Indeed it does and now and again it helps when they deliver things you ordered!
I was a regular user of their home delivery service (was being the operative word) and things were all sailing along with a large order every couple of weeks when on one such occasion and order totalling £74 which was booked for a 7pm-9pm slot on a Thursday night went horribly wrong.
Thursday came and I patiently waited for my supply to fill my now empty cupboards. In the past they had been pretty good on times, mostly earlier within the slot with the odd late delivery. Things took a turn for the worst when at 8pm I received a call from a cheerful chap advising me that the van had broken down at the Shop and my delivery would not be coming. I failed to ask why it had taken so long to tell me but agreed to someone calling me the following day to reschedule the delivery for the evening. I was forced to go out and buy a kebab that evening, whilst it seemed some compensation at the time was not so good later (too many onions) *burp*
Anyway Friday came and went without the phone call and I was puzzled as to where my food was and what I should do next? I checked the Tesco online site and to my surprise it said my order had been delivered? On the Thursday?? I was a little peeved to say the least so called the Tesco Online Contact Centre (nee answer machine) and explained what had happened to a shocked Scottish lady (Scottish and Pakistani are prerequisites for Contact Centre Staff) and she politely cancelled my order as I would need to use a normal shop to avoid collapsing and being eaten by Alsatians.
I carried on my weary life having filled up at the ever expensive Waitrose. Time passed by until my bank statement came in and I was a little gob smacked to find that Tescos had charged me £74 for nothing! Yes! they had failed to deliver my food and had charged me for the pleasure!
A rant and rave later (sorry Bex) I sat down and wrote a long letter to the Customer Services Dept demanding my money back and an apology from the store manager who charged me ( West Durrington) and an explanation as to why the online system said my delivery had been made on the Thurday!
A couple of days later I received an email from Tescos saying "we have refunded your money" and " look forward to future orders" derrr who were they kidding? It would take an awful lot to convince me to go back! Then a letter came and I opened it assuming I would be blessed with a thousand kisses, sorry sorry, please forgive us, never happen again etc..
Basically it said the delivery system is updated by the store ( whether they deliver it or not) so that was as useful as a chocolate teapot and suggested that there was nothing they could say to appease me (well you could have tried!) . To say I was a little stunned would be correct. Not really an apology more of an acceptance that the service was crap but then hey! what can I do?
Well here's an idea. Stop spending loads of money on adverts and remember who pays the bill? I often wonder that as companies get bigger they get less personal. People who work in a small company have an interest, a stake in its future. Companies such as Tesco are so big now they don't care. They don't have to care because they are so big. So me, the customer, isn't really important. I am now a customer of sainsburystoyou.com
It reminds me of what a Dell Customer Account Manager said to me once. We don't care if we lose you as a result of poor service, we work on the basis that in three years you will be back again" and sure enough he was right!
I am off to sit with my head in my hands and wonder when it all went wrong? when did serving the customer and customer service get overtaken by drive for market share and turnover.
