Has John Lewis lost its way?

http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2015/sep/12/has-john-lewis-lost-the-plot-complaints

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Staff morale is at rock bottom. Training and wages are barely above minimum, and the IT systems are so old it makes dealing with some problems impossible. Workers are told to get complaining customers off the phone to hit targets – whether their problem’s been resolved or not.

This isn’t a description of the working environment at a little-known internet startup or ailing retailer. This is the Capita-managed John Lewis call centre in Glasgow – according to a worker there who contacted my colleague Miles Brignall following our story earlier this year detailing rising complaints.

Most companies instantly dismiss whistleblower leaks as the rantings of a disgruntled employee, and John Lewis was no different. The individual, who said they were frightened of losing their job, refused to reveal their identity, leaving us with a dilemma: should we publish such allegations without stronger evidence? We decided that the person is a credible informant, not just from the detailed employment history provided, but also because the allegations unfortunately chime with the experiences we are seeing.

Related: Has John Lewis lost the digital-age plot?

Not only do Guardian Money’s “Consumer champions” continue to receive a steady flow of complaints about John Lewis when we used to see none, but you can also read them piling up on review site TrustPilot. Until now, John Lewis’s fabled customer service and price guarantees made it the number one choice for Britain’s middle classes. But our whistleblower alleges the picture is changing. Not only is the company using outsourced Capita staff to answer the phones as “John Lewis”, it is also sending orders made online direct to the manufacturers to fulfill.

This saves money as John Lewis doesn’t have to stock the item – but also means it no longer has internal control over handling the order and its delivery. “If you order an item from John Lewis and it is fulfilled by a supplier, then there is almost no chance of getting it on time,” the whistleblower claimed. A potential lack of communication between the supplier, the Capita call centre and John Lewis can leave customers stranded, the person alleged. Our source said they were told to spend just four minutes on each call, although John Lewis said this is not true, with average call lengths over six minutes.

But it confirmed that if you buy, say, a Samsung dishwasher online, Samsung fulfils the order, not John Lewis. Is, then, John Lewis’s online service effectively becoming another Amazon Marketplace, where goods are hosted on the site, but you are taking your chances with the supplier?

John Lewis says the customer’s contract is still with itself, and suppliers are meeting exacting service standards. It has embedded a management team at the Glasgow operation to supervise standards, and is happy they are being met. Indeed, it has just extended the £93m contract with Capita.

How else can John Lewis maintain its “never knowingly undersold” slogan without slashing costs to the bone?

In a statement it said: “While we take any allegation of poor standards delivered by our suppliers seriously, we do not believe the environment and practices described by this letter reflect our partnership with Capita. The team working on the John Lewis account handles 11m calls a year, and these claims are not representative of the effort, high standards and pride we know that staff put in to their work. While we don’t always get it right, it’s only in fewer than 1% of cases that our standard deliveries aren’t made on time.”

Many will be sympathetic to John Lewis. Amazon is a ruthless competitor, avoiding taxes and treating staff in a way that would horrify partners at John Lewis. How else can John Lewis maintain its “never knowingly undersold” slogan without slashing costs to the bone? But this is a risky moment for the group. Marks & Spencer squandered its reputation in an elusive search for short-term profits, and this week John Lewis reported falling profits. Please, John Lewis, don’t be tempted to go down the same road as every other retailer.

• Julia Stanley from Haslemere in Surrey, a long-time shopper at John Lewis, says her recent dealings with the online operation have left her “shocked and brokenhearted”, writes Miles Brignall.

Two weeks ago she ordered a Pure Evoke D4 digital radio, but was sent a cheaper Pure model instead. Trying to obtain the correct one has, she says, been incredibly frustrating.

“I have always sworn by John Lewis and have shopped there for over 50 years – mostly because they are the acceptable face of capitalism – but also because their customer service has always been above reproach. But not any more, it seems.”

The regular online shopper says she rang John Lewis customer services four times, all to no avail.

“The first call, no one answered after 15 minutes. On the second two the customer service representative was most of the way through resolving my problem when we were mysteriously cut off. On the fourth call, the rep failed to get through to the johnlewis.com bit so they took all my details and said they would email a request for urgent action,” she says.

Nothing happened, so she called again. This time the customer service rep tried, but failed, to get through to anyone on the website team, telling her that they are a completely different team, and “not as good as us”.

Only by persisting and talking to the complaints department did she finally manage to find someone who could send a replacement.

“Unbelievably, I’m now going through a similar battle to get them to come and pick up the first radio they sent. You’d think they would want it back but, again, I have had to call them twice. None of this would have happened if I’d called John Lewis five years ago. What on earth is going on?” she says.