Incomplete deliveries, poor customer service (Tesco)

Member Name: Cherry Pie

Product:	Tesco
Date:	13/12/03 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, Deliveries always on time

Disadvantages: Deliveries often incomplete, Appalling customer service

I have been using the tesco.com home delivery service weekly for about 6 months now. The website is easy to use, and the deliveries always turn up on time, but often its not all there. On 6 occasions the order has been delivered incomplete, thats 1 in 4 times! When I contacted Tesco customer services they refused to deliver the missing items, offering only a refund and leaving me to re-order the missing items and pay a second delivery charge. The most recent time I contacted Tesco for a refund, there was a long waiting time on the phones, so I used email instead. I took the opportunity of pointing out to them that 1 in 4 deliveries incomplete was way too many. When they replied, they were more interested in assuring me that this was a one-off than actually sorting the problem. I sent them another email suggesting that I should not have to pay a second delivery charge when I re-order the missing items. I was expecting them to deliver the missing items for free, or at least politely explain that it was not their policy. Instead, I was rather insulted to find that their reply was a single line saying simply "thank you for your email".

UPDATE:

After my unsatisfacory response from Tesco, I have started shopping at Sainsburys instead (ASDA would have been my first choice, but they don't deliver during the week in my area). Here is an interim update of my experiences with Sainsburys (I will write a full review after I've been using them for 6 months so it will be a fair comparison with the Tesco review). I found the Sainsburys website as easy to use as Tesco's and, like Tesco, the deliveries from Sainsburys have so far always been on time. Substitutions seem to occur at about the same rate as with Tesco, about one or two per order, but Sainsburys seem to make some rather silly substitutions without informing the customer that a substitution has been made. For example, last week I sat down to tuck into my vegetarian lasagne only to d
iscover it was actually a beef lasagne. Luckily I'm not a vegetarian, otherwise this could have been serious! Sainsburys initial response was merely to offer a refund, which totally missed the point, but when I told them I didn't want a refund, just a little more care, they apologised for the misunderstanding and said that they have taken the matter up with the local store. This week, all the frozen items were missing from my order (I was a bit disappointed as I thought I had escaped this ordeal when I finished with Tesco) so it was another call to customer services. Luckily, Sainsburys delivered the missing items the next day, so a big thumbs up for Sainsburys customer service!

Summary: