Shocking Customer Service!
I ordered a hand basin and paid £40 for next day delivery as I needed it quickly - 40% of the purchase price in delivery fees.
I missed the delivery from the BJS 2-man delivery team, which you could say is my fault, but the BJS system emailed me an ETA for the delivery 45 minutes after the delivery was attempted. I received no missed calls on the telephone number I provided with the order, which I have since confirmed with Victoria Plum was correct.
The link on the BJS proof of delivery email returned a website error - no helpful information.
I contacted BJS customer services to discuss, and they advised me that the package would be delivered 2 days later, after paying 40% of the purchase price of my item for next-day delivery.
I asked the customer services representative if the delivery team was still in the area so I could find the van and collect my package to finish my project. The customer services representative gave me the postcode of the next delivery, so I got in my car and drove 10 minutes down the road to the next village and found the van.
After waiting 5 or 10 minutes for the delivery team to complete a delivery and come back to the van, I explained who I was, showed government issued photo ID with my address and my email order confirmation and asked the to give me my package, which I could see in the back of the van.
After some back-and-forth discussion and a call in a foreign language to their head office, they refused to give me my package, stating that it must be delivered to my address. I also spoke to the manager in the BJS office, who could not see sense and just let me take my package, and told me that I needed to speak to my retailer.
If that was the case, why did the customer service rep give me the location of the van to go after in the first place? What a waste of my time, and a terrible customer experience - whatever happened to common sense?
I appreciate that there needs to be policies and procedures in place for security and health & safety reasons, but we're talking about giving a hand basin to the owner of that basin who has proved his identity! I'm not sure why a 2-man delivery team is needed for a hand basin anyway.
So after BJS drove off with my package, I contacted Victoria Plum by web chat, as there does not appear to be a way to call them by phone. The operator was polite, but just kept saying sorry, your delivery will now be Friday, not Wednesday. So BJS will be driving my sink around for 3 days when they could have just handed it to me!
I suggested perhaps Victoria Plum could despatch another sink to me for next day delivery tomorrow, and was told no. No offer of any compromise was made to placate me and turn this into a positive customer experience. So I will not be ordering from them again.
Now I have to wait two more days for my next-day delivery, which I got within 6 feet of!