ASDA - Home Shopping Outrage

[fieldy969]

Hi All,

 

I would like to share with you my recent experience with ASDA Online shopping which has turned into a farce. Apologies for this being such a heavy thread:

 

I placed my order online on Saturday 31st January and requested a delivery time between 5-7 on Sunday 1st February from Asda in Watford. I rang up the Online help on Sunday afternoon and stated that I would be traveling from Portsmouth back to Watford. I used the online shopping knowing that there would be no stores open for me to get food for the week. The driver was asked to give me the latest delivery spot and if I was not in to ring me as I would not be far away.

 

The driver called at 6.39pm and I told him I was at the train station and would be 5 minutes. The driver said he might have to leave even though he had up to 7.00pm to make the delivery. I asked him to wait repeatedly and I would be there shortly.

 

As requested the driver should have stayed as I was at the house by 6.45pm but I saw him driving away before I reached my house. I called the Online help immediately and stated what had happened and was told that they would rearrange a delivery slot for me.

 

I received a courtesy call on Monday from a representative who said they would not be able to deliver the food that day (due to the weather) and that I would receive a further call to confirm the situation. I waited all morning Tuesday and received nothing and this point I was beginning to lose my patience, was I really going to have to wait for a 3rd day to get food which should have been delivered the day I requested.

 

I decided to ring the helpline again. I was now speaking to a third rep, they said they would call the store whilst I was on hold and ask what the situation was. After a couple of minutes of waiting I was put through to a person from the store with no warning. The person on the other end said 'hello?' in a confused voice and asked who I was. Why didn't the rep tell the store rep what the situation was? After explaining the situation and a lot of confusion from the stores end, the store rep said they would have to call me back because they didn't know what was going on.

 

At this point I had lost patience with a service that was meant to be so simple to use. I rang again after another hour of waiting for a call and spoke to a 4th rep. I now had to explain the situation for a 3rd time and was told that the rep would call back in 15 minutes with an update. I didn't receive the call (unsurprisingly) and so rang for a 5th time speaking to the 5th rep. By now I was pretty sure I had spoken to the whole team.

 

I then decided to check my account on the ASDA website and it said the order had been closed and the food delivered, simply not true!

 

True to his word the 5th rep had managed to get the store to give me a call. I spoke to Andy Phillips who totally agreed with what I was saying and had been very understanding. He tried to compensate me with money of my next shop online/free delivery (is it really worth going through all of this again, I think not). I was told I would get a call on Tuesday.

 

I checked my bank account this morning and realized I had been charged for groceries which had not been delivered; at this point I'm boiling over and feel trapped.

 

Tuesday's call did not come and I rang Andy direct today. His response was he would look into the matter and call me back. 2 hours passed and no response. I call for the final time for Andy to say "Are you going to be in tonight?" 4 days after original delivery date, I DO NOT WANT THE FOOD!! I feel for them this should be a priority matter as the service I have received has been atrocious.

 

The ASDA store in Watford is only a 5 minute drive from my house so why had the driver left in such hurry if the store was so close? So for the driver to wait for 5 minute it resulted in a 96 hour delay for groceries which could have been delivered on the day requested... Andy has said he will get me a refund but I don't think this is enough for the inconvenience and waste of time this event has been.

 

Where do I go from here? I have lost a lot of time chasing this order, wasted money on phone calls to poor customer service and received only 1 inbound courtesy call vs. 7 outbound calls to keep the process moving. I am 20 years old and currently on an industrial placement. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

[barracad]

Ok you've been given the runaround trying to get a redelivery or refund, but ultimately you chose a 5-7pm delivery slot and weren't in to receive the delivery - that's your fault not Asda's. The driver was under no obligation to wait for you if you weren't available at the agreed time.

 

You now just need to ensure you get your refund, and chase them for it if it isn't forthcoming.

[fieldy969]

Thank you for your response barracad.

 

Ok you've been given the runaround trying to get a redelivery or refund, but ultimately you chose a 5-7pm delivery slot and weren't in to receive the delivery - that's your fault not Asda's. The driver was under no obligation to wait for you if you weren't available at the agreed time.

 

From what I understood is that the Online help had called the store requested the last delievery slot and asked the driver to call me as I wouldn't be far away (which I was not). The delivery slot is 5-7 so if this was the last slot then why did the driver leave before 7?

 

I've also read somewhere that Asda will only take the money on delivery of the items, as this didn't happen what gives them the right to take payment 4 days after?

[patdavies]

I can echo issues with ASDA home delivery.

 

We live in the south and our daughter is at Uni in Sunderland. We have previously ordered a food (and drink!(delivery from Tesco for delivery to here Uni accommodation. No problems. Here address is now set as an alternative address for deliveries on my Tesco account (as is my mother for that matter). Tesco driver most helpful; at delivery, even taking boxes up two flights of stairs to the door of the flat

 

Daughter wanted to try ASDA home delivery as she likes some ASDA lines and they are a bit cheaper than Tesco. For her to shop in her local ASDA is £5 each way for a taxi - so a non-starter.

 

I signed onto ASDA'a on-line shopping to find that there was no way to add an alternative address. I emailed the site support and 24 hours later was told that I would have to use the change address feature - they only allow one address on the account. I did this and placed the order.

 

When it was delivered the driver was most unhelpful First, he drove into the campus by the wrong gate and then rang to say he couldn't find the flat. I called daughter to go a meet him. He refused to drive through the correct gates onto the campus as he claimed it was too narrow - although the same width as the gates he had already driven through! Daughter was left to carry bags of groceries all the way from the gate and then was not given time to do any checking; just told to sign for the delivery and that was it.

 

The point to all this is that Tesco will get the business in future...

[roundabout]

With asda online my experience is when they get it right its great and as promissed. But when they mess up its bad.....:(and cant seem to liase with the stores. I was told last time not to report errors to head office as they take ages and can be remidied in minutes direct with store. They did put my order right but I have to admit its put me off online food forever, its the worry of will in or wont it all be there. They are still an improvement on sainsburys and thats saying something, their (sainsburies)food was nearly always delivered with one day to go before sell by date. I started to think they didnt like me

[suzieblooz]

 

 

 

From what I understood is that the Online help had called the store requested the last delievery slot and asked the driver to call me as I wouldn't be far away (which I was not). The delivery slot is 5-7 so if this was the last slot then why did the driver leave before 7?

 

I work for a different supermarket online shopping, however I can answer your question as far as delivery slots go as I imagine they will all work the same way. The delivery slot is 5 - 7. In that slot the driver could have between 4 - 6 deliveries. The slots are all routed by the computer, which gives specified times within the 2 hours to arrive at the customers door. No-one can input a specific time, ie last slot, the computer organises it so the vans are travelling the least distance possible, so can maximise number of orders, use least fuel etc. Each slot has an approx drop time of 6 mins. So if the driver got to you at 6.39 he probably had another delivery to make after that, so couldn't wait, as he would then be late for the next drop.( As someone has already pointed out you are meant to be in for your slot.) I know when customers phone us if they are unable to be in for their slot we do our best to juggle the deliveries. However sometimes it is not possible as it could result in other orders being delivered late. The vans travel a fair distance and each run could have up to 13 orders. eg our vans leave at 9.15 and return approx 13.30 for lunch. They can have up to 13 orders and this covers delivery slots 9 - 11, 10 - 12, 11 - 13. Same thing again in the afternoon from 14.00 - 19.00, then the backshift runs 19.15 - 23.00. So you can see how waiting for customers can then impact on the next slot. We usually average 108 deliveries a day, some stores do much much more depending on the number of vans, so it is time critical.

That said the customer service side of things sound pretty appalling. We would do our utmost to get in touch with the customer from the store and try to rearrange a delivery time that night (van times permitting) or do an immediate refund so the customer can re-order for next day.

Hope this goes a small way to help understand why he didn't wait, but I definitely think the customer service in this instance has made a bad experience worse.

[fieldy969]

Thank you for the response suzieblooz, this does make things abit clearer as to why the driver left when he did.

 

I know obviously you are meant to be in for your slot and had I realised that this would of turned out the way it has I wouldn't of bothered in the first place.

 

I feel the Customer Service shouldn't have accepted my request for the driver to wait if they knew the circumstances the drivers are under.

 

It has now come to the point that when I ring the store I don't think they are taking me seriously. The supposedly manager of Online shopping has been as bad if not worse than the Customer Service team. Empty promises of call backs have annoyed me the most. I feel like I'm fighting a lost cause and still have no refund/compensation that the manager promised.

 

If I had been unreasonable than this is the kind of service I would have expected but for a first time user of Asda's online service I will never be shopping with them (Online or Offline) ever again.

[suzieblooz]

I agree completely with you that the customer service has been terrible. Find out what store the order came from (I presume Asda, like us, deliver from stores) and put your complaint in writing to the store manager. No store manager likes a complaint that has not been resolved at department manager level, especially one like yours that could have been resolved quickly by redelivering your order that night/ next day or at the very least processing the refund ASAP if they couldn't redeliver.

Let us know how you get on.

[fieldy969]

Hi All. This has come to a satisfying solution.

 

After constant phone calls and an email to the Asda headquarters I received a response. I was offered a full refund (to right!) and £15 goodwill which was appreciated. I was also given free delivery for my next online shop at Asda. The refund was processed very quickly.

 

I will now be taking my custom back to Tesco. I wonder if they take free delivery vouchers for Asda

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[suzieblooz]

Glad you finally got it resolved. At Tesco we used to take other supermarkets on line vouchers but I don't think it would work for free delivery ones unfortunately.

Fingers crossed you'll have no problems at Tesco's but if you do give me a shout

[BritishServiceSucks]

Just gone through (another) painful process of shopping online at ASDA, I am now compelled to share my frustration. ASDA has the worst online shopping website I have dealt with in a long time:

 

1. Behaves completely different between Explorer and Firefox browsers.

2. Page does not return when incementing an item's quantity

3. If you page to next page on shopping list before adding the first page to the trolley, you lose all your selections on the first page.

4. Selects "replace with alternative product" is switched on by default, so if you do not want to replace your products with alternatives, you have to deselect EVERY item in your basket. No global deselect.

5. Doesn't recognize my userID (email) on Firefox, but does on Explorer.

 

It is clear that the developer/s of this website is not competent to develop a professional website.

ENOUGH!! I will give TESCO a try from here on.......