Non delivery of appliance

Ordered and paid for next day delivery of £690 double oven. I was given an order number which is to supposed to help track your order. My order tracking just said delivery slot was 7.00 to 19.00 . Although I tried to track order through the given drivers telephone number as the automated service says on the morning of delivery you will be allocated a time slot. One source on their site stated a two hour slot another a 4 hour slot. However I had a 12 hour time slot. The automated tracking just said 12 hour slot and that the driver was not available. At about 17.45 I rang ao telephone number to enquire about my order.
I was told my appliance had not been loaded and maybe it had got damaged whilst loading! Yet subsequently I was told they had around 17 of these appliances in stock.

My husband had taken the day of work to be able to fit my new oven as he had to be away the rest of the week in London. Therefore this was his only opportunity to fit the new oven. Now I was initially told he would not be delivered until two days later. I am also unavailable until after 17.00 the rest of the week. I asked to speak to a supervisor only to be told someone would ring me back, but maybe not that same evening. Again I told them I would be unavailable until evening next day. I was then put through to another department only to be on hold again for the third time and then put onto an automated system telling me my order would be dispatched between 7.00 and 19.00 hours again. I was finally put through to someone who told me my order could be delivered between 18.00 and 22.00 next day and offered an insulting £20 refund as a gesture of goodwill. I am not looking forward to spending more time in tense anticipation of a potential delivery, especially as it could be quite late into the evening. I felt like cancelling my order completely, but it is the run up to Christmas and there is so much to do, so much against my principles I have accepted to take delivery between the hours stated following day.

In my opinion ao need to get their system more integrated with orders and despatch.. The company needs to closely monitor their despatch procedures and flag orders that have not been loaded. I'm sure it would not take an IT wizard to fix things. I ve not had any problems using Amazon, Marks and Spencers or Debenhams with deliveries and orders. If they can run an efficient service why can' t Ao?

Eventually I will have my oven but I have had a lot of aggro , frustration and loss of valuable time waiting around for delivery for a full day. My husband will have wasted his day off and the fitting will eat into our final weekend before Christmas, Talk about the stress of Christmas and not having a working oven. Just hope the oven is fully functional when we finally get it.

I have been told someone else will ring me tomorrow evening about my complaint. I will wait and see if it is followed through.