can investigate but you do not request a response, we still make our suppliers aware of the issues so that they can provide remedies to problems.

You should also stop blaming the larger supermarkets for not meeting your ridiculous standards in which you set from them as almost every supermarket be it M&S, Asda, Waitrose will all more than likely use the same suppliers as each other for most of their products. It's not the first time i have noticed the same supplier coding on both Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury similar products.

Someone also touched on the fact an insect was found in a fresh product. Now how in the hell to you think that happened??? We all know that you shouldn't find insects in things like this, but when pesticides are hardly being used any more it makes the process all the more difficult at source level prior to packaging. Eye examinations always take place, but human error does exist. This is for all retailers products! Most packaging will probably even be smart enough to tell you to wash the product as a final precaution, but did you? Probably not as most customers are ignorant as hell.

Also, if you are going to complain about something such as home shopping services, please please please read the terms and conditions as if you dont and you have complaints such as drivers not turning up you will see printed on all of their websites that this is not a guaranteed service, so quit giving the person at the other end of the phone your grief. If you having nothing in your cupboards for your kids, who's fault is that?? And if it really was that urgent, get off your !!!! and go to the shops yourself.

The main point of this issue is not to have a go at the customer as i too am a customer of all of these shops i have mentioned. It is to highlight that customers should try and be nicer, more reasonable sometimes (dont get moe wrong as occasional customers are very nice and are a pleasure to correspond with). Please be informed before you start complaining, so that you know you first are in the right before going down the chosen path. Do not try and escalate matters to line managers if possible as you will not win. Most of these people can argue their way out of the toughest situations and have been doing so on a daily basis for the last 5-10 years, so you are not likely to get anything more than the staff member you were originally speaking to. Do not write to Chief Execs as stated previously as it is standard staff members who respond by email and letter (who are paid a few pence more an hour for doing so than the regular staff memeber). I challenge you to call Tesco's big head office in Waltham Cross, ask to speak to the Chief Execs office and tell me their aint a person with a non-north london accent when you get through.

Be nice, polite, do not swear at staff members as they will terminate calls, be concise in what you are telling them, enclose all packaging if complaining about a product, not just the name ie barcode, supplier code....just enclose the lot! If you do this, you will be in a much better position to get what you are looking for. I hope this helps you all. Message back, as i will give more information if required as i now get paid about 5 times the wage and am in a much more relaxed form of employment, so i dont really care. thanks

Wowser thats some rant you patronising prat,calling people stupid and customers ignorant, i take it you are included in this as by your own admission you are a customer,or is it only us lesser mortals who are labled as this,after all you seem to know more than any of us idiots about customer service.

dangeroussports

kirsteenatom wrote: »

I have been battling tesco for a couple of weeks now. They cancelled my order and didn't bother telling me. It just happened to be my birthday weekend, the order was due between 4 and 6pm with a dinner party starting at 8.

I also had my seven month old son waiting for baby food (I had run low and had stupidly trusted that my delivery would be on time rather than popping out to the local shops).

i then spent 45 minutes on their maze of a phone system, sometimes waiting in silence 10 minutes, being cut off, passed to different people and finally being told my order had been cancelled due to staffing problems. Not even an apology was offered.

I have been emailing customer services and getting cut and paste replies that have just made me more angry. They offered me £10 off my next order - what a laugh! I have asked them to pass my complaint higher each time, but i'm just getting nothing back, so have tried emailing the boss after reading this thread.

Not holding my breath, but sometimes you just get soooo cheesed off you can't let it lie - know what I mean?

I also had to cancel my birthday lunch on sunday with friends to go food shopping.

at Asda.

Kirsteen

I went out for my birthday.

hollydays

Funny how dangerousports loves posting on threads with lots of new users .. as usual..

bottleredhead

disco23 wrote: »

How??? Are you really nieve enough to think he has time to personally write a response to your issue. It's the same phone monkeys who write these responses as would write your standard letters. How stupid can you be. This will be the same for most Chief Execs. I bet it only did the trick for you because more money was thrown at you.

I only know this as I worked on behalf of a major food retailers head office and know how the systems work. Here are a few pointers:

When complaining, be nice. It might sound stupid, but it gets you better results. This goes for all formats of emails, letters and calls.

Stop writing letters containing irrelevant information such as the product you bought was for a dinner party and it tasted strange and you were all embarrassed. Companies will only try and resolve the problem with the product in question. Please do not also try and redeem costs for your meals at the Hilton which you obviously had to purchase because of this.

I would challenge any of you in your well paid jobs and think that most people in these call centres are taking 7-8 hours of constant abuse in a day for roughly £13-£14k per year. It is a soul destroying job in which makes you lose the will to live. Would any of you swap your jobs for this? Be nice to the people on the other end of the line if you have to call regardless of how angry you are. It will be a quicker, simpler and more satisfying process for all parties involved.

Also, be reasonable, you are probably all guilty of being to quick to jump at the chance to slate companies like Asda and Tesco as they are making so much money, but that is business. If you had a business which was doing well and had shareholders to keep happy, you would always be trying to increase your share of the market. Thus, stop asking for huge sums of money for mouldy grapes for example. You should realise that by law companies are only legally supposed to refund you for the cost of the goods in question. Anything more is a bonus to the customer.

Someone touched on the fact that supermarkets did not resolve their issue. Was this because perhaps you were being unreasonable???

The chain in which i worked for had a process in which if letters, emails etc arrived then the employee could not continue with work until that piece of work was processed, so if one of the market leaders does not respond to you it is more than likely the case that the correspondence was lost in transit. Make copies of your letters and send them once again if necessary. Another point... we're all big kids now, use computers to write letters and failing that write with clear handwriting. Some responses never see the light of day because people are too !!!!!! to make it clear.

I would say that you should all take a step back and realise that all supermarkets have to follow due dilligence. This means that even if you complain to a store about a product which we can investigate but you do not request a response, we still make our suppliers aware of the issues so that they can provide remedies to problems.

You should also stop blaming the larger supermarkets for not meeting your ridiculous standards in which you set from them as almost every supermarket be it M&S, Asda, Waitrose will all more than likely use the same suppliers as each other for most of their products. It's not the first time i have noticed the same supplier coding on both Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury similar products.

Someone also touched on the fact an insect was found in a fresh product. Now how in the hell to you think that happened??? We all know that you shouldn't find insects in things like this, but when pesticides are hardly being used any more it makes the process all the more difficult at source level prior to packaging. Eye examinations always take place, but human error does exist. This is for all retailers products! Most packaging will probably even be smart enough to tell you to wash the product as a final precaution, but did you? Probably not as most customers are ignorant as hell.

Also, if you are going to complain about something such as home shopping services, please please please read the terms and conditions as if you dont and you have complaints such as drivers not turning up you will see printed on all of their websites that this is not a guaranteed service, so quit giving the person at the other end of the phone your grief. If you having nothing in your cupboards for your kids, who's fault is that?? And if it really was that urgent, get off your !!!! and go to the shops yourself.

The main point of this issue is not to have a go at the customer as i too am a customer of all of these shops i have mentioned. It is to highlight that customers should try and be nicer, more reasonable sometimes (dont get moe wrong as occasional customers are very nice and are a pleasure to correspond with). Please be informed before you start complaining, so that you know you first are in the right before going down the chosen path. Do not try and escalate matters to line managers if possible as you will not win. Most of these people can argue their way out of the toughest situations and have been doing so on a daily basis for the last 5-10 years, so you are not likely to get anything more than the staff member you were originally speaking to. Do not write to Chief Execs as stated previously as it is standard staff members who respond by email and letter (who are paid a few pence more an hour for doing so than the regular staff memeber). I challenge you to call Tesco's big head office in Waltham Cross, ask to speak to the Chief Execs office and tell me their aint a person with a non-north london accent when you get through.

Be nice, polite, do not swear at staff members as they will terminate calls, be concise in what you are telling them, enclose all packaging if complaining about a product, not just the name ie barcode, supplier code....just enclose the lot! If you do this, you will be in a much better position to get what you are looking for. I hope this helps you all. Message back, as i will give more information if required as i now get paid about 5 times the wage and am in a much more relaxed form of employment, so i dont really care. thanks

:eek: Woah! PMT?

or Sir Terry Leahy in disguise?!

Hope I never get you on the phone if I ring up!!