To be livid with this so called customer service from John Lewis

[ManiDeadi]

I'm trying to be organised, so I ordered some Christmas presents from John Lewis online. I got them delivered the other day, and when I opened up the package, two of the boxes were completely bashed up and had holes in them, so there is no way I can present them to someone as a gift.

I decided to email customer services to complain, as the items were just lolling around in a massive bag, so I felt it was JL's fault for them not being packaged correctly.

Here is what I got in return:

Dear Ms XX,

You do realise that it is only October. Therefore, you have 2 months to arrange Christmas presents. So calm down. I will be more than happy to arrange a replacement order to be sent to you. Please advise if you would like me to arrange a courier collection or packet post return for the damaged goods..

I look forward to your reply.

Hmm I personally think the outgoing email was probably a bit more stroppier and that returned email let's say I'm suprised at.

Jl have always been excellent. Last Christmas I ordered a gift on next day a few days before. They ran out of stock and couldn't redeliver before, they gave me a full refund and £50 on top which was the price again, never had service like it tbh. Always shop there now.

I love JL - but I think their reply to you was surprisingly out of order. Very strange behaviour.

There is NOTHING wrong with her email but even if it was a crap email and/or in your opinion should have been a phone call, it doesn't matter. She complained over damaged goods and received a rude and patronising response.

I am amazed that anybody thinks that the OP's email is stroppy and that they continue to be unable to grasp the point. Which is that the OP is not looking for advice on her writing skills or whether she should telephone her complaint. She is commenting on the rudeness of the email she received from a supposed Customer Service professional in a company that prides itself on customer care.

Is this the same MN that has repeated threads agreeing on the rudeness of receptionists using first names? Have I wandered into a parallel universe?

I think your email was fine and their response was terrible.

YADNBU

My nan was 90 earlier this week and my great aunt had arranged for flowers to be delivered from John Lewis. she purposely ordered a display which had a lovely jug to stand the flowers in (nan gets a little worried about finding suitable vases etc because of her age). It arrived while I was visiting, so I filled the jug with water.....only to find a massive leak. My mum didn't want to offend great aunt, so phoned John Lewis herself to ask for another jug to be sent out.
Customer services said they could do this, but mum would have to pay for it on her credit card, then when the jug arrived she would have to phone them again to get the jug refunded. It seemed such an odd way of doing things, she told them not to bother and phoned great aunt to ask if she could sort it out....
Great aunt explained how the flowers were for nan's 90th, and how disappointed they both were, so John Lewis offered to send a whole new jug and flowers.
It didn't arrive. Great Aunt phoned JL, and it turns out it had been sent to North Wales, not South Wales.....
Delivery number three is apparently on it's way.....Great Aunt has been using JL for years, they've always been great, but this time she hasn't even received an apology. She'll be using Interflra next time,

First off, I am not slagging off John Lewis - I have had great service from them in the past, which is why I shop there.

I don't believe that reply was sent either but it is sitting in my inbox and I copy and pasted it onto here.

I have emailed head of CS, so I am doing something about it.

"Situation resolved, or you can continue to do nothing about it and wonder why no one is sympathetic and all"

Bit of an random statement I think. Plenty of people on here are being sympathetic.

I'm totally as to why you've received the response on here that you have, it was an awful email for customer services to send.

Don't understand why people think you're being unreasonable, of course you expected your goods to be packaged properly and not to receive a snotty email when you complain.

Completely baffled as to why so many posters are getting their knickers in a twist because their precious JL have sent that email. If we were talking about Primark or Asda people would be telling you to email the Prime Minister. Bit of snobbery going on here I think.

ManiDeadi YANBU I used to work in retail and probably would have gotten the sack for writing a response like that. Hope you get replacements and an apology. Oh and your email didn't seem snippy to me.

MrsVictor, I had almost identicle trouble with a flower delivery. I wonder if it's ran by a company other than jl.

Won't be using them again either.

op have you had a response yet?

It is rubbish customer service.

I have recently had lots of problems with travel companies when flying on business and have felt the need to complain. What really really irritated me is that I didn't even get a reply to either of my carefully worded letters of complaint.

I escalated to director level at both companies. Travel company A then phoned me, gave me lots of frequent flyer points and sounded genuinely sorry. Travel company B still haven't got back to me......guess who I'll be flying with in the future?

This is so random, another perfectly reasonable op and a load of bonkers people responding in a bonkers way.

Rude and unprofessional of them.

A few months ago I waited in for a delivery, entertaining my toddler all morning and it never arrived.

When I called them I explained that I had been told it would arrive between 7 and 12 (or similar, can't remember exact time slot) and the girl on the phone was very patronising. She told me no way would I have been told that it was being delivered then as that wasn't their time slots and basically behaved as if I was an idiot.

Then she checked with her supervisor and the courier and discovered that actually I was right after all.

It pissed me off because first I had to deal with the inconvenience and then the rudeness.

So, YANBU!

Sorry, mine was also John Lewis! Not the online one though, it was stuff I'd ordered in store which wasn;t in stock.

Haha, you 'ers make me laugh.

I hate the whole 'get a grip' thing. She paid for a service, didn't receive it and now would like a follow up from JL.

And pray tell, what is wrong with that??

JL CS are paid to do a job. The CS team aren't some 15 yr olds on work experience.

OP, I totally get your frustration.

What Mardy said.

People who think the email the OP sent was rude or stroppy obviously live in a protective bubble
It was to the point and spelt out the facts. It didn't sign off hugs n kisses - is that where it went wrong?

Crikey i can't believe how defensive you people are about JL, yes they are a great company and I do love shopping there but even they can get it wrong....they employ 1000s of people there is going to be one or two bad apples among them....

And why would the OP bother to lie about this.

I can't see what is wrong with the email, yes it was quite blunt and to the point but she was making a complaint....it didn't need to be emotive she just gave them the facts told them why she was annoyed and asked them how they were dealing with it, what is wrong with that?

Well I invite any of you ers round to my house to look at my email inbox where calmdowngate is there in black and white for all to see .

perfumedlife - no, no reply yet, I expect the customer excellence manager either works Monday - Friday, or is being inundated with shirty and stroppy emails from disgruntled customers .

Oops sorry, I mean phone calls. Silly me, it would be ridiculous to send an email.

Lol at calmdowngate! Great thread.

I can't understand why people think the OP's email was stroppy (and even if she had been stroppy it doesn't justify being rude). If you pay for goods to be delivered then they should be in good condition when they arrive and anything else is just poor customer service. And I've been asked to provide photos in that kind of situation before too.

And the response was completely out of order - who are they to know if you have plenty of time to do Xmas shopping? Patronising too. Please tell us what happens!

LOLOLOLOL i would be going MENTAL if i'd got that response...

OP your email was fine imo, and the response is appalling. so appalling, in fact, that i can't see it having happened, unless by some weird mistake. it's so not JL.

i am certain you will get a mahoosive apology when you refer this upwards. so funny, really, imagine saying 'calm down'... absolutely guaranteed to raise a person's blood pressure.

Some of you on this thread are totally full of it!! Very funny indeed - when it happens to someone else...! I guarantee you'd be laughing on the other side of your face if it happened to you.

Just because it's JL, people are behaving as if the OP was being unreasonable even to complain?! The outrage would have been totally unanimous if it'd been Mothercare.

Oh, and it's perfectly reasonable of JL to start flogging their Christmas stuff from October, but unreasonable for people to be buying it that early...?

I know this is AIBU, but honestly - some of you love to be contrary, just for tbs sake of it.

Anyway, good to see the tide of opinion is changing and the more recents are not totally missing the point and are agreeing you're not BU, OP.