I’ve mentioned many times that I order our groceries from Tesco. And I’ve been really impressed with their improved customer service compared to when I gave up on them 3 years ago.

Except for one issue.

Tesco have a system where, if you give them a mobile number, they text you. First with a ‘don’t forget you’ve booked us!’ text the day before your delivery and then with a ‘your groceries will arrive between x and y’ on the morning of your delivery. That second one narrows down the delivery time to one hour and is very handy.

I have not received that second email in, literally, months.

In fact, on reflection, I am 99% sure I haven’t had one since March, when I included a screen shot of a text message they sent me, when my groceries were late. If you read that blog entry, you’ll see that the text message was sent at 1107 and said my groceries would arrive at 1021, after they sent one saying 1121.

I am fairly sure their inability to send me such texts started then. Every week I Tweet to @UKTesco and complain. Every week they claim it will be fixed.

It hasn’t been.

They have also ‘escalated it’, fixed it ‘manually’ and so on. For weeks.

At this point I don’t even care about the stupid text message, as handy as it is.

I just want them to admit they can’t fix it and they have no idea why.

But I doubt they will.

So yesterday, as per usual, we had a grocery delivery booked for our week’s groceries. We do this through Tesco as it’s either them or Sainsbury’s and we’ve just always used Tesco.

The only thing that wasn’t usual about yesterday was the time. Since Simon’s parents were down and we didn’t know what we’d be doing during the day, we booked it to be delivered between 8 and 10 am, instead of between 2 and 4pm.

At 810 I received a text saying ‘your groceries will be delivered between 9 and 10.’ Perfect.

10am. No groceries.

Simon gets on the phone to their customer service centre who ‘try to contact the driver’. I have put that in quotes because Tesco have never successfully contacted a driver when there has been a delivery issue in the nearly 10 years (off and on) I’ve been having them delivery my groceries. Apparently everyone in the world has mobiles and GPS except Tesco drivers, as, once again, they couldn’t tell us where the truck was. So the customer service centre person said ‘I’ll ring the store and ring you back.’

At that point I gave up and began getting us organized to go to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and made a new shopping list so we could stop on our way back, because without that delivery? We had no food.

At 1107 I received text that said ‘Apologies, you delivery is delayed. It will arrive between 8 and 1121am.’  Two minutes later I received a second text, that one said ‘Apologies, your delivery is delayed. It will arrive between 8 and 1021 am.’ O_o. Tesco have a TARDIS?! Cool!

At 1122am we said ‘fuck it’ and started getting into the car. And then a Tesco van stopped at the end of the street. Not at our house. At the end of the street. Simon walked down to see if it was for us. Yup. But the driver was on the phone. O_o

At approximately 1130am our groceries were finally in our house.

The driver said ‘Oh are you heading out?’

To which I replied ‘Yes, you were suppose to be here an hour and a half ago.’

To which he replied ‘Well, I was suppose to leave the store at 915 (so much for delivering any earlier than 930, despite my 8-10 slot) and didn’t leave until 1115.’

I have now emailed Tesco the above story, along with a screen shot of the two ridiculous text messages. I have asked them what they will do to keep me as a customer as I am seriously thinking about changing to Sainsbury, although people tell me they are just as bad.

I have had an email saying they tried to ring me, which must be the Blocked Call I ignored on my mobile today (I rarely answer Blocked numbers unless I am actually doing work at the time). The email says they’ll ring again.

We’ll see.