Tesco’s woes

Tesco is having a tough time.  Of course, it’s difficult to have any sympathy for this once almighty company, for all sorts of reasons.  But the new boss, Dave Lewis, faces a barrage of bad news.  Falling profits are put down to the competition from the discounters, and affect all the biggest supermarkets.  But then came news that the company’s accounts were decidedly dodgy.  It’s not clear whether this was deliberate fiddling of the books, or a huge mistake by the finance people at Tesco and by their auditors.  Most recently, they had to take delivery of another private jet, after Lewis had decided to sell all the company’s planes.  Does the problem extend beyond head office?

I used to go to my local Tesco every Friday with a friend.  It had to be Tesco, she wouldn’t go anywhere else, and she was the one with the car.  Then my increasing disability made the trips impossible, so I order online.  Most of the time that works well.  I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, that the order is filled at my local store.  Now it seems that they can’t get my cigarette order right.  A couple of weeks ago I got none at all, on the excuse that they had no suitable alternative to the brand I’d ordered.  I spoke on the phone to the lady who is the local dot com manager (the delivery driver gave me her number).  She was very helpful, it was sorted and I got them delivered the next day.  This Friday it happened again – only half my order for fags delivered.  I couldn’t get hold of the lady I’d spoken to before, so I rang the call centre.  A very polite young man left me hanging on the phone for ten minutes, until I gave up in disgust.  I rang again, and eventually was called by the store.  All sorted – but again it involved me putting in another order on the promise that the £6 delivery fee would be refunded.  And I was phoned again on Saturday morning by the friendly manager to tell me that my fags would be delivered by her colleague personally on his way home from work – because there were to be no normal deliveries that day as the van had broken down.  Yes, “the van”, the only one they’ve got.  The reason for this problem with the cigarettes, I’m told, is that the staff do the picking early in the morning before the cigarette delivery has been made.  Sorry, I don’t buy that.

Have I just been unlucky?  Or do I look at another supermarket?  Not Asda, they don’t carry stuff upstairs, and I live in a first-floor flat.  Sainsburys?  Morrisons?  I don’t know.

Get that website right

We were told recently that part of Marks & Spencer’s poor performance in the past year was problems with its website.  I went on it a couple of months ago looking for cheap t-shirts or similar tops.  I found what I wanted – but when I tried to buy them I was told they were out of stock.  That doesn’t encourage you to return.  Bon Marche, on the other hand, was a quick and straightforward way of shopping.

It’s obvious that if you’re shopping online you want as easy an experience as possible.  Whatever else I think of Tesco, their Tesco.com website is quick and simple to use.  I would have said the same about Holland & Barrett until today.  I use H&B because they’re the only source of something I depend on.  Until today I could order quite easily without having to register.  Now I have to register; and the website, although whizzy and colourful, has major flaws, which someone should have spotted.  I managed to put my order in, but it was a bit of a struggle.

I shop online because I have to.  Many more people are doing the same because it’s easier than trudging round the shops.  The companies which get their websites right will make the profits.

 

Are people really so inattentive?

Ages ago I wrote a post about the weird experience I’d had with Tesco’s customer service department.  It was clear from the very first sentence (and, I would have thought, from the context of this blog itself) that I was not that department.  There was no possible resemblance.  Yet I got comments which assumed I was.  Dozens of them, complaining about over-charging or some such at “your store” and demanding that I rectify it.  I wrote another post pointing out the mistake, but it had no effect.  I had yet another comment today telling me to put something right.  I’ve given up and deleted the post.

I suppose what was happening was that people were googling on the phrase “Te… customer service” (I hesitate to write it in full), coming up with my post and not reading any further.  Yet to get as far as leaving a comment they had to have gone down to the bottom of the post.  I don’t get it.

PS:  The word “inattentive” in the title is a substitute for another word I originally wrote

Tesco – don’t complain to me!

A long time ago I wrote a post about my dealings with Tesco’s customer service department.  I still keep getting comments from people who think I am the person to handle their own complaints.

Look, people, I’m just a customer, like you.  It’s no use telling me about your bad experiences and expecting me to do something about it.  Sorry, but I can’t help.

Tesco again

I earned a £10 Tesco gift voucher for doing online surveys.  I read the small print on the back and, yes, you can use them on Tesco.com.  Good, I had to put in an order today, and it would cover the delivery charge and more.  I got right through to the checkout and discovered that it wouldn’t accept the voucher.  I phoned them.  A very sympathetic woman told me that she had discovered the same thing herself!  You can’t use the vouchers to buy groceries, and they’re going to change the wording to make that clear.

So the card will have to wait till I can get to the shop in person.  I think there’ll be a lot of people as annoyed as I am.

Tesco complaints

I used to work in a food factory which made stuff for three of the big supermarkets, and it was part of my job to deal with the complaints passed on by retailers.  So I know about complaints procedure.  On Saturday I bought a twin-pack of tiramisu desserts from Tesco.  The first was fine.  The second, I discovered yesterday, was not; the sponge layer had been left out altogether.  No big deal, mistakes can happen.  But not only do I want a refund; the manufacturer needs to know that there was a problem with the line on this batch.  So send in a mild complaint.

Oh, but you can’t.  There’s no facility to do so on Tesco’s website.  The internet forums tell me that you can email their customer service department but you won’t get a reply.  So all you can do is take the item back to the store or write to head office.  I won’t be going back to the store until next Saturday at the earliest.  I can’t, anyway, take the product back.  Writing to head office was what we did when there was no internet.  But on looking at the packaging I realise that there’s no batch number.  That’s the code which, along with the use-by date, identifies the production run and enables the manufacturer to pin down the problem.  Perhaps it’s part of the barcode, but I doubt it.  It seems to me that Tesco isn’t interested in complaints, or in quality control.