To think this is terrible of the supermarket?

[OliviaTall]

Ill try to keep this as brief as possible.

I placed an online grocery delivery with the supermarket as I do every week. Over a week ago.

The shopping didn’t turn up by the end of the time slot so I rang customer services. Customer services couldn’t tell me anything but said if it didn’t turn up they’d refund.

By the next day I still hadn’t heard anything at all, so I rang customer services again and they said they’d arrange a refund.

Later in the week I still hadn’t heard anything about the refund being processed or a courtesy call to explain why the delivery hadn’t turned up so I escalated it by emailing the chief executive email address. This seems to be the only way to actually get a response from the supermarket as I’ve had problems before.

Still didn’t hear anything after a couple of days so I sent another email.

Finally heard back from the executive team apologising and promising a refund and a quite substantial goodwill gesture of £50. I accepted this in writing by replying to the email.

Later that day I got a call from the executive office from a different person apologising again and giving me details of arranging a faster back refund. This person said they give a £20 goodwill gesture, I didn’t say anything but I assumed that she’d made a mistake as I’d already had the offer of £50. Plus I was in the school run so was a bit flustered. I don’t even know that it was a different person I assumed it was a follow up call.

Sure enough the £50 voucher appeared in my email inbox, but then I had a further email from the original person saying that she’d duplicated the case and as I’d now accepted the £20 goodwill gesture she’d be cancelled the £50 voucher.

Aibu to think this is appalling customer service?

I agree with you, this could have left someone without food and no means to buy more for a week!

Customer service is dire - most organisations don’t want to deal with customers. OP shouldn’t have had to lift a finger- the refund should have been processed immediately. If everyone else is ignoring you, why shouldn’t the CEO be told? He’s ultimately in charge.

If we keep accepting abysmal customer service, companies will keep providing it.

If it's Tesco, it's easiest just to use their Whatsapp chat function if you have a problem with a delivery.

Ok so you escalate and say you didn’t agree to £20, you agreed on the £50 - why would anyone accept less?

Yes. There pretty much is no customer services with Sainsburys, and a lot of places are the same way now.

Up until fairly recently you couldn’t even contact tg by email, but they seem to have reinstated their online contact form.

When you ring customer services it’s a call centre abroad and unfortunately they can’t deal with anything but the most basic of queries. They seem to be ok dealing with refunds if an item hasn’t turned up with your shopping but other than that they can only ring the store on your behalf, and the store never seem to answer.

Three times they said they refund before I eventually escalated it.

Perhaps if they keep getting so many complaints they’ll actually put some proper customer services in place.

Also I wasn’t being ‘greedy’ about the goodwill gesture. I was offered amount I had no idea that two people had duplicated the case I just assumed that the phone all was a follow up as at that point the refund nor the goodwill gesture had been issued. It was only later that evening that the £50 arrived in my inbox along with an email to say actually we are cancelling the £50 as you’ve accepted £20!

That is really crappy behaviour and Sainsbury’s should be embarrassed at the pettiness. What is £30 to them FGS!!

Sainsbury's/Nectar/Argos are an absolute nightmare to deal with. Contacting the CEO has been the only way I've been able to get any response beyond platitudes and 'computer says no' to an issue I've been attempting to resolve for almost a month.

Their first line customer services are abysmal. Most reps I spoke to weren't able to understand the problem and were clearly replying from a sentence bank that in no way answered my questions, and the one or two who did understand had no power to escalate and couldn't offer any alternative contact details to allow me to do so. So how exactly are customers supposed to get resolution other than by emailing the CEO? Dreadful company.

It’s awful. 16 years I gave to that job. Now been unemployed for a few months and can’t find a new job. It’s all about money. They can have at least 3 staff for the price of 1 by going overseas.

The whole point of ordering it is for convenience. The fact that it didn't turn up is a massive inconvenience that £20 or £50 does not make up for. Shocking customer service.

I'd take my custom elsewhere

Yep, I have had many issues with Asda actually refunding items. It seems that they tend to try and refuse refunds a lot. Even when it is quite clear items were not received etc. I have had to spend a lot of time making calls and emails to them. Really should stop using them for clothing (I stopped ordering food deliveries due to this and also the food quality, and dates, left a lot to be desired!)

Yes that’s exactly it.

When you ring up the call handlers are clearly reading from a script, can’t understand what you are asking and just keep repeating the same lines over and over. Some call handlers can understand a bit more but even then they have zero authority to do anything. So what is the point? It’s just so that Sainsburys can save money.

Yet they can’t even process a simple refund or honour a goodwill gesture that they offered.

I have emailed back and said that I didn’t agree that accepting a lesser amount. They’re probably not obliged to offer a goodwill gesture but I think it’s shameful to offer a substantial amount then withdraw it.

I’m so tempted to shop elsewhere, you get used to certain shops though don’t you. I wonder if other supermarkets have better customer services.

What really happened here is that you thought you were being given a further £20 voucher on top of the original £50 voucher or you'd have said, "But I was offered and accepted £50 earlier/yesterday, etc." I agree it's crap that they said one thing then did something else, but they contacted you and you should have spoken up. However busy you were, why did you not just say, "I've already accepted on offer of £50"? The answer is because you thought you would get more.

I'll also add that there's a temptation with these big companies to think they can afford it. When they undercharge or even fail to charge for something I bet a very small proportion of customers actually let them know.

I don’t mind my Sainsburys, it’s nice and quiet, better than Tesco where they are blasting ‘Enter Sandman’ while you are trying to concentrate on your purchases. I don’t mind music but I don’t think it’s needed in a supermarket (off topic I know)

@OliviaTall i just go with the theory that these days it’s all frustrating perpetual loop call centres and really shoddy service, if you have this mindset then you won’t be disappointed. I had to ring sainsburys call centre and agree it was terrible but Royal Mail are the worst, closely followed by OVO.

I didn’t think I was being offered it in addition at all. That’s simply not true.

I had an email offering the option of a faster BACS and a goodwill gesture, I assumed that the phonecall was just a polite follow up because in order to get the faster bacs I’d have to put my bank details into a link, plus she was explaining that she’d raised an investigation with the store. So I thought they were just ringing to explain.

I didn’t even know it wasn’t the same person, when she said £20 I just thought she’d made a mistake. Yes I could have spoke up but I just thought oh I’ve already got it in writing about the £50 it’s no bother.

It wasn’t until later on in the evening that a £50 voucher code arrived in my inbox, then an email saying that they’d duplicated the case and I’d accepted £20.

How was I supposed to know that they’d duplicated the case?

Why not tell them you’d accepted the 50 when they said 20? You just hoped for both. Tough luck, should have been honest.

Also I doubt they undercharge much.More than likely the other way round.

With the deliveries you’ll often get items missing or the drivers don’t process the refunds with substitutes, or you get mouldy grit delivered.

Sometimes I follow up with a refund but a lot of the time it’s so much hassle I just haven’t got it in me to ring up so I just accept I’ve lost a few pounds.

I have had this too. Promised a refund. Then transferred to another person later on and no refund occurred.
I didn’t shop at Marks and Spencers for over a year as a result. I was so irritated I went elsewhere.
I do wonder where my refund went. Not to me that was for sure.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable. She didn’t get the groceries when she was told she would, which quite possibly meant she had to make an unplanned trip to the shops. Plus the time chasing up at the time, then time chasing up when the first chase up didn’t work, then trying to sort out a load of confusion caused because customer service wasn’t communicating internally. Time is money.

That's very rude of you OP. While I get your frustration at the lack of service and failure to process the refund, why the hell did you not say you'd been offered £50? And I can read. Including between the lines.

When I mentioned undercharging, I wasn't specifically referring to online shopping. A lot of us will have picked an item up expecting it to cost an amount and when it was scanned it came up at less and we won't have said anything.

Anyway people can think what they want.

Theres no sneakiness going on from me.

I had to go out the day after and spend out on another shop. Luckily I had the money because for some people it could be their last bit of money until payday.

94% of people agree be airboats quite obviously very bad on the part of the supermarket.

Some people are clearly just on a wind up. I just hope it never happens to you and see how annoyed you feel.

I am a bit surprised at some of these posts, OP. I can only assume they are from people for whom a grocery delivery not turning up and a delayed refund would have no material impact whatsoever. What worries me is that many disabled and elderly people on low incomes depend on grocery deliveries and can’t easily go to a shop and find the money for a second haul if those deliveries don’t turn up. This isn’t a minor inconvenience for some people, and the consequences of these businesses not delivering can be bad. Very odd to go to bat for the supermarket chain in this scenario.