How the mighty have Fallen

I made an order on sunday evening.

Initially delivery was scheduled for tuesday. On tuesday I recieved an SMS to say my order would be delivered before 5PM. Unfortunately I was out when the driver arrived. He called me and I told him to come back later in the afternoon. He did not. I then received notification that my delivery had been reshceduled. No problem. I had planned to be home the entirety of the day on Wednesday anyways.

Wednesday came and at 2PM I recieve a notification that the driver could not reach me and that my delivery was now cancelled. I was home at the time and did hear any hooting or calling from outside. I did not recieve a phone call as I had the previous day.

I immidiately called the takealot call centre. My hope was that the driver could be re-routed back to me since it was only minutres between recieving the SMS and calling the call centre.

But of course the agent I got through to was not willing in any way, shape, or form to assist me with my problem. I was told that it was too late. The order had been cancelled and i would have to re-order. He refused to hand me over to a supervisor. He simply continued to repeat that there was nothing at all he could do. He even told me that the package had already been delivered back to the warehouse. This I could not undersatand as if the driver had just been at my property it would have taken him at least 20 minutes to drive to the nearest takealot warehouse. The agent however was adamant and basically told me to eff off.

The following morning I called the call centre again and this time got through to a differrent agent. My hope being that this new lady could make up for her colleague's lack of customer service. However, I was wrong. This agent was even worse. She absolutely refused to acknowledge that the takealot driver had been incorrect in his conduct. She continually defended him and again told me that there was nothing at all that could be done in order for me to reiceve my package today (Thursday). I demanded to speak to a supervisor, which she reluctantly did eventually.

After speaking with the supervisor for no less than 5 minutes she informed me that she was on-duty the previous day and had she been informed of this situation she could have turned the driver around and I would have recieved my package.

At this stage I was absolutely livid that both agents I had spoken to, especially the one on Wednesday were so stubborn and so unwilling to provide even an iota of customer service. I immidiately, while still on the call, did a google search to see where I could find the products I had ordered. Low and behold I found the exact same product at Builders Warehouse. 10 minutes drive from my house and approximatley R100 cheaper. I told the supervisor to refund me and that I would be going directly to Builder's Warehouse instead.

The supervisor gladly processed my refund which reflected about 3 hours later, thankfully, but she too was unhappy with the way her staff had handled my situation. I told her to take whatever corrective action was necessary but that I personally no longer cared.

I will definately not be using takealot again. Honestly it is so sad to see them fall like this. I used to order a lot from therm and not once has this ever happened to me. Whenever I had a problem their customer support was always excellent but this time, the way the agents handled my call was totally unacceptable. All that I was asking for was a little bit of customer support to which they could not even offer me drop.