A QUICK LETTER TO JOHN LEWIS

Dear John Lewis,

For a long time now, my wife and I have seen your products and quality of service as exemplary.

For example, we used a John Lewis wish list for our wedding, we’ve ordered a number of subsequent items using your click and collect service, and we’ve long considered your local store as a first port of call for excellent gifts and household products.

However, we’d like to let you know about a difficult experience we had with you on Saturday, November 26th, 2022. We feel certain that informing you will help you improve your service, and we hope that it’s that spirit that comes across from our story.

First, we noticed a product online we were interested in. We’ve attached the reference for information: it’s a 72-piece Arthur Price cutlery set retailing, at the time, at £190.

As you can see, this product is ‘only available in stores’ - and we decided to visit our local John Lewis, Broad Street, Reading, to purchase it.

The product was out-of-stock, but we were told by one of your partners that there was one item in stock at the High Wycombe store, and one in Oxford, Westgate.

At this point we decided our most sensible option was to call and reserve the product with the Oxford store. Unfortunately, after some confusion, we were told by the operative that it is not possible to call John Lewis stores directly.

That left us with the only sensible option of driving to Oxford to buy the item in store. It is a 70-mile round trip, and, as you might appreciate, getting into Oxford on a busy Saturday before Christmas is neither easy nor enjoyable.

To our dismay, we were told by a partner at the Westgate store that the product was not in stock, and that there was nothing she could advise other than travelling to central London, where the Oxford Street store had the item in stock. She also told us that we could reserve the product, something the partner in the Reading store told us we couldn’t do - and in fact, were unable to do via your call centre helpline.

As you can imagine, we were less than impressed at the idea of chasing knives and forks around the country, based on a computer’s unreliable interpretation of stock, as well as the opaque communication from your partners and call centre operative.

We both feel that the system let us down, and that operating a centralised call centre instead of direct contact, actually worsened our experience, rather than enhancing it, particularly given our wasted journey.

We’d like to ask you if there is anything you can do to help us? As we mentioned, we have always considered John Lewis a champion of excellence and high quality, and we want to continue using your services with confidence.

Thank you,

Kind regards