Do I expect customer service to actually give Customer Service

[Jimmychoo69]

First ever thread written out of frustration having spent the day chasing orders and no further ahead.
I ordered a hamper from Harvey Nichols with named delivery for today, ready for a 25th wedding anniversary on Friday. Had notification from DPD that they had my parcel for delivery today. By lunch time no one hour delivery slot had materialised so tracked parcel and was still at delivery depot. I rang Harvey Nichols customer service who said it had been damaged in transit and was going to be returned to them. Nobody had informed me of this. They did not seem bothered, no apology. I explained I needed it for Friday. So three phone calls later , they said they would try for next day delivery and I would receive an email when it was collected at 3.30 pm today. Guess what no email, don’t know what is happening, customer service closed and no present for Friday and will be ringing again tomorrow. It just seems everywhere is broken promises, nobody cares and you have to chase everything.

I mean you hardly gave them time to contact you if you were chasing like an hour later.

I get this is important to you, but sometimes mistakes happen and things get broken. What do you expect HN to do? They dispatched the item and the courier damaged it. They are sending a replacement.

I would expect a high end shop, after one phone call, they would arrange a quick replacement. I had to ring customer services three times before I got any action. At the moment it still has not been despatched for delivery tomorrow. I am unsure when delivery will be. No promised update. I believe my expectations must be high but it has stopped me buying from them again which is their loss.

Not sure what you wanted them to do? They couldn't personally drive over & deliver it for you.
They've done the right thing they have replaced the damaged product & arranged re delivery. These things happen.

It was only by me telephoning them to see what was happening, explaining I needed the hamper for Friday did they agree to send out a replacent today on next day delivery which they have not done. No new despatch email as promised. No update as promised. Still unsure when this delivery will be so will have to ring them again tomorrow as they have failed to update me.

They have not replaced the damaged product. I am still waiting for a despatch email which was promised today at 3.30 pm.

I think you need to have realistic expectations here OP. They are acting as quickly as they can, but they don’t exist purely to serve just you, and within a couple of hours of hearing it had been damaged they’d said they would arrange something - but that takes time! Like do they actually have another ready to post immediately? Is someone available to process that before 3.30? Will the world end if you don’t have your dispatch email immediately? It’s not life or death, give them a chance

The thing is they don't get an email saying that the item is damaged and is being returned to them from the courier company. They only know by logging in with the tracking number. They send 10 000 of parcels everyday and cannot log in and check every single parcel. This is one of the reasons that they give the customer a tracking number so they can check what is happening and raise it with them if there is an issue

The OP shouldn't have to have kept contacting them multiple times.

If HN said they'd redeliver and contact the OP to confirm, then they should have done it!

OP is entirely right to be annoyed at such poor service. They're the innocent victim in all this. The courier and store should be pulling out all the stops to put things right.

But they needed to liaise with the courier, confirm that that the item was being returned, that the paper work had been sorted. The reality is they won’t have received an update on the parcel until you chased it, but I don’t know a single company who would dispatch a new item without finding out exactly what’s happening with the previous shipment so they know the insurance claim is all in order.