Tesco Man (not MS)

Everyday living
1

Just had my groceries delivered - must have been either the rudest or stupidest driver ever - or a bit of both.

I saw him pull up on my neighbour’s private driveway, over the road - blocking their garage.

But I know they try to group deliveries in similar areas together, wherever possible, to save time and costs, so I thought it must be just coincidence that my neighbour had bookings in the same hour, and he’d opted to go to them first.

But shortly after that thought - knock at the door! My groceries…

Me: “Oh, did they say you could park there?”

“No, I just thought that was 32, over there, because it’s next to 33” (Like many streets, we have odd numbers one side, evens the other, so I’m NOT next to 31 or 33).

“Oh. Well I hope they don’t get the pip about it!”

“Why’s that then?”

“Well, it’s private property, isn’t it? They might not be too happy about a lorry parked on their drive that has nothing to do with them.”

Sulkily: “Oh, alright, I’ll move it then.”

Then I misheard a couple of things he said (I don’t think I have MS-related deafness - just by chance I didn’t hear - or perhaps he mumbled).

After that, he treated me throughout the whole transaction as if I had an IQ of 50!

I hope they choose this time to send me the survey about: “How was our driver?” I’ll be having a few things to say.

Tina

2

I just had my shopping delivered to from asda and he was a very nice man but i know if i had any issues i would ring up customer services and complain it might be worth a call just to say you are unhappy with the driver may get some discount on next shop and driver may get some training on customer service. Have a good rest of your day Katy

3

Katy is absolutely right …It looks perfectly justified to call Tesco customer services and give feedback (…or even complain) about your delivery driver, Tina (…afraid if it was me I’d be more than prepared to make a complaint!!)

In fact, I’ve complained about a Tesco delivery driver in the past and now use either Asda or Waitrose to deliver my groceries (depending on what items I fancy at the time ?!! )

Dom

4

oh dear tina

i was saddened to hear this. several of the tesco guys unpack my shopping for me. i guess like everything else u get good uns and bad uns…

i would def feedback to tesco

ellie x

5

Maybe he was having an off day?

6

I complained and got some discount vouchers but it was about the Coop and about twenty years ago

Don thats me in a complaining mood or the Hulks blue cousin

7

The thing that puts me off complaining with a thing like this, is if he was off with me this time, what’s he going to be like if I get him the next time? If I complain, and he gets a ticking off, he’ll absolutely know it was me - unless he makes a habit of parking in neighbours’ private parking areas, that is, and then acting surprised if the customer says: “Did they say you could park there? Oh dear, they might not like it!” In many years of having groceries delivered - not all the time, but on and off, as I like to see what I’m getting sometimes - I’ve NEVER had them park up on a neighbour’s forecourt, and then act surprised when I mentioned they might not like it. To be fair, even if it had been MY forecourt, as he must originally have supposed, he ought to have asked first. How is he to know I didn’t have a partner just about to pop home for lunch, who’d be needing our drive? At the very least, he should ask: “Is it OK to stick the van there, or are you expecting anyone?” I’m fed up with tradespeople today. The gardener hasn’t come again either! He’s supposed to come fortnightly, but it’s been gradually shifting to every three weeks - very occasionally at first (people do take holidays, after all) - but now moving to more often than not. He knows I had a change of circumstances (lost my job a couple of years ago), so I think he feels I won’t mind, because it saves me a bit of money (he’s recently raised the prices too). But three-weekly isn’t enough in mid-summer. I can’t possibly manage it myself, so the garden is a constant mess. When he eventually does come, the grass is so long, it takes two or three goes over that, and then they don’t have enough time to get as far as the weeding. I chose all the plants myself, and in many cases planted them myself, in healthier days. It upsets me to see them all choked with weeds, when I actually employ a gardener. I think I may have employed him for over ten years, now - certainly since before I became aware I was ill. So it would be hard to tell him I’m going to have to look elsewhere. But it isn’t worth the money I’m supposedly “saving” by having him skip visits. I can only assume he has much bigger fish to fry, and my garden is a small fill-in job he only does if his schedule’s a bit slack. I’m starting to feel like the lady with the unreliable carer! Obviously, I’m not critically dependant on a gardener in the same way, but at the same time, why should I be paying someone, and the garden’s still a riot? If I’d only hired him for lawn-mowing would be different; I could hardly complain if he never did any of the other stuff. But I employ him for the whole lot, not just grass cutting. I thought, when I stopped work, there would be a lot less aggravation, but there’s still aggravation several times a week, of one kind or another. Bank can’t/won’t do something, ordered goods go missing, utility bill looks suspect, prescriptions don’t turn up… I sometimes wonder how I ever had time to work, as I seem to spend the whole time complaining or trying to sort out things that have gone wrong in various ways. I don’t know if I’m just noticing it more, with less to occupy me, or customer service has genuinely been going downhill in all walks of life. :frowning: Tina x

8

Hello Tina

I would change your gardener and stop wasting your money.

I had reason to complain to complain about the guy that delivers my NEXT parcels. My husband and I always found him rude but my pretty daughter never has a problem…surprise surprise!!

Anyway, on one particular day he was extra rude so I decided enough was enough and emailed a complaint to NEXT. I naively thought the next time I make an order, he will probably apologise. NO!! He rang the buzzer, told my husband we had a delivery. By the time my husband had opened the flat door and got to the bottom hallway, he had opened the main door of the building and flung the parcel across the hallway. I was livid I rang NEXT, basicly told them what he’d done and to get it sorted. No way was this man getting away with his behaviour.

I don’t know what was said to him but he’s always careful to watch his manners now.

I’m stuck with him unfortuntely. He acts as an agent for HERMES and also delivers my QVC and I’m not giving my QVC up for anybody

My town is that small the guys wife delivers our prescriptions. Do I know how to complicate my life??

xx

9

I understand your not being too happy with the gardener - if he’s due to come once a fortnight that is what he should be doing.

Regarding the grocey delivery man I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.

10

Why, Zetland?

Who the heck has the gall to drive up and park on private property - not even the customer’s, but one of their neighbours - and then act aggrieved when it’s pointed out it’s someone’s own private parking, and they might not be too happy? I don’t want any trouble with the neighbours, if they try to get in/out to find “my” Tesco van installed on their drive. It’s quite obvious it’s not part of the public road - it’s their fancy paved driveway - leading right up to their garage.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise” would be fine, but not: “Why?” Is any explanation really needed of why you shouldn’t be parked on a neighbour’s property, unless they said you could? And treating a customer as feeble-minded, just because they didn’t hear something is also unacceptable. He will doubtless encounter many customers who are genuinely deaf, or have some other disability. Are they all to be treated as stupid? Perhaps I’m more sensitive to this than most (albeit not most with MS), as I don’t really consider myself disabled at the moment, but I’m all too aware there’s a fair chance I might be. So anyone who assumes not hearing/seeing/walking properly means the customer is an idiot automatically gets my back up.

I can only hope he’s a learner, but that’s unusual, because they usually send the learners out on accompanied rounds, before they get the OK to go solo. I would have thought they would have taught the basics, like checking where it is (or isn’t) OK to park the van, and that you aren’t on private property, that not all houses are numbered consecutively, and you should check, not guess (my house number’s on the door in 2 inch letters), and not to speak patronisingly to customers who seem deaf or a little slow.

The fact I’m remarking on it at all shows his behaviour is not typical. If they were all like it, it wouldn’t be so conspicuous. The last chap not only asked if the van was OK where it was, but even asked if it was OK if he trod on my grass, or if I’d rather he used the path. Such a contrast!

Tina

11

I have had no problems with Waitrose

12

I am glad I use Waitrose

13

Thats why I use waitrose

14

I’m very lucky being in a small town we get the same delivery drivers and most of the time they are lovely. They even try And take the ones with the dogs bones in first not that I ask for that but dances about looking in the bags as I empty them for his treats. The guy the other day was going to put in a complaint not that I asked him to. I was having mum round for a BGT party and I’d ordered Chinese food from tesco (and just for reference apart from the duck should have just gone to the Chinese not much difference in price and huge difference in quality Anyway I’d ordered chicken satay from the counter. They substituted it with jumbo sausage rolls from the counter. Never in a million years would that find they were a meal in themselves. So I said I didn’t want the substitution though in hindsight I should have kept them as I was getting the better deal with price match and had then for tea another day

15

if you dont say anything about the driver how are they to know he isn’t that good at his job? it is worth saying something and if he keeps up with the attitude, complain again. sounds like to me he is taking the job for granted and needs to be retrained. and its not making a mountain out of a mole hill at all!! i find that customer service in this country sucks on the whole unless you complain about it. and im not saying the customer is always right because they are not, but there is no reason for the bad attitudes for no reason

16

Hi Tina

Not over-reacting at all. I think he sounds very rude and if Tesco don’t get to hear about it he will probably lose them a fair few customers. I think the majority of streets are numbered with odds on one side and evens the other so he is the dimwit! He had absolutely no right to speak down to you, my guess is that he was just surly because you pulled him up about parking on private property. (That is the one thing that really got my goat when I had the slurred speech 5 years ago. So many shop assistants spoke to me really slowly and deliberately as if I had the mental capacity of a 3 year old and I wanted to scream at them!! I wondered if I had ever done that to anyone with a speech impediment and vowed to make sure I never did it in the future.)

Whenever I get the chance I always fill in customer feedback forms. Customer service is a very important part of any business and they need to know what they were good at and what needs improving.

Tracey xx

17

your neighbours drive is not your responsibility - where a delivery man parks is up to him. If he causes problems they are his responsibility. If the guy had reversed into the neighbours gate-post he would be liable, not you.

He was wrong to be rude to you.

18

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, they haven’t sent a survey form on this occasion - it’s only every once in a while. I hesitate to report him because of possible repercussions for me, not him - if I’m still going to have to deal with him in future. I don’t want to be dreading my deliveries, in case it’s him, and he knows I’ve complained. If they had surveyed, on the other hand, I would have said something!

I have accounts with most of the local supermarkets, and like to ring the changes a bit, so I don’t use Tesco every time. I do like Ocado (Waitrose by another name), but find them a bit expensive, so tend only to shop there as a treat, or if they’ve got a very good promotion on. Occasionally they do free delivery - as a one-off, or for a fixed period, so I sometimes take them up on that.

But of all the drivers, of all the companies, I don’t think I’ve ever had one quite as rude as yesterday’s. Most of them err on the side of caution. Our road layout is a bit odd, so to the uninitiated, it can be a bit unclear whether it’s even OK to drive up to my bit, or whether it’s ALL private. So quite often, I find them parked quite a way back down the road, and having a long way to walk with the crates. In which case I always tell them: It’s OK, you can pull up nearer the house, you know - it’s all part of the road.

This guy went to completely the opposite extreme - drove past my house, and plonked it on someone’s private driveway! Even if he had got the right house - which he hadn’t - I think it’s manners to ask before using the driveway, in case someone from the house was about to come or go, and might have needed access. As I don’t drive at all, I usually say: “It’s OK to stick it on the drive if you’d like”, but most of them say: “No, no, that’s fine!” I guess if they don’t drive onto the customer’s property, it protects them against any allegation of any damage being done. Goodness knows what the outcome would have been if he had damaged anything on the neighbour’s property - a place he shouldn’t have been in the first place! Ultimately, it would have been between the neighbours and Tesco, but I’d have got caught in the middle as the person whose delivery it was.

Tina

x

19

Answered before seeing your post Zetland.

Yes, I studied law for many years - I know he/Tesco would be liable for any damage. However, that doesn’t mean the neighbours would be absolutely fine about it, and it wouldn’t give rise to any ill feeling. Nobody wants their neighbours to be inconvenienced by a thoughtless delivery person - the customer has to live with those neighbours all of the time - the delivery person doesn’t!

Tina

20

If you don’t complain, then there is nothing wrong with the service. That will be the management view!

Bad service merits a complaint - and/or shop somewhere else.
We used ASDA and it was a rare event to get exactly what we ordered. The drivers were OK, but nothing special.
I got a weekly customer satisfaction survey and told them that I was deciding whether to wait for Morrisons to come to our area, or just to change suppliers. No response so Tesco got the business. Drivers are always polite, friendly, helpful. It is a very rare thing when we don’t get exactly what we order.

I stopped using the garden service when they became erratic. Two weeks slipped to three and sometimes four. The grass was the worst. Leave it too long and it is hard work getting it back to condition (and we have a lot of it). A neighbour offered to do it - comes in every two weeks and does it in half the time (and costs a lot less).

Good neighbours are worth having - and by the same token you do not want to annoy them.

Geoff