To never buy anything from John Lewis ever again?

[Grrrrrrrrr8]

Anyone else wondering what's going on with customer service at John Lewis?

It's taken me months to sort out a simple exchange. I speak to a different person each time who tells me something different. There seems to be lots of hoops to jump through. Totally fed up, I don't think they're worth it anymore. Recently bought a TV from a smaller retailer and they've been so much better when it developed a fault.

They contracted out Customer Service at least 5 years ago. You used to be able to go into a store and speak to someone, or ring the store and speak to the department. Now you have to ring a call centre.
I will never order anything that has to be made to order. I’m ok with going in to buy eg a couple of towels that I can take away with me.

its so ironic because they have changed CEO twice, keep saying they are doing their best to improve falling profits, but it’s quite clear why people are voting with their feet.

I cancelled my account and haven't used them since this debacle: https://archive.ph/PNV5e

I use John Lewis all the time as their prices are competitive and service is good. Sadly your experience is not great!

Not sure what their service was like before but I'm generally satisfied with their service. It's just they don't have a wide range of products. I'm reluctant to use small businesses sadly they can't compete on price and their service seems to be less flexible than that of big retailers when there's an unexpected issue. Probably it's because of a lack of experience and bigger companies tend to have many different kinds of customer complaints and they seem to have a manual to deal wth issues.

I see you've not met my mother. Shopping at John Lewis is as much of a requirement as buying one's knickers from M&S.

Yep, it's gone totally down the pan. Fridge freezer with their name on packed up less than 18m old. Had to seek assistance with manufacturer as that is who my gaurentee was with, who was useless. 8 weeks without a fridge or freezer. Never again. Nothing from JL.

We had exactly the opposite. AOL said they would take the old freezer, and were warned it was a tight space. Said no problem, when they arrived they refused to take it saying they were worried they would scrape the walls, told not an issue, still refused, said they would remove the old one if:it was taken to the front door, and deliver the new one to the front door but no further! Order cancelled, JL delivered, old out, new in, no scraping, no issue.

Had an issue with shoes that I bought from John Lewis a few months after I had bought them - the sole was falling off after little wear.

They were brilliant at refunding me. Very quick email with photo from me. They agreed with me.

Genuinely they were great.

I am so interested to learn that my contract is JL if I have bought from them.

bought 2 x vacuums, one Dyson and one Shark. Cost nearly £1000 in total. Both stopped working within the month. Rang JL about the Dyson, who palmed me off onto Dyson customer service. That took ages - they kept sending me different parts, which I had to fix on to the vacuum, then I had to ring back when it still didn,’t work, and so on.

finally they agreed to take it in for repair, and returned it mended, but it was a massive palaver.

couldn’t face going through the same thing with thr shark, so have just left it, but now I think I’ll ring JL and insist they deal with it.

Take it into a store

The only bad experience I’ve had was buying an LG washing machine that broke after a few weeks. I had to deal with the repair people kicking the can down the road for a few months before eventually getting an replacement months later. That is probably on LG not John Lewis but I’ll never get an appliance like that from them again.

I still like JL.

AO were brilliant when we had a new kitchen. DH was fitting the kitchen and sliced his fingers with a circular saw. AO let us postpone the delivery at really short notice and again when he needed longer to recover

Had only bad experiences in recent years. Their photo advertising an electric toothbrush showed one head on the toothbrush, a case and another toothbrush head in the case. There was only one toothbrush head in what I was delivered, and I complained it was very misleading- the spare head was one of the things I'd liked when choosing that one. They didn't care, no resolution.

Ordered a toy in the thick of Covid lockdowns, they delivered the wrong item, agreed to send the correct item but I'd need to post them back the wrong one. Told them there was noway I was going into a post office anytime soon and they'd need to arrange a courier. They wouldn't. The wrong item they'd sent only was worth around £5. They eventually sent the correct toy and never did turn up for the wrong item.

I too have given up on J Lewis for the same reasons....its as if nobody at the end of the phone actually has the authority to sort anything out.

I also don't use AO after an appalling episode a few years ago where I was literally abused on the phone for not wanting to take out their extended warranty. I had a new baby so I had a lot going on, but in retrospect I should have made a police complaint about that, rather than just telling AO.

I buy all electronics now via amazon and I've found them to give superb customer service, once they delivered the wrong thing, they sent a new one out and refunded me when I dropped the other one in at the post office, before they'd even checked it.
Another time the courier marked something as delivered, I hadn't received it and the photo was of someone else's doorstop. They sent out a replacement, but in the meantime the original one was posted through my door by whoever had received it, Amazon told me to keep it too (£80 running vest).

My local one were really good, I bought an instant pot which was faulty, took it back, and was asked whether I wanted exchange or refund, chose refund as I wasn't particularly impressed with it. However still annoyed with them halving my credit limit when they changed to New Day.

I had an horrendous experience with John Lewis, in Southampton, at the end of last year, who had a faulty item in front of them, bought a few days before and almost treated me as a criminal and even called over a manager, who then tried to interogate me about use! I buy very little from them now and I did read this weekend that they are re-training their staff, but they need a complete culture flip across the board and at all levels, alongside looking at their product ranges and even the cleanliness of their stores. Wasn't impressed with Peter Jones in London recently and that's just plain sloppy management. Takes a long time to build confidence and seconds to lose it!

Same as @LittleMissViper I stopped shopping in both John Lewis and Waitrose after this. They need to get back to their jobs - selling products and offering proper customer services. These are the basics of retail. Not promotion of seriously questionable 'agendas'.

Against my better judgement, I just bought something quite expensive online from JL, because nowhere else sold it. It arrived in two days, perfectly packed…just like the old days .

The new chief executive and chairman are both experienced retailers, so I hope they can undo the damage done by the pair of clowns who have been ‘running it! ‘ for the last five years.

They are not as good as the recent past in my experience.

I had a bad experience trying to replace a broken wall light. My builder had broken it and was paying for it but it still took months to sort out. I don't know if I would boycott them completely, I'm just a bit more careful about what I order. Almost ordered some wardrobes but went with IKEA instead, who are brilliant.

I found AO to be really good. I had to reschedule deliveries on multiple occasions because by builders weren't there to receive goods when they were supposed to be, and they were nothing but helpful and didn't charge me extra.

Amazon are pretty good too, but I've never had to return a large item.

I think it may be a bit of cutting your nose off to spite your face @Grrrrrrrrr8 to insist you'd never buy from a shop again, especially a store like JL that sells all sorts.

Even if I had an issue with one item, it wouldn't stop me buying something again, like a jumper or make up.

It's very unusual if no one ever has an issue with any store or supplier.

They were very good to me when I returned an item after the 30 days. It was unworn and (shoes) I decided were too uncomfortable. All the stickers were on the shoes and they were still for sale in the dept. I did have to plead a bit, but they gave me a credit in vouchers which was fine.

They will be. The current CEO Ms White is leaving soon and they have chosen someone else with retail experience when she leaves.

I had brilliant experience with them.
I ordered a baby monitor which gave up working just before the JL guarantee expired (I think it may have been 1 year with the manufacturer then a second year with JL). They asked me to take it to our nearest Waitrose a day or two after I contacted them to exchange it for a new one they had sent out

Sharon White should have stepped down long ago. She was a very poor appointment.

I've also stopped using them after they delivered a replacement fridge freezer, damaged the floor in the process and then denied that they had damaged the floor. Luckily the CCTV in the kitchen sorted this issue out. The whole kitchen replacement process was appalling. I am also disgusted by their stance on women and trans related issues. I was a totally loyal customer for years and they have lost my custom entirely. No intention to go back to them shopping for anything until there is an entire change (hopefully with the new CEO)