Avoid using Tesco Wines by the Case and HDNL
2011 is going to be a very exciting year in our household, as we're
getting married in the Spring. We spent time over the festive break
choosing wines for the Big Day. One such choice was a Prosecco, which
we've struggled to source in-store and so we decided to give Tesco
Direct Wine by the Case a go. In short, based on my experience, I'd recommend avoiding ordering wine
by the case from Tesco Direct as their process doesn't work all that
well and their delivery Partner HDNL have delivered a rubbish
experience. This is my constructive rant... I'd welcome your
thoughts, comments and recommended alternative suppliers of wine by
the case. Early on 3rd January, I ordered 3 cases of the wine via
http://www.tesco.com/wine/. Now, first of all, I was pleasantly
surprised to see at checkout that Next Day Delivery would be free of
charge due to the size of my order. However, it stated delivery would
in fact occur the day after next on Wednesday 5th. There was a very
frustrating element to the online experience when I tried filling in
the 'delivery instructions' box with a message for the delivery
person. Little did I know there was a 160 character limit until I'd
finished typing and then sat dumb-founded that the submit button
didn't do anything. When I finally noticed the 'error message' on the
screen, it must have taken another 3 or 4 attempts at culling the
words in the box sufficiently - there was no character limit message
or character count on the box at all. Anyway, having overcome that little issue, I was reassured to receive
the email confirming my order and stating the delivery would occur
between 7am and 7pm on Wednesday 5th January. However, it still
bothers me that the email showed what I'd ordered twice, so I was left
wondering whether I'd benefit from receiving twice as much wine or
not... (would have been especially nice.) Cut to 4th January, when I returned home from my first day back in the
office after the Christmas break to find a box from Tesco Wines
sitting outside my flat door! Now at least I live in a communal
block, so it wasn't sitting outside the building. However, there was
only a third of the order inside the box. Upon closer inspection of
the label, I noticed it read "part 2 of 2"; so where's part 1?
Intriguingly, there was my 160 character message "I'm working at home
Wednesday but call if door bell goes" ("unanswered" was missing...)
so, has someone helped themselves in this block? Entering the flat,
find calling card from HDN There was a HDNL calling card inside the door of the flat. I called
HDNL and struggled to get a straight answer to 'where's the rest of
the order'. Eventually, satisfied there was indeed a second (my guess
it's part 1 of 2) shipment due to go out on 5th, I hung up.
Intriguingly, the Liverpudlian couldn't tell me what was actually in
the shipment (whether it was wine or not, how many bottles, etc..) Now I worked at home, as promised, all day on 5th January. At 6.30pm
I tweeted I was getting twitchy as there was still no sign of any
correspondence from either Tesco or their partner HDNL. A five minute
trawl in cyberspace on Twitter and the Web left me feeling worried as
there was an awful lot of negativity about HDNL out there - and I can
see why! Thursday 6th January, I returned home from work and was pleased to see
a large box waiting for me, again in the communal hallway. There was
also another HDNL calling card on the door mat. Now, this is where
things get even worse! When I got the box into the flat, I noticed it
was a totally different (read, not Tesco Wines branded) cardboard box
to that used for part 2 of 2, with the 'label' hurredly cut from
another cardboard box and selotaped to the top of this one. When I
opened the box, I found only 11 of the expected 12 bottles! I also
got a cut on my finger from a glass splinter. The box appeared to have
been hurredly repacked with one smashed bottle missing. I called Tesco Direct on 0845 677 5577. First there was the obligatory
IVR messages. Mind you, speaks volumes that the message (which was
repeated twice to me) stated "Due to the adverse weather conditions in
parts of the UK, we're sorry but we can't take orders from customers
in Scotland until after Christmas!". Erm, it's now 6th January! It didn't take too long for me to get through to Fiona. Now she was
helpful enough, but she didn't really do anything to make up for the
inconvenience. She 'offered' to refund the missing bottle and told me
that would take 3-5 working days to reach my account. When I asked whether she couldn't send out a replacement, and despite
my protestations that this is wine for our wedding, I was left feeling
rather dejected that it now falls to me to track down the 'missing'
bottle from a local store. The whole point behind giving Tesco Direct
Wines a go was that we couldn't find sufficient stock in the stores
near us. In addition, the Presecco was on a price promotion and I'm
guessing that's now ended too. In response to my question about whom I could give some feedback to
about the experience, I was given the option to be put through to some
system called Opinionate (I believe) at the end of the call (but that
wasn't mentioned again), or I could email tescodirect@tesco.co.uk,
which would result in me receiving a 'customer satisfaction survey' -
right! And we all know what happens to those don't we. How different would it have been to say: "I'm really sorry Mr. Powell
for all the inconvenience we've caused you! Unfortunately, we're
unable to send you individual bottles. I'll of course make sure you're
refunded for the missing bottle, but you mentioned you'd struggled to
find this Presecco in our stores, so I'm going to arrange for 2
bottles to be sent to your local store free of charge - so you two can
enjoy a bottle on us by way of an apology. Which store would you like
me to send that to? It's going to take a few days to get that
arranged, but we have your email address, so leave it with me and I
will send you a note when the wine's ready to collect." Either way, I'm not impressed with Tesco Wines Direct and next time
around I'll be giving one of their many competitors a try - who do you
recommend? As for the Home Delivery Network; I'm seriously disappointed with
their inability to fulfil the order in one go and on the day it was
due. Not even scribbling a note apologising for the fact the bottom
fell out of the original box and a bottle got smashed is just
inexcusable.
getting married in the Spring. We spent time over the festive break
choosing wines for the Big Day. One such choice was a Prosecco, which
we've struggled to source in-store and so we decided to give Tesco
Direct Wine by the Case a go. In short, based on my experience, I'd recommend avoiding ordering wine
by the case from Tesco Direct as their process doesn't work all that
well and their delivery Partner HDNL have delivered a rubbish
experience. This is my constructive rant... I'd welcome your
thoughts, comments and recommended alternative suppliers of wine by
the case. Early on 3rd January, I ordered 3 cases of the wine via
http://www.tesco.com/wine/. Now, first of all, I was pleasantly
surprised to see at checkout that Next Day Delivery would be free of
charge due to the size of my order. However, it stated delivery would
in fact occur the day after next on Wednesday 5th. There was a very
frustrating element to the online experience when I tried filling in
the 'delivery instructions' box with a message for the delivery
person. Little did I know there was a 160 character limit until I'd
finished typing and then sat dumb-founded that the submit button
didn't do anything. When I finally noticed the 'error message' on the
screen, it must have taken another 3 or 4 attempts at culling the
words in the box sufficiently - there was no character limit message
or character count on the box at all. Anyway, having overcome that little issue, I was reassured to receive
the email confirming my order and stating the delivery would occur
between 7am and 7pm on Wednesday 5th January. However, it still
bothers me that the email showed what I'd ordered twice, so I was left
wondering whether I'd benefit from receiving twice as much wine or
not... (would have been especially nice.) Cut to 4th January, when I returned home from my first day back in the
office after the Christmas break to find a box from Tesco Wines
sitting outside my flat door! Now at least I live in a communal
block, so it wasn't sitting outside the building. However, there was
only a third of the order inside the box. Upon closer inspection of
the label, I noticed it read "part 2 of 2"; so where's part 1?
Intriguingly, there was my 160 character message "I'm working at home
Wednesday but call if door bell goes" ("unanswered" was missing...)
so, has someone helped themselves in this block? Entering the flat,
find calling card from HDN There was a HDNL calling card inside the door of the flat. I called
HDNL and struggled to get a straight answer to 'where's the rest of
the order'. Eventually, satisfied there was indeed a second (my guess
it's part 1 of 2) shipment due to go out on 5th, I hung up.
Intriguingly, the Liverpudlian couldn't tell me what was actually in
the shipment (whether it was wine or not, how many bottles, etc..) Now I worked at home, as promised, all day on 5th January. At 6.30pm
I tweeted I was getting twitchy as there was still no sign of any
correspondence from either Tesco or their partner HDNL. A five minute
trawl in cyberspace on Twitter and the Web left me feeling worried as
there was an awful lot of negativity about HDNL out there - and I can
see why! Thursday 6th January, I returned home from work and was pleased to see
a large box waiting for me, again in the communal hallway. There was
also another HDNL calling card on the door mat. Now, this is where
things get even worse! When I got the box into the flat, I noticed it
was a totally different (read, not Tesco Wines branded) cardboard box
to that used for part 2 of 2, with the 'label' hurredly cut from
another cardboard box and selotaped to the top of this one. When I
opened the box, I found only 11 of the expected 12 bottles! I also
got a cut on my finger from a glass splinter. The box appeared to have
been hurredly repacked with one smashed bottle missing. I called Tesco Direct on 0845 677 5577. First there was the obligatory
IVR messages. Mind you, speaks volumes that the message (which was
repeated twice to me) stated "Due to the adverse weather conditions in
parts of the UK, we're sorry but we can't take orders from customers
in Scotland until after Christmas!". Erm, it's now 6th January! It didn't take too long for me to get through to Fiona. Now she was
helpful enough, but she didn't really do anything to make up for the
inconvenience. She 'offered' to refund the missing bottle and told me
that would take 3-5 working days to reach my account. When I asked whether she couldn't send out a replacement, and despite
my protestations that this is wine for our wedding, I was left feeling
rather dejected that it now falls to me to track down the 'missing'
bottle from a local store. The whole point behind giving Tesco Direct
Wines a go was that we couldn't find sufficient stock in the stores
near us. In addition, the Presecco was on a price promotion and I'm
guessing that's now ended too. In response to my question about whom I could give some feedback to
about the experience, I was given the option to be put through to some
system called Opinionate (I believe) at the end of the call (but that
wasn't mentioned again), or I could email tescodirect@tesco.co.uk,
which would result in me receiving a 'customer satisfaction survey' -
right! And we all know what happens to those don't we. How different would it have been to say: "I'm really sorry Mr. Powell
for all the inconvenience we've caused you! Unfortunately, we're
unable to send you individual bottles. I'll of course make sure you're
refunded for the missing bottle, but you mentioned you'd struggled to
find this Presecco in our stores, so I'm going to arrange for 2
bottles to be sent to your local store free of charge - so you two can
enjoy a bottle on us by way of an apology. Which store would you like
me to send that to? It's going to take a few days to get that
arranged, but we have your email address, so leave it with me and I
will send you a note when the wine's ready to collect." Either way, I'm not impressed with Tesco Wines Direct and next time
around I'll be giving one of their many competitors a try - who do you
recommend? As for the Home Delivery Network; I'm seriously disappointed with
their inability to fulfil the order in one go and on the day it was
due. Not even scribbling a note apologising for the fact the bottom
fell out of the original box and a bottle got smashed is just
inexcusable.
