to never want to order from John Lewis again?

[crazycatlady]

Placed an order for about £200 worth of bedlinen and other stuff over Christmas with a named delivery date of today (which I paid an extra £7 for).

Order has not shown up. No phone call, no email, nothing. Called customer services who were very blase about it and just said I will get a call tomorrow AFTERNOON to explain what's happened. They have no idea where my order is and didn't even apologise.

If I have to wait in another day to receive this delivery, it will cost me my day rate (am self employed) which is more than the cost of the order itself.

I am 8 months PG so this has annoyed me more than it usually would, but I'm so pissed off I'm tempted never to use them again.

In fact I'm totally annoyed with shopping in general at the moment. High street outlets seem to have poor stock, relying on their shops as mere showrooms and expecting people to then order online, and then the online service is unspeakably crap too!

JL has over £3000* of my money and I still don't have the bay window curtains I ordered in October - just half a pelmet fitting and some nets. I hate the bastards. The only reason I paid through the nose was for the convenience of letting someone else do all the bloody organising. When I rang the woman who is in charge of our order to find out what the delay was in December, she eventually got back to say that the curtain material was out of stock with the supplier, who hadn't informed JL. Well, call me dumb, but I kind of assumed I was paying JL to chase this stuff up, and therefore shouldn't need to be chasing myself.

Still haven't heard what the latest news is. Shall certainly be getting local firms to run up other rooms' curtains and local tradesmen to fit pelmets, after this experience with John Lewis. JL have saved me no effort, but cost me extra.

Did I mention I hate them?
Loved their panforte this Christmas though. Ordered another in the sale last week.

*yes, I know. I still come out in a cold sweat every time I think about it. It is a huge bay, though, and very lovely material (if it ever materialises, fnarr fnarr)

My nearest John Lewis serves a well-off, densely populated area of the Home Counties. As such, it seems to be the place of choice for wedding lists, parents-to-be, ladies who lunch etc. I absolutely hate the place. It's like a scrum at the weekend, the ladies' clothes area is like a jumble sale, the staff are under-trained and clueless, stock is extremely limited, products are considerably more expensive than the competition (Amazon, Argos etc.) BUT people still flock there ! It's mystery to me, I would much rather frequent Poundland, Primark & Lidl than waste my time in this awful up-itself place. Several of my friends have been treated appallingly when their hideously expensive AGA-style cookers, computers etc. have needed after-sales service. I just don't get it with the place - what do people see in it?

Admittedly, I was brought up not to question "the partnership" because my Grandmother worked for them (and we benefited massively, as children, from the facilities they have for Partners) but I have a generally very different experience from some people posting. I shopped a reasonable amount at JLP when we lived close, but that is no longer a practicable option. However, for online purchases, I tend to use them as one of a few retailers that I do trust enough to do business with online, and if all other things are equal (i.e. price and availability) I will tend to choose JLP. I have never had any issues (including with fairly major purchases like dishwashers).

Reading the thread, I am wondering if the ridiculous overloading of couriers and resulting problems are more pronounced in cities/large towns? I am guessing that the sheer distance between drops makes it harder to overestimate what can be done in a day? Also, I suspect that the balance between using CityLink vs. HDN is different depending where you are delivering to (and CityLink are awful)

Not, of course, that that excuses poor customer service from JLP. That they need to sort, as it is core to their brand.

Not read whole thread but why not askt them to to refund your delivery charge, deliver to store and pay for a cab home for you when you go to pick the stuff up?

I'm surprised that John Lweis hasn't delivered your order. We have always found that they are very promt with thier deliveries

I'm waiting for something from JL. They sent me my order, missing a duvet cover and pillowcases, which appear to be being delivered separately as these were the only products with tracking numbers. Clicking on the tracking numbers provides me with no info at all.

Was the courier CityLink? They're shite.

I ordered a large living room rug before Christmas, had to wangle a day working from home to be in for the delivery, only it didn't show up. I called the helpline, which said to ring first thing the next morning and they'd be able to confirm if it was out for delivery or not. I rang; they said yes, it was on a van for delivery; so I wangled a second day working from home. Of course the blardy thing isn't on the van, the guy just wanted me off the phone. O(&&&*(^()!!!!

I was off sick purely by coincidence the following week when the rug finally arrived...

I've been self-employed and really feel for you - this is an infuriating position to be in!

Their delivery is shocking, but their customer care is amazing. I've had about half my orders from them messed up... but when a JL own brand fridge-freezer stopped working one August, 2 months inside the 2 year guarantee, and I was 7 months pregnant? They offered a full refund as they couldn't fix it inside a month, and they said a pregnant woman in hot weather needed a fridge sooner than that. It was £700. And I've had that level of customer care with every screw-up (admittedly, their mail order makes more than a few - wrong washing machine delivered, along with a TD I hadn't - but they sent me £20 in vouchers as well as sorting it out).

Contrast with the shocking service I had from PC World - the new computer we bought NEVER worked properly but they insisted on sending 3 different engineers out over a month because they said that was their right. When they eventually accepted the motherboard was screwed and I said actually I had no legal obligation to accept a repair on a new product, the grudgingly refunded me... but not for the copy of Office I'd pointlessly downloaded onto it. When I asked them why not, they said "backing up software is your responsibility." Yeah, because backing up a copy of Office for another computer is completely legal. Never again.

If you call JL's customer care centre and make a fuss they should do something by way of apology.

They're clearly having a bit of a rubbish customer service moment. I placed an order just after Christmas then realised I'd ordered the wrong thing and cancelled. I got an email confirming the cancellation so thought no more about it till the parcel arrived yesterday. Rang them up, no apology, no nothing, just a bored offer to come and collect it in a four-hour slot on Friday and then graciously refund my money when they got the goods back. I pointed out that it was their mistake and they should refund me upfront, and that I wasn't hanging around for four hours on a working day for them to sort out their mistake, and in the end they grudgingly agreed to refund the money straight away and let me post the stuff back. Cue an e-mail saying "Your refund will be processed when we receive the goods.". I've written to complain, but I'm not optimistic.

crazycatlady we bought a christmas angel for the top of our christmas tree from Peter Jones....

we took a JL delivery in for our neighbour before Christmas, it was delivered by city link...the courier said he had put a card through their door. anyway waited for them to come round and collect it and assumed they were away (curtains had been drawn in their front room). anyway the neighbour came round after a week asking if we had possibly received a delivery for her...no card or anything...i felt really bad that i hadn't taken it round but we hadn't seen them and had assumed they were visiting family, as it was she had been in hospital having their baby early....(she was due on christmas day).

We ordered a shower screen on Wednesday, delivery was anything up to 4 weeks! Was grumbling a bit but it was delivered 10 minutes ago! Well done John Lewis

Just to update on this for anyone interested. I contacted the JL head office and received a very quick, efficient and helpful reply from somebody who made immediate arrangements for me to receive my items direct from Peter Jones, taxi-ed to my house at a time of my choosing (which would have been tomorrow afternoon.)

Ironically, bloody Citylink showed up today and there happened to be someone in the house who accepted the delivery. Very glad to have the bedlinen (it's lovely) but rather annoyed that Citylink appear to have got away with it.

Hoping that if this is a widespread problem with Citylink that JL kick them into touch. I would seriously think twice about ordering again from JL knowing that it's Citylink delivering...

My named day delivery charge has been refunded and I'm expecting a call on Monday with regard to the general inconvenience of this cock up.

I have to say that once speaking to someone at head office I have been very impressed. They know how to fix a problem. Shame it had to happen in the first place.

Hey crazy! Did they call when they said they would??

City link are really crap! I've just received a delivery today which should have arrived last week, I paid extra for next day service too

My co used to have a contract with them but changed to TNT who are really good and v reliable, city link lost us business.

John Lewis on otherhand have always been v good IME....

Yes I got a call and an email, I had a manic day yesterday so was too busy to respond but JL head office has been brilliant and restored my faith in their brand. I hope they ditch Citylink though!

I'm afraid this problem still stands. See my recent thread of a similar title in Aibu.

We used to live in an unadopted road that was 11ft 6 ins wide. It was just about wide enough for 2 cars - 1 parked into the hedge, and 1 driving down the road slowly.

Citylink tried to drive their van down the road to deliver a photocopier to the office at the end. There was a back entrance they could have used. I was really pissed off, as their idiot of a driver whacked the wing mirror on my new car and knocked a lump of paint off it. Unfortunately, I'd nodded off having just had a general anaesthetic and didn't actually see him do it. Prat!

I've doin that depending on the size/weight of the item collecting John Lewis items from Waitrose works really well. There was a bit of a wait for picking up items just before Christmas (my local Waitrose is in South London) but no longer thank it took to pick up a few groceries and collect parcels on the way out.

Doin - should be 'found'...

Only just started using JL. Said bookcase would be delivered between 7am and 1pm. Got a call at 7 exact to say they were on their way and they arrived soon after. So far so good.
Bookcase has piece missing though and couldn't be assembled. JL will phone us sometime in the next SEVEN days to come and collect faulty goods then will arrange a delivery of a replacement " sometime in the New Year". Not really impressed so far.

Zombie thread!

This is not a new thing with John Lewis - when they first started their internet deliveries I had 2 awful experiences both involving named day deliveries. One order had to be cancelled and I never as much received an explanation or a refund for my named day deliveries. It pisses me off even more that they have people monitoring the internet and social media intervening when someone dares slag them off rather than sorting out a proper response to orders in the first place. A colleague had a terrible time with a faulty telly with them and the saga went on for months. It was only sorted when he tweeted about it and even then it took multiple attempts to sort it.
They are just a shop not some sort of sainted purveyor of goods to the middle classes.

I waited in for a delivery today (value£70) and when I called to say that I had checked with Citylink and they weren't delivering it to me today because they had received it too late from John Lewis, they refunded £20 of the order plus the named day delivery charge. So, although I was a bit annoyed at having stayed in for it, I'm more than happy with the customer service and the way that the company gives the customer service team the autonomy to act as they see fit to remedy the problem. I will definitely order from them again - mainly because I live in a city with crap shops!

This thread is nearly 3 years old!!!

MNHQ please make zombie threads a different colour. Talk about a waste of time.