John Lewis

[installspark]

Got some good news about them yesterday.

 

Their 2 man delivery crew brought the new fridge freezer on 17 May. Whislt they were trying to get in through the kitchen door they managed to rip and mark the vinyl floor. Anyway they left the fridge freezer where asked and marked their delivery sheet to the effect that they had caused damage.

 

After a phone call to their section manager the following day I was requested to get quotes for replacement as John Lewis were prepared to consider meeting part of the cost of replacement, fair enough I thought and arranged for quotes to be obtained.

 

Spoke with the section manager last Thursday and was asked to send a copy of the one written quote I had so far to her. OH took a phone call on Friday from Carpet Right who said they had been given the auth by John Lewis to order and arrange fitting of the new flooring with no cost to me :D

 

Very happy with this especially Carpet Right had quoted £466.40 to replace

 

PS OH only told me this last night when I mentioned phoning John Lewis to chase the matter up.

[natalie]

Wow, great result, and well done John Lewis

 

Natalie

[demon_x_slash]

My part-time retail job dream is to work for John Lewis. Not only do I agree with its work ethic and shareholding schemes, but you get discounts on Waitrose food!

 

....mmm, Waitrose food....

 

[yellowplum]

John Lewis it has to be said realise that customer service is as important as selling things cheaply.

 

I ordered a carpet from them a number of years ago. Anyway, it was a runner for the stairs, so it was whipped.

 

They well to put it politely screwed up laying and cutting it. In the end they had to order a brand new carpet, which was the heavier one, and i received £400 off.

 

Although, the best case with them was the sideboard. I ordered one of these cheap Indian made Sideboards when I first came into this house. It was around £795, CHEAP CRAP...the saying you get what you pay for springs to mind.

 

After three Sideboards and twice that they came out to try and plane the doors etc with the faults it came with, the decided to just refund the money. I still wanted a new Sideboard. All the rest in the store where £2000, slight jump, so after a bit of haggling I managed to get them to lower the cost of the new one to £1395, and refund the £795 for the old crap one...

 

So not bad...

 

From what I know each store has a slush fund for customer complaints anyway, a percentage of sales are kept aside to deal with these things.

 

Imagine getting this kind of service from any for the DSG stores!

[blacksheep1979]

Alot of people would rather buy from JL and pay an extra 10% or so just for the customer service - especially with electrical goods where you get a free 5 year waranty. Just goes to show that customer servcie does pay off, just wish other stores recognised this.

[Rob S]

When my OH and I moved house in March this year we ordered a new fridge from John Lewis using their online order service. We were given a convenient delivery date and they turned up on time with the goods as promised. You can't ask for more than that. B & Q, take note!

[rdobbie]

Hmmm... this protest website would suggest that John Lewis are no better than Dixons, Comet, Argos et al when it comes to honouring the Sale of Goods Act!

[blacksheep1979]

There are always going to be people that feel hard done by - its just normally the hard done by shout louder than the ones that have received decent service

[mummymania]

I bought some Estee Lauder concealer and foundation from John Lewis over a month ago but had only used it 2 or 3 times because I wasn't happy with the colour and consistency. I just happened to be stroling through John Lewis yesterday and stopped by the Estee Lauder counter to have a look at the perfume and got talking to the SA and mentioned the concealer/foundation (which I happened to have in my handbag) - she refunded both of them, no questions asked, no receipts, no proof that I'd bought them there. And gave me a foundation sample free and a full size concealer free. Thankyou JL!!

[chiefengineer]

I worked for Waitrose many years ago when I was a student. Fantastic to work for, and the managers were really nice people too.

 

Its nice to see that their ethics have not changed, despite stiffer competition.

 

Perhaps this thread should be framed - not often that praise is dished out on here.

 

Jeremy

[MadgeXXX]

Hello all!

Reading this JL thread with interest. We have had many happy years shopping with JL and indeed have Ocado deliver some very nice, mainly ethically sourced food every week for a reasonable charge. We are happy customers.

However, last year we bought an IPod from JL. 14 months later the IPod has failed. We went back to JL, described the problem, the cost of repair, £165! The IPod only cost £189 new. Apple appear to be the problem with setting the retail, repair costs etc. However, our contract is with JL, and so we are looking for recompense, or replacement, or a reasonable repair cost. Are we being unreasonable? I will start a new thread for those who are interested in our discussions with JL. I hesitate to use the word fight, because unlike my bank, there is another way, and JL customer services are being quite open with us. They are unwilling to start a precedent regarding returns out of guarantee for IPod. They will repair but at a price fixed by Apple.

MadgeXXX

[Rob S]

For an item to fail after only 14 months and the repair to cost almost as much as a new unit is absurd. But the problem you have is that with the item being more than 6 months old, the onus is on you to prove your case, that the item is faulty. Have you contacted Apple themselves to see if they can be more flexible on this matter?

[MadgeXXX]

Hello Rob,

 

Apple requested £169! The problem is we do not have a contract with Apple.

 

The problems occurred after a new version of ITunes was downloaded. After about 24 hours of computing, Dear Husband has reformatted the IPod hard-drive, re-loaded the software from another computer and this appears to have fixed the problem. No 1 Son's computer will have the software re-loaded as it would appear that the latest version was causing the problem. IPod users take note.

We will make sure its working and then advise John Lewis of the solution!

 

Thanks anyway for your interest!

[Rob S]

Hi Madge,

 

Glad to hear you got it sorted. I know you had the contract with John Lewis but sometimes its worthwhile contacting the manufacturer direct to see if they can do anything. But that won't be necessary for you now:)

[MadgeXXX]

We hope so! Still another chap has had a problem with his IPod five months from new. Apple gave him a refurbished model after much wrangling. Not sure about that. There may be trouble ahead for Apple!

[Wayne Kerr]

*Removed Comment*

[Wayne Kerr]

*Removed Comment*

v

Alot of people would rather buy from JL and pay an extra 10% or so just for the customer service - especially with electrical goods where you get a free 5 year waranty. Just goes to show that customer servcie does pay off, just wish other stores recognised this.

 

 

I have been a manager at John Lewis for nearly 25 years and on reading this thought I had better correct the above statement. You only get a free 5 year warranty on Televisions - nothing else. There are other guarantees on certain items varying between 1-3 years but the vast majority of our electrical items are guaranteed only for the manufacturer's one year. Please tell your pals of this sad forum that this is the case to save us having to deal with muppets wondering why their 4 and a half year old £14.99 hand blender will not be repaired.

 

yours Sincerely,

 

Wayne Kerr.

 

Ps My staff and are are sitting in the office at working laughing hysterically at the fact that there are actually people sad enough to want to go onto their PC's in the evening after work to tell faceless strangers about their experiences of shopping at John Lewis. Especially those who tell their tales of apparant poor treatment with such relish when we've apparantly made I hold the sad gits who use forums dedicated to the varying types of moss found on rocks or the people wh

[Annie777]

I find it hard to believe you are a manager Wayne. After all you should be working not posting to internet forums. This is a very useful and informative thread.

 

In respect of the thread and the five year warranty. Firstly the warranty is not as "free" as it seems, you pay a higher price for tv's at John Lewis than competitors (proof of this is that I know of people on the AV forum who have managed to get a refund under the "never knowingly undersold" policy).

 

It is a generally held view that John Lewis gives a two year guarantee for products other retailers give a one year guarantee for. That's why many people go to John Lewis rather than buy for the same price elsewhere. Looking at info now it seems that it's three years for large electrical goods, 5 years tellies, 2 years for other things (see below). No wonder people can become confused.

 

 

An extract on the John lewis guarantee policy from PriceRunner UK - Compare Prices and Find Best Deals Online :

 

"We always honour the manufacturer's guarantee period where offered; these are usually one year unless otherwise stated. In addition to the first year manufacturer’s guarantee on large electrical domestic appliances, computers, non-portable hi-fi equipment, DVD and VHS players/recorders and camcorders, we provide a free second year service guarantee. If you have purchased a television, your service guarantee is automatically 5 years in total, or 3 years for a John Lewis large electrical domestic appliance. See website for full details."

 

I've noticed that more people are having problems with John Lewis in the last couple of years. Has something changed in their policies? Seems to be since they put in the "cattle run" type checkouts. I tried to find out about a tv last year and found they had a ticketing system. I mean excuse me but I'd rather go elsewhere than have to sit there like a lemon with a numbered piece of paper in my hand waiting for some smarmy guy in a suit to tell me something that would be obvious were the items more clearly labelled in the first place....

 

On the subject of Waitrose. I shop there all the time and keep finding out of date produce in the store I go to. I've complained about this more than once to them and it usually stops for a while and then comes back. I once found fish four days past the sell by date on display. The reason I complain is because I don't want some poor soul (no pun intended) to get home and find their salmon is off. They can be very accommodating and then again sometimes they are not. When I actually phoned the branch concerned they were very helpful, but when I contacted their website a couple of years ago because I'd found a chocolate had been tampered with they were very snotty in their response. If they are anything like Wayne it doesn't surprise me (if indeed he is an employee it's a very poor advertisement for them to have his post on here!).

 

Just on the subject of apple IPODs I've also had probs with their software upgrades. It seems they have one every couple of months these days. I had to upgrade in order to download from Itunes and now I can't download anyway because there is a problem with my user ID. Ipod help were very unhelpful and did not resolve my problem. They did not seem to be knowledgeable enough to sort the problem out and I've simply given up downloading from Itunes (which doesn't seem to sell all the songs I want anyway). I agree with MadgeXXX, there may indeed be trouble storing up for Apple in future. A pity seeing as they are such a creative company. Diseconomies of scale perhaps and too rapid expansion.

[fourthvulture]

Infuriated enough today to write negatively about John Lewis Partnership. This is sad, given that for me, they have been the gods of the High St. for my entire (long-ish) life. That is to say: when you've dithered over this or that shop, you think : "forget it, I'll go to JLP and get value and service at a decent-but-not-cheap price". I bought new carpet from JLP in Summer 2008 which had small indentation in the tufts (in a prominent position, of course!) which I had hoped would vaccum out (but didn't). Turned out it was truly a manuf flaw (there were other tiny ones too). It took inspections from 3 diff folk, which was tedious, but eventually all agreed that it was a flaw. This week (having emptied out the furniture from the room for the second time in 6 months, thereby clogging up another room) the replacement carpet arrived and was fitted. Now, instead of a small flaw, I have what JLP call a pole mark right across the entire room, again prominent (of course!) in front of fireplace. I was told by the fitter that I would have seen the same in previous carpet, but I had to tell him that no, I didn't and I have never seen it in a new carpet before. Phone calls this week have resulted in JLP refusing to take any action. This concerns a newly laid carpet which looks less than perfect (particularly stinging for me, given the fact that this carpet replaces a previous faulty one). JLP have told me that I must wait 6-8 weeks to see if it goes away(revised down from the 6 months suggested during the first of this week's calls of complaint!). So, in the hope(by JLP) that it (& I) will go away, I must lug all furniture back into place, with the prospect of possibly lugging it all out again in 6 weeks' time. This mark may or may not go away, but why can a customer not expect it to look right on the day it is fitted? Has anyone else had experience of pole marks? As noted, I have never seen it in a new carpet before.

[jamesbowman1807]

After being an advocate for John Lewis' customer service since I arrived in the UK 6 years ago, you can imagine that I was very disappointed to get the following email in regards to an order of a dozen red roses for Valentines Day last night (13 Feb) at 9pm -

 

 

Dear Mr James Bowman,

 

I am emailing you with relations to your John Lewis Direct order XXXXXXX.

 

Unfortunately we are now out of stock and therefore we are unable to fulfil your order.

 

Please be advised you have not been billed for this order.

 

If you would like to place the order again, please contact us on the telephone number below.

 

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused by this.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Gary XXXXX

John Lewis Direct[/i]

 

Very disappointing...

[jimandmel]

I wish I had read some of these reviews before I went to JL and bought a mattress. Its been three months and we have still not recieved it. It was booked to be delivered on the 8th of July and stupidly we paid to have our old mattress removed from outside of our house that morning while we were at work. Only to be told at 6.45pm (45mins after our delivery slot which should have been 4-6pm) that the driver had some bad news and could not deliver our mattress. I am registered disabled and we have been sleeping on the floor since the 8th! we contacted JL via their email service on the 8th but customer service have told me that they cannot find any emails from us. I do however have a screen dump/screen print saved of the email we sent via JL. I spoke to customer services 3 times but they just dont seem too concerned to sort this out quickly and to unite us with our mattress anytime soon so I have written to Andy Street MD of JL and Louise Cooper senior Manager corporate/branch PR. Im sure between the two of them they can figure out that the only option we have left is to speak to the papers. Strapline:

JOHN LEWIS FORCES DISABLED CUSTOMER TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR

Maybe?

Any info on how to get our mattress from them would be great and good luck to anyone else having to deal with the terrible customer service that JL are currently providing, im sure it never used to be like this.

Mel

[AtlantisZPM]

It was booked to be delivered on the 8th of July and stupidly we paid to have our old mattress removed from outside of our house that morning while we were at work

 

JOHN LEWIS FORCES DISABLED CUSTOMER TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR

 

2+2 does not equal 5