NextDayChampagne.co.uk www.nextdaychampagne.co.uk

I ordered some champagne and truffles from NextDayChampagne.co.uk for a family member's marriage blessing which I was unable to attend. I ordered on Wednesday with a request for delivery on the Friday of that week, the day before the blessing. In due course, I received an e-mail with confirmation of my order and then a follow up e-mail with confirmation that the order had been despatched along with the opportunity of tracking my order. It all seemed to be going well. However, the order did not arrive on the Friday I requested and, of course, as they don't deliver on Saturdays, it did not get there in time for the celebrations. Hugely disappointing! I tried to telephone NextDayChampagne using the number I had been given on the confirmatory e-mail but nobody answered when I tried and I could find no information on the website as to what is classed as office hours so I knew when to phone. As it was a bank holiday weekend, I left it until the Tuesday to see whether the product was delivered before chasing up the order. I tried again by telephone at around 5.15pm and couldn't get through again and there does not seem to be a facility to leave a message and so I telephoned the carriers direct instead. I was put through to the local depot and was told that their delivery driver could not find the property and they requested the telephone number of the recipient so they could request directions the next time the delivery driver tried to deliver. There was no apology offered to me whatsoever from the local depot. I decided to e-mail a complaint to NextDayChampagne on Tuesday night rather than persist with the telephone. I received a telephone call fairly early on the Wednesday morning with an apology. There was no offer of compensation for not delivering on the requested day until I asked what they were going to do about it. I was told that they would refund £6.50 which is, in effect, the delivery charge as whilst they say it is free delivery it is, in fact, all included in the price. After pressing for more he said he'd send my relative a box of chocolates as a goodwill gesture. As they'd replied to my e-mail quickly and offered some compensation with a promise that they'd sort it out I left them to it fully expecting delivery later that day. Nothing was delivered. I telephoned the carriers again on Thursday and was told that their delivery driver had tried to deliver it for the first time on the Wednesday and couldn't find the property and did not have a number. I found this hard to believe, which I pointed out, and I was getting extremely irate by this time. I was promised a call back and when they did I asked what they were going to do about it. The upshot was that the carriers said they owed me nothing as NextDayChampagne was their client, not me. I, again, spoke to someone at NDC who, in fairness, offered me a box of chocolates in addition to the box sent to my relative and told his carriers that the champagne must be delivered that day. The champagne and truffles were finally delivered on Thursday at 7pm, six days after the day they should have been delivered. The delivery driver commented to my relative that the property was easy to find. That was over a week ago and neither me or my relative have received the chocolates promised. Whilst I was assured that the problem was a one off and the problem was with that particular depot, and they would like to prove that to me by upgrading my package next time I ordered through them, I'm not sure I want to risk going through all that again. Resolving the matter took up a lot of my time, and I feel that if I wasn't on their back, my relative would still be waiting for the champagne now.