Just as I thought that internet shopping from John Lewis with Click and Collect at Waitrose was the most useful addition to my life as a consumer, my confidence has been shaken. I was very pleased with the brown corduroy skirt, which has proved just the thing for all those meetings held in rooms that might not be very warm, at which I have to lug chairs and equipment about. And yes, I have read the fashion articles about old lady clothes, and how this is a look that's easier to pull off when you are twenty five and being ironic about it than when you are in your fifties and being entirely serious, but I believe in dressing for the occasion and when I look candidly at my life I see a lot of chilly rooms, pets, and carrying stuff around, which call for thick tights and a good rugged skirt that isn't going to snag or split. I was so pleased with the dark brown skirt that I ordered another one, but in burgundy. The same newspaper fashion columns said that burgundy was going to be In, so I'm making some concession to the current trend, though I'll probably still be wearing the skirt once burgundy is Out again.
If I ever get it. I ordered two pairs of brown socks at the same time, since there is no point in having new brown boots and a pair of suddenly in vogue brown brogues if you don't have any socks to wear with them. I stopped at Waitrose last night on the way back from the station, armed with the confirmation email on my phone, and thinking how marvellous technology was and how time saving that I was passing the Click and Collect point on the way home. The package, when it was retrieved from the bowels of Waitrose and brought out to the Customer Service desk, was suspiciously light. I poked the contents around inside the bag, like a child investigating the contents of its Christmas stocking, and expressed my misgivings to the young woman on the desk that there could be a skirt in there.
Instead of going home with my dodgy parcel, I went and rested it on the little counter between the pots of sugar for the drinks from the coffee machine, and cut along the Cut Here line with the nail scissors out of my handbag. Sure enough, it contained nothing but two pairs of socks, and a packing note that said nothing about the skirt. I went back to the desk, showed the woman the socks, the note, the empty bag, and the confirmation email, and explained I wanted to log with John Lewis that part of the order (the most expensive part) was missing. She apologised profusely, which was nice of her since none of it was her fault, and rang John Lewis. There was a wait. A long wait, in which she periodically mouthed further apologies while being transferred hither and thither. I found a chair, and settled down with my Kindle (I am most of the way through the third part of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, which does contain the longest dinner party in literary history), after ringing the Systems Administrator to warn that I was in Waitrose and might be some time. The poor young woman suggested I could go home, but I thought that having got that far I'd rather pursue the matter to its conclusion. And they had charged me for the skirt, so I wanted to establish an audit trail that matched up with the physical state of goods on the ground.
Eventually the Customer Service desk woman asked whether I would like to speak to John Lewis. I thought that she was doing her best, and was very young, and that it was probably time to haul my managerial skills out of cold storage. The line was incredibly bad, but after an exchange of Hellos punctuated by silence, we established dialogue, and I expressed my preference to receive a skirt, but failing that my desire to get a refund. The man on the phone wanted to know if I was willing to cancel the order and place a new one. I thought that how John Lewis structured its order system was entirely its own affair, but said that would be fine, if it meant I ended up paying for and receiving one skirt. My original thesis, that technology is marvellous, was borne out as an email cancelling the first order and a second email confirming the new one flashed up on the phone. Though I wasn't impressed by being required to read out my credit card number and expiry date in a loud voice in full public view. He forgot to ask for the security code, but I thought I'd leave John Lewis to sort that out later.
All of which left me impressed by the grace under pressure of Waitrose's Customer Service desk, and slightly suspicious about the robustness of John Lewis's internet retailing system. If the parcel had been marked as the first of two, or if the packing note had said that the skirt was to follow, that would have been fine, apart from the fact that I'd have to make a special trip to Colchester to collect the second parcel. But a system that's capable of sending out a confirmation email saying your order is ready to collect, when in fact only part of it is there, and with no mention of the other part, looks a bit flaky. If the store then contacts you again to say that the rest of your order is now ready then all well and good, but if they don't? All the customer would be left with would be a trail of emails saying the order was despatched to so and so a store, and records showing they collected it.
This morning I received two emails from John Lewis, both headed up Information on your order. My heart sank slightly as I opened them. One confirmed the replacement order I placed last night from Waitrose, at the suggestion of the John Lewis telephone operative, was ready to collect. The other confirmed that the original order, which was cancelled as of last night and for which I should have been refunded, was also ready to collect. I am sure that another twenty minutes at the Waitrose Customer Service desk and a few more emails will sort it out, and that after much tedious checking of contra items on my credit card statement I'll be able to make sure I'm charged once and once only. But, oh dear me, it is all turning into a marathon exercise. Guys, internet shopping with John Lewis is supposed to be easy, safe and hassle free.
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