Sainsburys Grocery Delivery - Online

Tomby1

chocdonuty wrote: »

No driver has ever mentioned about the stairs being a problem, they just deliver as usual, I suppose it helps that they are wide and easy to get up whilst carrying the crates, had they been narrow and winding I can see that they could pose a problem.

I live in a 1st floor flat at the moment and the drivers always offer to take the groceries upstairs too. It's probably some health and safety rubbish saying they're not meant to.

gildius

I use Tesco and they're awesome too Definitely let the people at Sainsbury's know!

pullenuk

Just so you are aware of how good Sainsburys Drivers can be. Below is the terms and conditions of the service that you agree to (ticking the box on registration and every time you place the order)

The following information sets out our current delivery guidelines to ensure the health and safety of our customers and drivers are protected.
We will always deliver your order to the front door of your house or to the communal entrance to your block of flats. Our drivers may also deliver beyond this into your home.
For home deliveries, our driver will be happy to deliver your grocery order to your kitchen or garage if you would like us to. However, he or she needs to take into account a couple of important things before doing this and there are a few instances where this may not be possible. These are set out below:
Our driver may not be able to deliver to you if he or she has to transport your shopping an unreasonable distance because of parking restrictions.
Our driver will not come in if he or she believes it isn't safe or practical to do so. If this is the case, our driver will explain the reason clearly to you.
Our driver will need to be sure that you have given him or her permission to come in.
Our driver will not always be able to deliver beyond the communal entrance if there isn't a lift, which transports the shopping beyond the first floor of the building (where the ground level is 0). If this is the case, the driver or a store colleague will discuss delivery options with you for subsequent deliveries.
Please note that our service does not extend to unpacking your shopping from its bags.
For deliveries to customers at a business address, we are only able to deliver to the ground floor communal entrance of your business, but are unfortunately not able to come up to your desk or place of work. If your business has a shared ground floor reception, this is the point to which we will deliver.
Please ensure you are available to receive and sign for the order within your timeslot. Our drivers will wait a reasonable amount of time for you to arrive at the ground floor reception to collect your order but if you do not arrive, they may need to leave without delivering your order. While we may be able to organise a redelivery for a subsequent time, we may need to charge for this redelivery.

So if the driver goes up pass the 1st floor of a flat without a lift then you are either a nice customer / order not that big / driver is a hard-working honest driver who believes in making the effort. Or anything else in the terms that they are "breaking" for your order. Therefore you should let Sainsburys know that their drivers are going over and beyond what is expected.

At our store we have drivers of different ages, so therefore some drivers won't/can't carry shopping that far. Some do. At the end of the day the terms are there to protect the driver, taking time off with injury costs a lot of money as drivers are especially trained for this role. They can't take someone off the shop floor to drive the van, you have to have three days worth of training and fit requirements to drive.
However our store are firm with businesses, in our area we deliver to a lot of them, if we took it where it needs to go every time we could only do two customers an hour instead of 5/6 which is unfair on home customers.

I only refused two customers in my 5 years of driving, one was 4th floor flat not forgetting the 250 yards walk up slopes to it and they refused to help even though there is 4 grown kids and 2 adults all clearly fit to do so and one customer because of parking issues in the area.

But it varies on the stores, their areas and their drivers.

If you love what they are doing and get a nice driver who does more than he is actually paid to do, praise the hell out of them :-)

Studlea_Phatt_Katt

I am also a driver for Sainsburys online, up in the north west, and it’s so good to read positive comments from customers, and at the risk of sounding big headed, I believe we do deliver a better service than our rivals.

My territory is varied from built up terraced streets to outlying farms and villages, and the challenges we face are not crashing the van, not damaging the groceries, and being on time, particularly as we offer the 1 hour time slot that no other provider does.

It makes a world of difference when customers are understanding and realistic about any issues that might arise with their delivery. Stairs to flats are not usually a problem for me & my colleagues, but we have to take more time as carrying the crates (‘totes’) means you cannot see your feet, so 3 crates worth of groceries might be 5-6 trips of bags up the stars.

E.G. I called at a house the other day I had been to before, but this time, vehicles blocked the long uphill driveway, followed by steps to the house. 15 totes had to be carried 1 at a time, and many were very heavy with cases of bottled water (does nobody have a tap any more) but I was able to discuss this with the customer, and they understood, and agreed that when a delivery was next due, the drive way would have sufficient access to a least let us use the truck to take 5 or so totes at a time the main distance.

We have a system wherein we can record for our colleagues issues and locations problems e.g. ‘no vehicle access, take sack truck’ or ‘no turning space, reverse in’ but this requires the first driver to record and report this. This is where the catch 22 comes in. We are so tight for time, often we have wasted time overcoming an unforeseen obstacle, we do not have the time to make such notes. When we can, then the delivery time for that customer might be increased.

The standard is 6 minutes from being in the post code (let me stress not arriving at house), finding house, parking up so as not to block neighbours, cause obstruction etc, record fridge temperature, check customers receipt for substitutions, lock van, knock door, announce ourselves, provide receipt, refer to substitutions or short dated goods, check where groceries are going, then return to van, un-strap totes, check off to ensure all is in order, lift off van, deliver, check customer happy, deal with concerns, coupon questions, get signature, return to van, stow away empty crates, make sure sack truck etc. is secure, enter next delivery address and drive away.

We do all we can to be on time, and have the right goods in perfect condition and delivered where you want them. If there are some ‘customer pointers’ they might be as follows:

Substitutions.
DO let us bring substitutions. The system (supposedly) is we note them on your paperwork, point this out to you, and the substituted items are in blue bags as opposed to customary orange to allow you & us to easily find them, take a look and decide if okay or not. I say supposedly, but the system is human, and so we as drivers can be let down by shop staff when they do not use the blue bags.

I accept, the substitutions will on some occasion be no good. The reason for this in my view falls in to two categories. First is reasonable and understandable specific tastes, be this those who will only eat/drink a certain brand, pet foods, special diet items etc. The second is when your ‘shopper’ either does not have the knowledge or has ‘second guessed’ you incorrectly. E. G. You have chosen a product for a recipe but the shopper cannot see this and so makes an unsuitable alternative choice.

Most of the time, the substitutions I deliver, and to be fair, there are very few* are acceptable to customers, and it saves a second shopping trip for them, and we are more than happy to take back any that are unacceptable.

*Last Sunday I did 15 deliveries, 5 had substitutions totalling 11 or 12 items, only 2 items were returned. If 15 families went to any supermarket themselves I would venture they would be hard pressed to have this degree of ‘first choice’ satisfaction.

Addresses.
This will sound like a moan, but it isn’t; just saying. The House, Village, County. Please have a clear name plate. Is your house number or name clear from the road? After dark, is your pathway or drive even or is it a hazard that would fell the SAS?

Dogs, Cats, Alpacas, Horses, Ducks, Chickens…
I love animals; really I do, but when they come flying at you in aggressive mode, please understand I do not know they are ‘harmless’, and I have the lost finger tip to prove this.

Early Deliveries.
Most drivers including myself will do all we can to leave our base early, which might mean we arrive with you early. If this is more than a few minutes we will phone and check if this is convenient. Please let us. So much conspires to make us late if we can be early, the pressure is really off.

Finally, I am not a ‘representative’ or PR for Sainsburys, and so use my anonymous MSE log in.

I could say more, but I suspect this post might engender a few challenging comments and very likely most will be from my bosses.

Enjoy the service, and as most of 'my' customers report, enjoy the money saving on-line grocery shopping delivers over the temptation of being in store.

Buellguy

Used to use Sainsbury's all the time when we were in Lincoln and never had a bad word to say about them, and, yes, did e-mail and complement them to the store

davidlizard

marmitepotato wrote: »

It's nice when things go right for a change. Why don't you email Sainsburys and tell them too?

We did that a year or so ago as we were consistently impressed by their home delivery service - we got an email back saying they were very sorry and gave us a voucher code for some money off our next online delivery!! :rotfl:

In about 5 years of using Sainsburys, I struggle to think of any problem we had - they also contact us if they can be early, and let us know if they are going to be towards the latter end of the delivery slot.

Tesco's on the other hand - used them for about 6 weeks as they were cheaper. They consistently forgot to deliver all bags so we had to go grocery shopping to fetch all the stuff they forgot to deliver and were frequently late (including 1130pm for a 7-9pm delivery) with no explanation or apology. However what finally put us off was watching a driver with his hand down the front of his trousers then handling the bags of food.

preable

Sainsburys is better than the rest fullstop

Sharon87

I do prefer Sainsburys as well. We tend to do a monthly shop in our shared house or 5-6 weekly shop for cleaning products mostly. We use Tesco usually, but they are consistently late and grumpy drivers. Once the Tesco shop was 1 hour 30 late, he arrived at 21:30 or 22:30 I think! Then I used Sainsburys for my personal food shop, the driver arrived about 5 minutes into the time slot. He offered to bring some of the shopping inside the house, as he couldn't get the crates to my door because of my housemate's motorbike in the way.

And also no substitutions, missing items or out of stock items either!

pullenuk

Studlea_Phatt_Katt wrote: »

Addresses.
This will sound like a moan, but it isn’t; just saying. The House, Village, County. Please have a clear name plate. Is your house number or name clear from the road? After dark, is your pathway or drive even or is it a hazard that would fell the SAS?

Actually, as a fellow Sainsburys driver. Here a few tips related to this!

Usually postcode checkers just put the major town in the address. Not the local town/village you are actually in. I can't give an example as it will give away my location. But here an attempt.
You live in a lovely village called "Lovely", your local town is "Brilliant". when you use the postcode checker it comes up as "1 Station Road, Brilliant. When really you are actually in "1 Station Road, Lovely, Brilliant"

So help us out a bit, use your FULL address as usually there is a dozen station roads in "Brilliant" area!!!

pullenuk

Studlea_Phatt_Katt wrote: »

Dogs, Cats, Alpacas, Horses, Ducks, Chickens…
I love animals; really I do, but when they come flying at you in aggressive mode, please understand I do not know they are ‘harmless’, and I have the lost finger tip to prove this.

Please put a sign up if your animals are likely to attack or not. Most signs are just "Beware of dog", I never seen a sign that says "Beware of dog, so friendly it will lick you to death" :rotfl:

There a story about the lost finger tip here. What happened?