On a day when it was so hot that customers really didn’t want to leave their houses unless they had to the partial collapse of Tesco’s grocery home delivery system left more than a few customers hotter than ever under the collar yesterday.
The retailer admitted that up to 10% of customer orders – equating to thousands of orders in real numbers – had been cancelled after a computer glitch hit the company’s delivery systems in a problem that affected stores nationwide.
Customers took to social media to vent their frustration with Tesco responding that it was working hard to fix the problem; apologising to its customers and asking them to re-arrange their deliveries online with a £10 compensation voucher for their troubles.
Jason Shorrock, vice president, retail strategy EMEA at JDA, says that the problems Tesco faced yesterday prove that retailers must be mindful of their customers’ lack of patience with problems with online orders.
“Research has shown that issues with online orders are on the increase, with more than half of UK shoppers experiencing a problem with an online order in the last 12 months. Fulfilment and ‘last-mile’ issues continue to hinder their efforts at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly intolerant of poor service. Today’s shoppers expect retailers to offer a high-level of service across all channels – those retailers that fail to keep up put themselves in serious danger of being left behind,” he said.
