Waitrose delivery man just walked straight in?!

[Brighton5555]

Hello just wanted to hear other peoples thoughts on this. Use Home shopping for food very often, have used all the usual chains such as Ocado, Sainsburys and Asda and decided to give Waitrose a shot with their £20 off your first shop offer...

I booked a early delivery for this morning 7-8am. The guy came within that time, took forever to bring the shopping over from the van to my door, I always order roughly the same amount and I’ve never know it to be this long!

More unnerving was the fact that when he first came I met him at the door he dropped some bags at my step and told me he was off to bring more so I went in closed my front door as I have a toddler running about and a elder son getting ready for school and was standing in my kitchen unloading the bags when he walked straight in the door without knocking which was firmly closed and stood in my hallway with some more bags in his hand.... it made me feel pretty uncomfortable and no other delivery driver has ever done that...

Then I start to smell a lovely aroma of fabric conditioner to see it’s leaked all over a bag of produce which can still be used but all the packaging is slippery and coated in it ... no bottle of fabric conditioner to be seen ..

He informs me on the last bag about the leak and that he is unable to give it to me but he’s going to refund the couple bottles of bleach that he can see have also got covered in the conditioner ... regarding the bag from the kitchen he said take that up with the local branch..

I was expecting Waitrose to be better all round and to be honest they were the worst so far! Even worse than asda and that’s saying something !

Have emailed customer services but surely they aren’t supposed to walk in a closed front door without knocking and without asking ...

This thread has got me really really annoyed!!!

I'd never dream of treating a delivery driver like that! But just as long as you got your flowers and chocolate hey OP? Doesn't matter if the poor fellow got into trouble.

Jesus..........glad you're not in my life............

Even worse than asda and that’s saying something
What wrong with Asda?

I always shut the door but invite them to come in and out as necessary. I think in future if you expect a certain thing, communicate that to the driver so he knows what you want or expect. Saves everyone a bit of hassle.

Freud My last Asda delivery said the exact words "we don't enter your property, that's an Ocado thing". I also used Sainsbury's in our old flat which was up a couple of flights of stairs, but ditched them after one driver started wittering about how they were only "obliged" to go up a certain number of stairs, and finicking over how the stairs outside the property counted as well. Perhaps it's regional?

sausage I've had no end of trouble with deliveries from Asda with them being late, missing things, items damaged in transit, etc. I think lots of people have found them to be the least reliable service.

Yabvu, you closed the door so toddler could not come out, and he opened the door to bring the shopping into your hall, not right through your house. If you wanted him to leave them outside the door, for you to bring in, you should have told him.

You didn't explain in your first couple of posts that you had asked him to leave the delivery outside.
If you did this and he ignored you, it could have been that he didn't hear you or thought you were asking him this to save him the trouble and thought he would be nice bringing it in. Or maybe he is so used to bringing people's shopping into their house (the normal thing to do) that he just went on auto pilot.

honestly I think it's fine. It wouldn't have bothered me at all. I do give them clear instructions such as I will shut the door behind you to keep the cold pout and please leave the shopping bags Here (in the hallway). I think you are a bit sensitive OP.

Morrisons is by far the best service. I'll just leave that there.

Why would you complain. The delivery driver was doing his job. He was probably dealing with the spilt fabric conditioner in the van, that’s why he was ‘taking forever’. If you didn’t want him to come through your closed door with several trips, why didn’t you ask him to leave all the bags on the doorstep, then bring them in when you could be there at the door. He was would of been running late for his next delivery after clearing up the van.

Sorry trying to keep up.
Does one not have staff?
I'm sure Hudson and Edward would have managed this well, one does have to be careful with workmen I understand. I'd have rung for them in your situation.
Did Mrs Bridges place the order or was it that Ruby girl?
I do hope things improve. Have you thought of having the staff telephone Fortnums?

What a princess 🙄

Poor guy. What did you expect him to do exactly? Leave the bags at the front door and stand there until you came back and opened it????

I can't believe you did that.

This is part of their service differentiation, they always bring the bags to the kitchen.

Poor fella.

Poor guy. Ocado have always been great when delivering for me.

I think they should have a " rate your customer" right of reply

6= Excellent, said thank you and smiled.

1= New customer CF went off on one to management because I was doing my job as best I could.

My supermarket delivery drivers always ask if I'd like the crates at the doorstep or brought through to the kitchen. I just unload them into the hallway to save him a job, and never close the door on him. That's just rude in my opinion, he's halfway through a job. If you have children or animals that might escape, stay at the door until he's brought the rest from the van. He shouldn't have to knock again. Poor guy, I hope he doesn't hear about your complaint over such a trivial matter. And if you were offered money off, you should have refused the flowers and chocolates at least. You should feel embarrassed looking at them.

If Waitrose don't think the driver did anything wrong he won't get into trouble.

Exactly. The probably have a form of words to appease customers like OP and it goes something like this:

blah blah...VERY SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE...YES, WE'RE TOTALLY WRONG...blah blah...GROVEL GROVEL...blah blah...VERY SORRY...blah blah...WE ARE NOT WORTHY...blah blah...WE DEEPLY VALUE YOUR CUSTOM...blah blah...FREE VOUCHERS...GROVEL GROVEL...FREE VOUCHERS...blah blah...DEEPEST CONDOLENCES ON YOUR LOSS...blah blah...DID I MENTION THE FREE VOUCHERS...blah blah...OH, WHAT'S THAT THE LINE'S BREAKING UP... static...

I've got my Waitrose order coming tomorrow. I bloody hope I get the lovely chap from last time who helped me unpack the lot and refunded my opened garabaldis.

He’s done nothing at all, I can’t believe you firmly closed the door on him mid delivery - that’s awful! Once I’ve ipened the door the first time, I fully expect them to just come in with all the next crates. It’s totally normal and what tends to happen with me with most supermarket brands!

Bu why do they deeply value the custom of people happy to trump up complaints for the sole purpose of getting half their shopping free?
It's not the sort of repeat custom you'd imagine they'd be chasing.

Freud I think the Sainsbury's guy was definitely just being a moaning minnie. I always felt bad about the stairs in that place, so I always went down to the front door and took as much of it off them as I could carry and lead the way, which at least usually meant just one trip for them, and they mostly just got on with it. This guy was being so pernickity that I ended up snapping "well why don't you just take it up as many single steps as you feel obliged to then put it down, and I'll finish the job"

Asda did make it sound like a policy thing though! It was so silly as like I said they'd made it from the van to the door and there were about 9 paces through into the kitchen, where I could have unloaded the bottles (I only use them when I need gallons of cheap drink for parties ) straight onto the floor or counter, but since I'd chosen bagless delivery and couldn't physically carry the crate, he had to stand there as I went back and forth with two or three bottles at a time which took yonks. It was fine for the first crate as he'd already put it down, but when he came back with the second one he could have just come through with it and been on his way much quicker Perhaps he was in a grump as you say

Iama when I worked in customer services I used to make the same argument about people who always expected partial refunds, vouchers, etc. and took up loads of resource time with their complaints. Sadly it didn't fly with management

Have you not got some other more important stuff to worry about? Poor man, he is only human, cut him some slack - not that he did anything wrong in my opinion.

I've got a feeling that had the delivery guy waited for you to open that door again, we would have read the complaint of "how dare he wait for me to re-open that bloody door when it was open before?!"
Both stories have the same bottom- line, which I hope you see.