Ocado smart pass trials, tribulations and tiers

[Milky77]

Background

On March 23, Ocado divided anytime and midweek smartpass members into random groups for access then realised that didn't work so divided us again into most loyal, loyal and near to miscellaneous tiers with having different levels of frequency for order delivery and indeed how many slots you can book in advance.

Certainly the most loyal and probably generally high average spend compared to local populations are the only ones being treated well. They are allowed to still book every seven days, can book 2-3 weeks in advance and are encouraged to book several slots over this time.

The rest of us are being treated with varying levels or service, disappointingly some have not had a single email since March 23 and still don't have access.

Those anytime pass members on the extremely vulnerable list by NHS England should be able to book every 7 days though aren't given the ability to book 2-3 weeks in advance. A few are apparently being called for fortnightly orders.

Ocado has been too greedy. They blame poor service on helping the extremely vulnerable but actually they let too many new and infrequent shoppers place orders putting too much stress on the system.

Complaints on social media are typically met with cut and paste replies. Both the call centre and chat comms have been shut down.

Those with weekly Reserved slots have had their places cancelled. The technology failed, or maybe actually wasn't fit for purpose anyhow

Here was our first thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3862959-Ocado-Anytime-Smart-Pass-holders-have-you-received-priority-access-yet

Let's hope we don't go to a third

Top tip is to try other companies including Morrisons who also deliver from warehouses.

Good luck to all

@TheGreatWave that’s what has happened to me, I haven’t had access to the site since all this started, I was a regular customer for nearly two years but didn’t spend shedloads admittedly, but a delivery every two or three weeks would have helped.

I think MN should be asking:

why some people are paying almost twice as much for Smart Passes as others.

Why prices have increased since lockdown began.

Why customers appear to have been 'sorted'.

Why, at the start of this, despite seeing that the systems were struggling to cope, reserved slots being cancelled and booked deliveries cancelled did Ocado maintain total radio silence on all platforms for so long. Communication was terrible with people having no idea if much needed groceries were arriving or not.

My issues are exactly same as Flyingflamingo’s.

Only allowing some of us midweek pass holders a slot every 14 days and then only on a day that is not included in our midweek pass so would have to pay £6.99 a delivery on top of our monthly fee. (How very convenient for them)

Very obvious what Ocado are doing and just how badly they are treating a lot of regular customers. And we are paying for the privilege of being treated so badly.

And interesting that there have not been any Other threads on Mumsnet about any other supermarket online shopping treating their customers badly.
Yet there’s been quite a few since this all started about Ocado.

@Fuss

As I understand it, smart pass cost can differ because of what address your groceries get sent to most of the time IE distance from depot - (I think) - I believe I read it on MN!

Their prices increased mostly because they (and others) stopped multi buy offers - I think to stop hoarding. They look like they are slowly bringing back deals but I doubt there will be many good ones again for quite some time due to supply and demand...

Communication has been terrible! Then it seemed they hired a load of people to sort through the issues people were @@@ them on Twitter for but with such generic ‘computer says no’ responses!

We are about 1 1/2 to 2 hours from a depot and I only pay £1.49 for a midweek pass so I don’t think it’s distance from a depot

As I understand it, smart pass cost can differ because of what address your groceries get sent to most of the time IE distance from depot

@Monhysteria I live a long way from the depot and yet paid a lot less than some for my passes over the years so not sure that really follows. I personally think its more like Sky where you tell them you are leaving and are offered the moon on a stick. I firmly believe it's a customer retention exercise.

Their prices increased mostly because they (and others) stopped multi buy offers

40p on a bottle of pepsi alone I found. Although I eventually got one price promise voucher others never materialised.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8246465/Ocado-accused-profiteering-coronavirus-crisis.html

Overall, the figures showed the total price of goods sold by Ocado rose by 7.7 per cent between March 4 and April 8, according to that link.

@TheGreatWave are you getting delivery slots even though you don't have a paid for smartpass?

I am still unable to log on and have had no emails from them since March. To add insult to injury, DM recently had an email about a product recall for an item in her last delivery, although the email said it was an item she bought in December. She wasn't going to check as she hadn't bought the item in December, only in March. Luckily she did as it was one of the bad batch.

I also had the same product in my last delivery (and I've checked the serial numbers, I have the affected items) but no email for me... Ocado must really hate me, not only am I no longer allowed to shop with them, they're trying to kill me with botulism.

goingoverground I guess that is one way of reducing their customer numbers.

They did send me a product recall for coke (something about the pressure when opening) - that was long gone.

No, no ability to get on - for a while I could get on after 6pm for slots the next day (there was always loads) but I never wanted a slot the next day. They have only been delivering to our area for the past few months, so I guess it makes sense to cut us off.

On one of the shops I did get they did bring me toilet rolls - so I still have a little soft spot for them (though the Waitrose essentials roll is rubbish and I am very pleased that I can go back to my regular Nicky)

My last delivery was the 23 March. (ironically)

I don’t think it’s right to charge smart pass people if they cannot provide slots. Also their communication should have been better and more transparent. The only thing is they are much smaller than most supermarkets so there’s no way they could be able to provide the number of slots compared to Tesco.

But they should never have taken on new customers when they knew they could not provide the service.
They have made out that they did not take any new customers on since the beginning of March yet people have written on local Facebook pages that they we’re able to register as a new non exceptionally vulnerable customer into April and get delivery slots straight away.

They just make things up as they go along and then lie about it.

when I read all this negativity I feel as though I must have a different company dealing with me. Throughout this crisis I have nothing but praise for Ocado always on time, polite and very few missing items. The one week I was forced onto a Tesco delivery as no availability it was horrendous so much missing that delivery came at 5pm and by 6pm I was in queue at Tesco to buy the missing items. CARRY ON OCADO I WILL SUPPORT YOU NOW AND IN THE FUTURE!!!

PS also bought shares and made money on them 2 weeks ago what is not to like

linelgreen That is the point, if you are a chosen one by Ocado, then they have got it right on the whole. Everyone else?

Question to you all.
If you have this show up when trying to book a delivery slot, should that mean that there should be slots available?
Ocado say there is when dates are highlighted but when I click on them there is never anything. They wouldn’t help.

Does anyone else get the same?

@Yellowbutterfly1
From my experience, the white squares indicate data that you are 'allowed' to book, and then any available slots would be shown in the list below with the delivery price. So it looks like no slots in your area on the relevant days.

Does anyone use Trustpilot?

I put a negative review on a few days ago. At the time, there were a number of negative reviews and I think they were only rated as 1* on there.

I've popped back tonight and they've had thousands of positive reviews since I wrote mine which has bumped their stars back up again. It seems really fishy.

I used to use Ocado quite a bit before the virus but don’t have a delivery pass. I’ve been able to get one slot with them (last week) and nothing else. I appreciate if the slots aren’t there, they aren’t there but I think this thing of categorising customers into different tiers isn’t the best. Though I can see the arguement for priority to best customers?

Anyway, morrisons have been good for me during all this and will carry on using them.

I read some of the FAQ and looked at the ratings. People are not impressed.

I really dislike that they just chuck you off the site, I may just want a little mooch, but I can't.

Yorkshire I noticed the same! Someone pointed me to TrustPilot a few weeks ago and I saw loads of negative reviews. Yesterday I got a popup on Ocado asking to leave a review and I went over to see, and there were overwhelmingly positive ones.

@@goingoverground I get a guaranteed weekly slot with Ocado despite not paying for any sort of Smart Pass. They told me it was because I was a 'loyal customer'. Which I have been for years- spending a fortune with them every single week for at least the past five years.

I was going to ditch Ocado when they moved to M&S but now I love them more than ever and so will be even more loyal in future.

Goodness those Trust Pilot reviews are bizarre.

57% have given 5 stars, many have 5 then the comments talk about lack of offers, damaged goods etc, so not really 5 worthy.

growingboys Can you not understand that your situation is why people are cross with Ocado? There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who they class as 'most loyal' and it is absolutely impossible to find out who is and what the criteria is.

I'm not bothered, I only tried them in February when they eventually reached our shores to see what all the MN fuss was about. I liked the fact there was a massive range of extras, so managed to get some lovely bits for DD for her birthday (to avoid the shops) but food is food. It is just astonishing to see how badly they are handling this.

Here's the Google cache page from 22nd April. They had 2*'s from 5031 reviews and the ones on that page are mainly negative.

Today they have 8473 reviews and are back up to 4*'s

So in 10 days, they've had 3442 reviews which were mainly all positive which has bumped their rating back up.

I don't think I trust Trustpilot!

I missed the link off:

<a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A6wi6Vb0pMEJ:www.trustpilot.com/review/www.ocado.com+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A6wi6Vb0pMEJ:www.trustpilot.com/review/www.ocado.com+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk