They didn’t say THIS in their advert!
John Lewis hit by f lood of complaints over bungled deliveries for Christmas
JOHN Lewis is facing a flood of complaints from angry shoppers for bungling deliveries in the run-up to Christmas.
Customers have swamped social media and online review sites in the past fortnight to report goods and gifts arriving late, damaged or, in some cases, not at all.
One disgruntled customer, businesswoman Jo Brooks, told The Mail on Sunday that she contacted the store’s customer service department last week when her husband’s Christmas present failed to arrive.
‘They sounded inundated,’ she said. ‘The girl on the phone said they’ve had hundreds of calls about pending deliveries and damaged goods.
‘She was straight about it and told me not to bother calling again to rearrange delivery “as you won’t get through”. She said the earliest they’ll be able to call me is in a week.’
Ms Brooks, 50, a PR executive from Brighton, added: ‘I think if you do order a large amount online, you have to be prepared for some of it not to turn up.’
Shopper Gavin O’Donnell, 57, said he was considering suing John Lewis for failing to deliver two leather armchairs. He claimed a courier drove off without knocking.
He said: ‘I have spent lots of money with them in the past and been a loyal customer but since around 2017 they have just dropped off the scale in terms of service.’
Another customer complained on the TrustPilot review site: ‘We ordered a cooker to replace a failed one in November for delivery in December.
‘At the last minute they cancelled without notice and have left us without a working cooker just before Christmas. Unbelievable.’
Another posted: ‘Customer service awful – this company must be avoided as they are simply useless and can’t be trusted as an online seller.’ A John Lewis spokeswoman said the retailer was delivering an average of 110,000 parcels per day this month, three times the daily average in the rest of the year.
She said 99.3 per cent of deliveries arrived on time.
But she added: ‘We apologise unreservedly to any customer who did not receive the high level of service they rightly expect from us.’
The news comes just weeks after John Lewis faced a backlash over its £7 million Christmas television advert featuring Sir Elton John, with viewers complaining it promoted the singer rather than the festive season or the store’s offerings.
In 2014, John Lewis signed a £93.5 million five-year deal with Capita to outsource its call centre for the internet shopping service.
In August this year, the high street giant announced it was moving these services back in-house from next month as part of an overhaul under new management to cut costs.
The department store also came under fire earlier this year after a meltdown at its home furnishings delivery division.
Famed for its ‘never knowingly undersold’ price-matching policy, the store chain suffered a 99 per cent fall in first-half profits this year – down to just £1.2million.
It follows a year in which the company underwent its biggest ever round of redundancies, axing more than 1,800 jobs since June 2017.
Richard Hyman, independent retail analyst, said: ‘I think the expectations of John Lewis have always been very high, but it is such a difficult moment in retail history that meeting those expectations in the current climate becomes much more demanding.’