Ocado Anytime Smart Pass holders - have you received priority access yet?

[Milky77]

Email sent to anytime pass holders (at least) on Thursday

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We have experienced such extraordinary levels of demand in recent days that despite our best efforts, we simply have not had enough capacity to serve all our customers.
To put it into context, practically every Ocado customer, no matter how infrequently they may have shopped previously, is now looking to place an order every week. At the same time, with families at home, the average size of orders has almost doubled. This means there is an unceasing level of demand several times our current delivery capacity.
We’ve already taken decisive steps to manage this demand, closing our doors to new customers, and limiting customers to one delivery slot every seven days. However, despite these measures, we can see that not all Smart Pass customers have been able to book a delivery.
As an Anytime Smart Pass member, we consider you to be one of our best customers, so we’ve set up a temporary priority queue to enable you to book a delivery slot each week.
How you will get access:
We have divided all paying Anytime Smart Pass members who joined before 2020 into a number of equal-sized, randomised groups. You will be placed in one of these groups.
At spaced intervals, we will give each group access to the priority queue, enabling them to quickly get in and choose a slot for their weekly delivery. We will do this by sending each group an email and text message between the hours of 9am and 5pm, starting tomorrow.
Once you get your email, you’ll have the rest of the day to place and check out your order. Please wait for your message, as you won’t be able to access the priority queue at other times.
Please be aware that there is still high demand for slots, and you may not see full availability for all time slots. But, because we can now prioritise the customers we let on to the website, and each customer can only have one slot, you can be confident that there are enough slots – and groceries – to go around.
Our developers continue to work on a better solution which will allow us to manage this in a simpler way but, for now, this fix at least helps us to prioritise you in the short-term. It makes access fair, and helps to keep traffic to our website at manageable levels, ensuring you the best possible shopping experience in the circumstances.
Please note: our usually all-knowing Customer Service team can’t set-up or change this temporary process, so they won’t be able to tell you which group you are in, or when you will get your email.
Thank you for your continued understanding and patience. We all understand the huge responsibility placed on us, and we are working tirelessly to help feed the nation at this challenging time.
Your Ocado team
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Whilst in place, these measures override the relevant provisions of our Terms & Conditions.
You’ve received this message as it contains important information about your ocado account.
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© 2020 Ocado Retail Limited. Registered address: Apollo Court, 2 Bishop Square, Hatfield Business Park, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9EX. Registered in England – company number: 03875000.

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Will be v glad to have a slot confirmed. I would have cancelled my Ocado subscription otherwise. As a customer who orders weekly and should also be screened, I was getting quite concerned what the next few months would be like.

Anyone had their priority access yet?

We have been working extraordinarily hard to serve our customers and we are proud that, with our tremendous frontline colleagues, we delivered more food last week than we have ever delivered to UK homes before.
However, we know that many of you are not getting as much access to our delivery slots as you would like. We also know from your feedback that we haven’t done a good enough job yet of explaining what we are doing to help. We are sorry, and we know how frustrating it must be to not be able to find slots as easily as before. Trust us, it isn’t because we don’t want to be delivering more.
We’re hoping, once you’ve read this email, that you’ll have a much clearer picture of how and when to book delivery slots.
Booking your deliveries:
As a loyal customer, we’re offering you the chance to have one delivery every 10 days.
Obviously, if you don’t really need a delivery that often, there’s no need to book every time. It will give us the chance to offer more slots to other customers who need them.
As there will need to be a gap of 10 days between deliveries, you won’t be able to see available slots 9 days either side of any slots you have booked.
If you are placing an order and you know someone locally who can’t get to the shops, consider adding a few items for them to your order.
We invite you to start checking for your available slots from Saturday onwards. You will be able to see slot availability 7 days ahead of time.
When you do book a slot, we ask you to place an order and check out everything you need in one go. The cut-off time for editing orders is now 48 hours before delivery, but given the current circumstances we may need to bring forward the cut-off time.
At busy times, you may still have to queue so we can keep access to the website running smoothly.
These are quite big changes so please bear with us while we iron out any kinks and get all our customers into a new rhythm with their shopping.
We will also be giving other special categories of customers access to delivery slots.
If you have any questions, hopefully our dedicated FAQ page can give you any more information you need.
Finally, these are unprecedented times, and we really do appreciate your continued patience and understanding.

I'm worried how many slots will be taken up by only being allowed to book 7 days before

@Milky77 it’s area dependent. My message says one slot every 7 days. I have managed to get a delivery for 15 and 22 April. But nothing next week.

How do you know it's area dependent @notgen?

From the current login queue message:

You can only book one order per 7 day period.
To get the best slot availability, we recommend you book slots in chronological order. If you book an order in the future, your availability will be blocked in the preceding as well as the following days.
Slots for some areas are selling out very quickly, so we can't guarantee there will be slots available for everyone.

Which spells out clearly at last a lot of what we had been surmising.

@RichardMarxisinnocent I haven’t got emails to tell me my priority access has been granted. Just the generic you are a valued customer crap. I just keep checking every morning and evening. And if you are on a priority list, it tells you in the queue it queue. Otherwise it will say you aren’t priority, try login and if you get bombed back to the no priority queue you aren’t selecting.

I found I can get into the priority queue either for editing or placing new orders. My last one was last Wednesday and I was in the priority queue over the weekend and then Monday to edit it. Then I lose access until yesterday night. Tried last night and I have no slot. This morning I tried again and I got one for 22/4. Good luck!

@tootyfruitypickle it’s well and good they prioritise shielded category first. But then they shouldn’t still keep charging my £10.99 per month. (I see some people only pay £9.99). They say they will refund if you haven’t managed a single delivery in March. That’s rather poor value to pay £10 for one delivery. If it’s that infrequent I will just go to waitrose once a week.

They need to say either they are still honouring the delivery pass they charge, or they aren’t and only delivering to those shielded.

@Milky77 because you say they tell you one delivery every 10 days, and mine says every 7?

This morning I managed to get straight on and it showed me availability only for one day which is the day exactly 7 days following the delivery I already have booked so it does look like they are blocking our viewing of availability of anything outside of our allocated (in their system) day.

@NotGenerationAlpha can I ask approx where you live? I'm in the Se in a fairly highly populated area

I’m in London and my email said every 7 days, too.

BTW mine doesn't say most loyal unlike others that is why I think it's different

Thanks @BogRollQueen

My email doesn’t say most loyal and is also telling me I may not be able to have a weekly delivery.
I think they must have tiered smart pass holders based on their regular spend.

Definitely seems to be categories of anytime pass holders - “most loyal” who get every 7 days, “loyal” who get every 10 days and those of us being offered the opportunity to look from Tuesday but with presumably poor results as the first two categories get there first. Interesting to know how they’ve calculated the categories. But access to the website seems totally random. It really is like some secret society with secret membership rules.

I agree they've categorised us!

Ah that makes sense from what you all say then! So we have categories of anytime smart pass users. @Milky77 I’m in South Hampshire.

Good detective work fellow MNetters

Mine is slightly different (does not mention loyalty even though am an anytime customer)
We are giving you access to the site to see slot availability. Even if you are in a queue when you visit the site, it doesn’t mean all available slots will be taken by those ahead of you in the queue. You will still have a fair chance. You may not get a slot every week, but we will try to make as many additional slots available as possible.

I’ve got every 7 days, though, and I’m not at all loyal! I only got my smart pass in September so I could get a priority delivery slot for Christmas, and hadn’t used it again until this shitshow situation! 😬

It's just bonkers!

I am a very erratic smart pass user and also have it on a very cheap deal - so makes sense that I'd be lower priority.

@choppolata I’m also on a very cheap deal but only shop with ocado 1/2 times every week. So frustrating.

Just received this.
Some of the same wording as yesterday’s email.
I have a slot booked next Friday (10th) but it’s not currently showing me any availability for April at all (not even the one I’ve got, which it did previously)
So maybe it’ll look different on Monday?

Can someone who is a most loyal customer post their letter please?

This is the most loyal email I got yesterday... however I can’t book anything at all - it’s all grey.. click on the calendar and get nothing at all..

Dear Awayfromhome

We have been working extraordinarily hard to serve our customers and we are proud that, with our tremendous frontline colleagues, we delivered more food last week than we have ever delivered to UK homes before.
However, we know that many of you are not getting as much access to our delivery slots as you would like. We also know from your feedback that we haven’t done a good enough job yet of explaining what we are doing to help. We are sorry, and we know how frustrating it must be to not be able to find slots as easily as before. Trust us, it isn’t because we don’t want to be delivering more.
We’re hoping, once you’ve read this email, that you’ll have a much clearer picture of how and when to book delivery slots.
Booking your deliveries:
We consider you one of our most loyal customers, so we’re offering you the chance to have one delivery every 7 days.
Obviously, if you don’t really need a delivery that often, there’s no need to book every time. It will give us the chance to offer more slots to other customers who need them.
As there will need to be a gap of 7 days between deliveries, you won’t be able to see available slots 6 days either side of any slots you have booked. However, we will let you see slot availability two to three weeks ahead of time – so it’s easier to plan in advance.
If you are placing an order and you know someone locally who can’t get to the shops, consider adding a few items for them to your order.
When you do book a slot, we ask you to place an order and check out everything you need in one go. The cut-off time for editing orders is now 48 hours before delivery, but given the current circumstances we may need to bring forward the cut-off time.
At busy times, you may still have to queue so we can keep the website running smoothly.
These are quite big changes so please bear with us while we iron out any kinks and get all our customers into a new rhythm with their shopping. This should hopefully improve your shopping experience going forward.
We will also be giving other special categories of customers access to delivery slots.
If you have any questions, hopefully our dedicated FAQ page can give you any more information you need.
Finally, these are unprecedented times, and we really do appreciate your continued patience and understanding.
Ocado Customer Service team

Thanks @away. So you see the slots 2-3 weeks in advance too. Mine is only 7 days