I used to work for Ocado - maybe I can help you guys out.
Hi bigbadbarry and VajazzleMyFoof!
Sometimes it snows at christmas; this means Ocado delivery vans go more slowly (or not at all) and employees can't always make it into work. When you're booking a month or more in advance the weather forecast isn't reliable, so Ocado don't promise their full good weather capacity. Closer to the delivery day they can be more confident about the weather; this allowed them to release some extra routes.
While I can understand that you'd have preferred a better delivery date, Ocado basically think doing it this way is much better than offering you a slot on christmas eve then not being able to deliver!
Hi Gigondas,
Ocado holds back a little bit of capacity in each area to allocate to customers such as yourself, but sometimes this all gets used up. One of my friends at Ocado says they have heard your feedback, and are considering telling call centre employees not to tell callers what time new slots become available.
Hi roundcornsilkvirgin,
Unfortunately Ocado can't really afford to offer free christmas deliveries at this time. Maybe some day!
Hi EtInTerraPax,
Ocado tries to get the freshest goods they can and get them to your home as soon as possible, but we can only work with what we've got. Reminds me of funny story from my time at Ocado - one christmas a supplier (who shall remain nameless) sent us a delivery of turkeys that were all labelled as best before the 24rd of December! I don't think I've every seen anyone as stressed as people got in response to that! In the end bunch of us were sent to nearby supermarkets to buy as many turkeys as possible.
Some London homeless shelters were able to put on a feast that christmas eve, but we didn't end up making a profit that year. These days Ocado order a bunch more turkey than people have ordered just in case the same thing happens again. That's probably why those money-off vouchers were sent out; once the turkeys are in the warehouse (so they know the supplier won't let them down), no sense in letting them go to waste!
Hi puzzlesum,
I spoke to a friend at Ocado who tells me changes are in the works which they hope will reduce late deliveries. When I was at Ocado, we used to tell drivers to call you if they're running late, but pulling over to call can take a while so some drivers prefer not to add to the delay, which I can understand. I can assure you there is no policy of giving worse service to delivery pass customers.
Hi Jajas,
That's terrible, I'm astonished that happened! When I was at Ocado not only did they get a lot of turkeys into the warehouse, they also had extra spare turkeys around the delivery network just in case. Have you told [email protected] about your experience?
Hi tick73,
I don't work at Ocado any more, but I still buy from them and the CSTMs are a big part of that for me - your work is really appreciated by customers, especially during christmas week. Thanks!