Johnlewispartnership Reviews 

This review is purely based on the customer service experience. I have tried to contact JL via live chat on two separate occasions a few months apart. On both instances I was not able to connect to an agent and it appears to time out after an hour. The most recent time I was advised the wait time was only apx 22 minutes, yet an hour had passed and still no answer. I gave up in the end and am returning the item.
For a company that used to be highly regarded this customer service is pretty bad. They are quick to despatch items, a little slower during sale times, and generally very good unless you need to actually get hold of someone to chat with.

Do not bother trying to contact customer services . Calls get cut off average wait time 30 mins (Saturday ). Order lost or damaged and you have to call them . 4 times …Never thought to even look at trust pilot for John Lewis but should have poor reviews ! They need to sort it as I predict they won’t be around in a year or 2

Well it’s seems like John Lewis have now plummeted to the same depths as all those other ‘customer service’ depts we all know and hate so well.
Yesterday, I ordered a DAB radio, for delivery to my local post office by 4pm today (Saturday). Confirmation email stated “Your order will arrive on 25th July”. Happy days. Until mid afternoon today, when I receive an email from Royal Mail saying delivery will be tomorrow by 7.30pm ! Good luck with that, I thought, as the post office doesn’t open on a Sunday. So I rang customer services. After about 20 minutes, I finally spoke to someone who sounded like they were either on the moon, in Outer Mongolia, or using the first ever phone invented, the line was that bad. I had full signal but had to keep repeating myself and even asking if she was still on the line due to periods of drop-out silence. She must have been using a mobile in a bad reception area, no landline could be that bad, goodness knows where it was. After checking my order number, she quite nonchalantly told me that the delivery date was an aim, not a guarantee, so it’ll now be delivered on Monday ! I therefore again pointed out that their confirmation email said the delivery WILL be today, not maybe or if the wind is in the right direction. I could almost see the blank expression on her face as she again stated it will now be Monday. I feel particularly disappointed as I know how good John Lewis used to be, but their standards, if this is anything to go by, are now through the floor. Probably won’t be troubling them again any time soon.
Footnote : Just researched & found their customer services is based in Cape Town, South Africa, cos it’s cheaper than UK. Poor choice of cost saving if my experience is anything to go by.
2nd Footnote. After multiple daily messages/broken promises with updated delivery day/times, my order finally arrived on the Thursday, e.g. 5 days late. Now, I realise that when John Lewis have dispatched the goods to the ever-reliable Royal Mail it’s out of their hands. But why then state ‘your order will arrive next day’ when they know full well there’s no chance of that realistically happening. They used the 48 hour service on myy order. which (again) Royal Mail advises is an ‘aim’ not a guarantee.
So please, John Lewis, at least be honest with your customers, don’t promise a next day delivery when you know it won’t happen. That then gives people the option to shop at Argos etc for a next day delivery/collection if required. Needless to say I won’t be ordering anything else online from John Lewis.

Bought a tower fan from john lewis believing they had great service & great products unfortunately I’ve found out that’s not the case. After 4 weeks it has stopped working & I have spent far too long trying to contact them. Been waiting more that 30 minutes on the line & it doesn’t give you any indication as to where you are in the queue so gave up as i’m paying for the call.

Awful, must be a lot of complaints because to live chat is waiting 85 minutes or phone is never ending music.
Shocking service from JL regarding an appliance order and all the wrong communications which doesn’t get resolved emailing customer services because they don’t seem to read the notes and see what’s going on. Order cancelled, never again.
What’s happened John Lewis????

I made an order on line to be collected.
I was told it works be available for collection on a specific day.
I then received an email telling me it was delayed. Then I received an email advising me my order was lost, and to phone customer service, to either reorder or arrange a refund.

I have spent 20 mins on hold so far. No reply. The online chat doesn’t work.
I can’t cancel the order online.

In the end I have to complete an online form, I’ll see how long til I get a response.

Why ask me to phone them if they aren’t able to answer the call?

This is not what I expect from John Lewis at all.

Shocking Telephone & Chat customer service

Wanted to cancel order.
First phone call - following all options - put on hold after 23 mins - they disconnected
Second call - put on hold - I got fed up after 88mins, I hung up
Third/Fourth/Fifth calls - following options as before - failed to connect(hung up after pressing last menu item)
Sixth call - as before - they hung up after 13mins.

Tried Web Chat Robot
Bot screen , need to transfer to human, please wait.
Wait time 575mins - STAGGERING

Interestingly I received the Chat transcript - no mention of the wait time - so I screen shotted it.

DIABOLICAL DIABOLICAL

Disgraceful!
I cannot recommend John Lewis home furniture to anyone after our experience.
We paid a premium price for a chest of drawers because we expected a high-quality product and professional workmanship. What arrived was beyond disappointing. The quality of the assembly is so unbelievably poor that I genuinely struggle to believe it was put together by a professional. The finish is dreadful, the workmanship is careless, and it looks like it was assembled by someone with no pride in their work. Had my husband built it himself for the first time, I would have been disappointed. To receive it in this condition from a company with John Lewis's reputation is simply unacceptable.
What made the experience even worse was the customer service. We spent well over an hour trying to get through to speak to an actual human being. Instead, we were forced through endless automated systems before finally resorting to a chatbot, where we had to upload multiple photographs of the faults. That was yesterday. Today, we still haven't received a meaningful response—only automated messages acknowledging our complaint.
To add insult to injury, these automated messages cheerfully tell us they "hope you find this experience delightful." There has been absolutely nothing delightful about it. The entire process has been frustrating, time-consuming and deeply disappointing.
John Lewis has built its reputation on quality products and exceptional customer service. Sadly, our experience has been the complete opposite. We have received poor workmanship, an unacceptable level of customer support, and a complaints process that feels designed to keep customers at arm's length rather than resolve problems.
This has been one of the worst retail experiences we have ever had. We paid extra expecting quality and convenience, and instead received an appallingly assembled piece of furniture and customer service that has been slow, impersonal and ineffective.
I would strongly advise anyone considering buying John Lewis furniture to think very carefully before parting with your money. Based on our experience, I would give this purchase and the after-sales service 0 out of 5 stars.

A return for an item that was damaged - told to return, which I did - then got a call from Timbucktoo to say they are sending item BACK & not accepting it! … Can’t call anyone / no one is English - makes things very difficult to communicate! In fact communication isn’t good at all … now going back to CAB (citizens advice bureau) where they are taking this to “Office of Fair Trading!”

Can’t even send a picture!!!!

The call centre that is based in South Africa is dire. I tried 3 times yesterday to get through and it was third time lucky after a 50 minute wait. That music and the apologetic announcement really gets on your nerves after a while. Anyway I eventually spoke to an operator who was obviously working from home because I could hear the kids in the background and she had to reboot her computer twice. She was perfectly polite but I do wonder if my problem had been more than a simple order cancellation if she could have helped.
John Lewis need to sort this call centre business out and maybe bring it back to the UK or Ireland. Until then I will not be making any major online purchases with them.

An online order was cancelled without notifying me, so I missed being able to give a birthday gift. The account area on the website did not give any clue as to why or what I could do. When I tried to get through to find out why I was queuing for 45 minutes with no answer.

Wow and I thought I had problems! Never had a problem in 40 years - completely appalling experience from start to finish with my order and still waiting for refund for out of stock item. Could not believe that others seem to be having same if not worse issues on this review site. Poor show by John Lewis - contacting customer service takes patience as you will not get issue resolved - but given a complaint escalation number and then when you don’t hear anything and go on website with your case number - you get a reply with another escalation case number. What are doing are you doing John Lewis?

I ordered a washing machine including installation and recycling of old one. They weren’t able to install it (due to pipes running under dishwasher) but fine - I just had to call my plumber to do the job. They said to call customer service to arrange recollection of old washer - and I reiterated it would have to be when the new one was installed as I have no place to store it in my small flat. I called customer service 4 times and each of the first 3 times they called and reassured it was marked as urgent on the file to get it collected the next day. On the 4th call, someone told me the status of delivery was marked as complete so they had to first mark it as incomplete and then wait for delivery people to email. She then called me back again 30 mins later saying to explain the whole situation (at this point I had already given up hope and made my own arrangements). Complete negligence right from the original delivery person / installation guy to customer service despite knowing the urgency of the situation. I will not be relying on John Lewis again, they have lost my trust!!

What a complete waste of time the customer service is at john lewis, i shall not be buying anymore electrical equipment from lewis's no chance. I have wasted a whole morning onto customer service to contact technical support (it literally doesnt exist) and they just leave you on hold permanently. I will now have to go into a store to probably cause a scene and complain loudly to resolve the issue with some poor sod. John lewis, oh how you have fallen.

OMG. ABSOLUTELY USELESS.!!ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS CHANGE A JACKET SIZE. TOOK ME WEEKS!!!.
(They even gave me a 'case number!!)
Needless to say never going to JL EVER again

Update: The customer service has somehow become even worse. The engineer's first visit couldn't be completed because he didn't have the required parts, so I waited another week for a return appointment. On the day of that appointment, it was cancelled because the engineer had called in sick. While I appreciate illness can't be helped, this leaves me without a working washing machine for even longer. Despite all of these delays, the flooded kitchen, the repeated inconvenience and the mounting laundry costs, John Lewis still refuses to consider taking back an 18-month-old washing machine that has already developed two separate faults. Negative review still stands sadly.

18 month old washing machine has developed two faults (confirmed by engineer today) and which flooded my kitchen. JL finally sorted the engineer out but the huge issue here is that they have and continue to farm out their "customer service" calls to other countries whos staff have no professionalism or good command of english - twice someone picked up the phone and said nothing even though i could hear kids and people messing around in the background (so not an office environment) - im guessing they get paid for picking up a call as opposed to doing anything and I always record my calls so can share these directly with John Lewis. they also offer zero compensation for customers not having a washing machine for 2+ weeks, 3rd agent bothered speaking but computer says no to any compensation for having to use a launderette for over 2 weeks. John Lewis you should be utterly ashamed - i will never purchase anything other than a toilet brush from you. As an aside - 18 months ago the installation person messed up and he also stole from me (petty thief - things like screws, the dishwasher plastic cup, my tape measure - police report filed) - again i had to fix the errors at my own cost for a plumber and electrician. all in all, do NOT trust John Lewis, record all calls yourself, always pay on a credit card to protect yourself, and if you're a lone woman at home have a friend or someone with you. better yet - buy from AO, Currys etc.

terrible customer service unable to speak to the store in Newcastle i use John Lewis for excellent customer service which seems to have gone down the drain all you get is some offshore call centre who do not care... been hung up on twice now i have ben told to go into store as they cant help and can not transferer me to the store WHAT IS THE POINT !!! been on hold for a manager for 40 mins

Been trying to talk to someone who would help me on a problem with a delivery. JL told me after waiting on the phone a manager would call me in 24/48hrs nothing happened waited a week. Second time gave me a complaint number CASE-3160929 manager will phone in 24hrs still waiting 36hrs on.

Like many others who have left reviews, I am a very long standing customer, and have previously returned to JL repeatedly due to reliable customer service when things go wrong. Oh how it has changed. Almost impossible to speak to anyone and difficult to get matters fixed. In my case, a blind has been delivered broken, so at least not a more expensive purchase like some other reviewers. But what should be a simple phone call to arrange collection and refund (it is too long to just use the standard online return process) has become very stressful and time wasting. Still haven't managed to sort it. Dreadful.

Update - after multiple attempts via every route - email, chat, phone, online form, having to repeat the same information, have finally managed to get the package collected, so at least I don't have a large parcel taking up space in my house. Now apparently takes 14 days for refund. Treated as if I'm a nuisance for expecting a return and refund for a faulty product, although I've remained respectful and polite. Have wasted hours of my time and it will be almost a full month before the refund will apparently come through from the original order. As well as a dreadful customer service experience, it is an incredibly inefficient way for JL to operate, so must be the beginning of the end for what was once a brilliant retailer.

I have been a customer of John Lewis for 50 years. One of the reasons for my loyalty is the customer service. They have re-sited this to South Africa and other places. It is very difficult to communicate with them on the phone with regard to missing deliveries always when Evri are the courier. I was promised after 40 minutes of hanging on, a refund. I received no confirmation and 10 days later no refund. I have now ben told the refund was not actioned and will be now. I will wait and see. This has been a depressing experience and if John Lewis do not re-instate UK call centres I will not be using the online service any more and would advise caution.