Waitrose Reviews 307

Purchased (or thought I had) some wine from Waitrose Cellar - never arrived but my emails were ignored so I had to take an hour out of work to call the call centre. Not impressed, rude staff. I asked to make a complaint and told that I couldn’t - I thought large companies had to allow dissatisfaction complaints to be made with ease? Maybe I’m wrong. I was made to feel like I was in the wrong even though I was £83 out of pocket and no wine. Was thrown a £10 E voucher which I thought contradicted the fact I wasn’t able raise a complaint. I got my money back a few days later. I decided to give Waitrose Cellar another go as they have some wine I really like and it’s on a good deal. I’m worried it’s happening again - Waitrose have now had my money for a week with no contact from them about when my order will be despatched. I guess I’m going to have to take another hour off to speak to unhelpful staff, I should’ve known better.
I’d recommend not to use Waitrose Cellar (I also had a few problems with them in 2020 and stopped using them - I put that down to the Pandemic but maybe, in reflection it’s just them) Aldi do good wines, cheaper deliver and not only is it quicker they also do actually deliver.

Appreciate that times are tough, and for that reason exactly, bring back the free Guardian with £10 spend. I don't think I'm alone in shopping elsewhere, if this isn't reinstated. ​

And you know, I'd probably still shop at Waitrose if the press releases hadn't been so condescending and a bit more honest - if they said, sorry this offer is no longer sustainable as the economy is tough atm...... the latest, if correctly quoted

‘We have very loyal, traditional customers who like doing things as they always have. They don’t like change.

‘That’s especially the case among our older shoppers and those who are less savvy with technology.’

Could that be any more patronising or alienating?! I'm actually shocked that that was cleared to be sent to press 😂

OK, I'm not young, but at 52, I think I'm probably roughly in your target age market - let's be honest Waitrose isn't cheap, and I care less about the trickiness of claiming the voucher (I'm sure I am tech savvy enough to jump through those hoops) as of the lack of loyalty reward - why would anyone go through that hassle to save 50p as I was offered, when, shopping in Tesco or Lidl or Aldi for the same quality food saves significantly more than that. I like Waitrose as it's a partnership and would actively prefer to spend money with you, but with the removal of the perk of the newspaper offer and the increasingly snooty, superior and patronising tone of the PR responses, I'm struggling......

Having just opened a delivery from November from Waitrose yesterday, the 6th March, which I had not needed till now, I discovered I was a bottle of champagne short.
Annoyed at myself for not having checked it, I phoned this morning and wanted to check that I indeed was 1 short.
Delighted and surprised when I was offered either a refund or a delivery of said bottle.
Terrific customer service.

We had a delivery today (21st January). The young man arrived exactly on time, was very friendly, polite and made sure we were happy with the delivery. We were very impressed with everything, from the ease of ordering to the super delivery service.

Thank you.

Just need to vent my frustration, I use my local Waitrose almost daily as it's convenient for where we live. Mostly it's great and have no problems however their promos's are non existant. I can't tell you how many times I buy a deal and you never get it at the till, I don't check my receipts so perhaps I should. This mornings debacle is on fresh Sea Bass, 2 for £4.50 and the guy tells me they will pick up the barcode at the till. Of course not- I was charged £6. This has heppened with all manner of offers so why don't they just say we will charge you full price regardless of any adverts or offers.
Feel better now but a reputable company like this should be more on the ball, very unprofessional in my opinion.

Recently had an online order. The apples were bruised and had to throw two out of four back. Contacted waitrose and not heard back. A couple of days later I opened some there own brand cajun chicken at lunchtime on the expiration date. It smelt disgusting and went straight in the bin outside. Contacted CS and explained this. They obviously did not read my email properly as they then sent what looked like a standard email saying I was unhappy with the expiration date and asked for a photo of the item and packaging. I referred them again to my original email and explained again the issue was quality of the item, not the date on the packet. They then said they could not track it down without a photo so we're closing the complaint. Not sure how the photo would have illustrated the smell invading my nostrils when I opened the chicken. Waitrose charge premium prices, but in short, don't shop with them unless you are happy to pay for unusable items at times.

Recently I had got into a dreadful muddle with my delivery from Waitrose - I was unable to check out on my order. On contacting Customer Services I was put through to CHARLOTTE AITKEN (AITKIN?). She could not have been more helpful or indeed patient,polite and Professional. She solved the problem!
I would like to commend her.
Margaret Francis

The Jesmond branch manager is rude and seems miss placed in a high profile a customer facing role. Their self service tills are constantly malfunctioning, and the staff response is generally terse and unhelpful.

I purchased a birthday gift via Waitrose cellar prior to reading the reviews on Trustpilot and elsewhere. A big mistake. Waitrose cellar use Yodel who, after being paid £5.95 for standard delivery, gave one single update that the item was at their national delivery centre. After 10 solid days of chasing with constant lack of availability of WebChat agents I eventually find out that they do not know where the package is and that I should go back to Waitrose. So, all in all, a missing birthday gift, many wasted days of chasing and now another unknown wait until the refund arrives. Please, save yourselves the pain and avoid Waitrose.

I (registered customer), ordered six bottles in response to an emailed special offer, for delivery in "2-3 days".
5 days later, it's too quiet, I queried Customer Services to get a curt reply asking for all my personal details, order number etc etc. (surely on file, no?) PayPal cleared immediately on order (confirmed). I'll add that all my previous Waitrose Cellar orders, click & collect or delivery have been a mess, Pay Pal or Visa Debit.
There are serious systemic Quality System issues that need professional help. Just check out the customer feedback, how many bad business experience warnings do you need ? Time for a Quality Assurance Pro to step in.

Waitrose Droitwich. I preface my comments by saying that I was a loyal Waitrose shopper for about 35years, until the last 2-3years, frequently spending £150 -£200+ a week Popped in today, primarily to use Dry Cleaning Service. However, the Partner told me my ‘Jacket’, was a ‘coat’ despite me saying it was sold, bought and used as a ‘jacket’, the result of this arbitrary and subjective re-defining of my ‘Jacket’ took the cost of 4 items from £24 to £43! I took the items elsewhere. I then used opportunity, having paid for car parking ticket to shop for a few items -£90+ The sparsely stacked shelves and poor quality fresh vegetables resulted in quick shop. At Checkout, the Assistant was talking to colleague and continued talking and laughing with colleague while pushing my shopping through. I eventually commented that I was a Customer and it was rude and poor service to continue a conversation. The Assistant apologised, however, it was evident from her continued protestations that she had little self-awareness and even less understanding of ‘Quality Customer Service’. She said, “well, I did say Hello to you, but I don’t see him very often, and I was ‘torn’, between you and ‘him’ - her colleague! 🤷🏻‍♀️ This ‘colleague’ proceeded to continue his conversations with the other Check-out staff despite Customers being served. I shouldn’t be surprised at this increasingly lax, ‘couldn’t care less’, attitude, unfortunately it has become the norm for Waitrose- but it is sad, as Waitrose used to deserve it’s reputation for ‘, Quality’ for both it’s ‘Partners and it’s Products’. This isn’t the CEO, it’s the the Individuals and poor Store Management. Would recommend local Farm Shops and Lidl - excellent Customer Service. The ratio of poor reviews on this site is a reflection of the current Waitrose

After leaving Little Waitrose in Clapham Common during November, the security guard on the door accosted my wife and I. This man was aggressive and prepared for violent confrontation. The individual in question said he would 'slap me' when I challenged his behaviour based on his stupid suspicion I may have stolen items from the store.

Just visited Waitrose Harrogate 1700.
Unfortunately cleaning have now dropped to pre covid levels. Specifically women’s toilets were disgusting, toilet paper strewn on the floor. The floor was wet and the smell of urine
was very strong. Surely a store such as Waitrose could afford to maintain high hygiene standards.

Poor quality fruit and veg.
No British fruit and veg.
Too busy doing ‘high end’ products. Website the worst.
Try not to shop there.

The first thing I would like to say is surely there must be something seriously wrong with Waitrose management when you have such an appalling set of negative customer reviews as seen here.
My own 1 star review concerns 2 bouquets of flowers that my daughter in New York arranged to send her mother for her birthday. One bouquet from her and her husband and the other from her children, my doting wife’s grandchildren. The flowers were purchased online with Waitrose.
Although the bouquets were acceptable, it was pretty obvious to me they didn’t represent the value my daughter would normally spend. I asked my daughter how much she had spent and was told £50 for each bunch plus a delivery charge of £17.50, total cost £117.50. I then did a little research only to find out that Waitrose had passed this order onto e-florist who in turn passed it on again to two local florists. Three fingers in any pie does not result in good value. I contacted one of these retailers only to be told that the bunch they had supplied would cost just £26 if purchased in person at the shop.
I have tried on many occasions to speak to customer services at Waitrose for a response but sadly they will not respond. My daughter even wrote a letter of authority enabling Waitrose to speak to her father about her order but still they choose to ignore any approaches. Just to emphasise the incredibly poor customer service at this food retailer, I wrote a letter addressed to their CEO on the 19th October, 15 days ago but of course have not had a reply.
With such abysmal value for money, the moral of this review is DO NOT PURCHASE FLOWERS ONLINE THROUGH WAITROSE, go direct to a local florist.

Terrible experience with customer service. I ordered over £100 of wine and gin for an event with 20 people. When I opened the box, it was not the items I ordered. I served the wine (about half the amount I ordered and no gin) out of desperation at the event, and made a further £100+ order of wine and gin from Deliveroo (thank goodness for Deliveroo!).

After the party I checked the box order details and realised they had delivered the completely wrong order with someone else's name and address. When I contacted customer services (Aisha Ismail) and explained what had happened there was zero apology, however they did offer to refund me, as long as they could collect the incorrect order.

I explained (again for the 2nd time) how there was no order to collect as we had used it in desperation at the party.

She responded saying she had refunded the cost of the order and to wait 3-5 working days for this to come through.

However, when the refund never arrived, I contacted them about this, she said I have not been refunded as they haven't collected the incorrect order yet.

So... I explained for a 3rd time, that there was no order to collect as we had used it.

So she offered to refund the difference in price of the 2 orders... a grand total of £27. I am absolutely furious. Zero apology for the inconvenience, zero helpfulness, zero offer of compensation.

I've ordered over £100 of wine and gin from them (plus the extra £100 Deliveroo replacement) and now being made to pay for them delivering the incorrect order of wine I didn't choose. But at least Waitrose cellar hasn't lost a penny!

Am I being unreasonable? I'm going to put in a formal complaint and will never use Waitrose cellar ever again. Horrible customer service experience, and use them at your peril.

Waitrose decided to impose £3 delivery charge after previously not doing so. Where other grocery businesses with home delivery services offer discounted delivery services. I pay Sainsbury's £30 for a years "free mid week delivery's" i.e. under .60p a week. I have moved to Ocado from Waitrose and their range is wider and cheaper than Waitrose. They offer mid week deliveries for a year at £39.99 plus additional discounts and perks.
Waitrose offer free newspapers with their orders except recently they stopped morning delivery's with a newspaper and insist that the delivery to come with a newspaper is after 3pm. Sainsbury's provide fresh flowers on their home delivery service. Waitrose do not.
Waitrose charge for orders to be delivered in bags whilst Ocado does charge but refunds if the bags are returned later.
Waitrose's website is better than any other but they are weak on other areas and appear to be getting worse. Ie. Stupid John Lewis advert. They seem to be out of touch unless you happen to favour being woke.

Have used Waitrose online regularly for over a year. Today was told driver not expected to climb one flight of stairs. New policy?? They definitely don’t advertise that. My advice is go elsewhere.

What has happened to the quality and freshness of Waitrose veg? Avocados, potatoes but especially green beans. My latest purchase was covered in dirt and went off really quickly. I have now thrown more green beans away than I have cooked over the past few weeks so I won't be buying any more.
Also sell/use by dates seem incredibly short for many products.

Hello Waitrose…. You have supported us greatly through lock down with deliveries to the door with brilliant COVID procedures… great quality of food ..minimum delivery £40. Deliveries free of charge not like come other supermarkets. Could not recommend you enough to family and friends so now …..what’s happened £3 delivery charge now! What has changed?
So many slots now to choose from. What are you going to do with your surplus vans an drivers when people will stop your service. Keep the free delivery and put your spend up to £50 it’s still an average weekly shop.