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mis-heard, Caroline called La Redoute back and, after a further twenty minutes,
she spoke to another sales representative, who seemed delighted to give her the
same information which underlined that, in other words, it was up to the client to
sort out the problems that arose as a result of the company's negligence. She was
given the phone number of a company called Sogep and asked to call them and
sort out her issues. By this time Caroline was in a rage but she went ahead and
called Sogep, where someone confirmed that her delivery was scheduled but had
to be cancelled because of logistics issues - and nobody bothered to inform her!
She was told that in order to topic another delivery date she had to contact
the company that was in charge of deliveries for Sogep and topic directly with
them. She was promptly given the phone number of a company called SED
and was informed that she should quote a reference number to identify her-
self when she called them. When she asked who SED was and what business
they had with her sofa, she was informed that it was the transport company to
which Sogep, the logistics company, outsourced its deliveries. They were the
only people that could sort out issues with delivery timings. Caroline couldn't
believe her ears. Was she, a supposedly valuable client, actually being passed
around like a worthless intruder for a product that she bought which the use-
less retailer hadn't bothered to deliver? She just couldn't accept this treatment
and so she called La Redoute back and, after much argument and insistence
on speaking with a supervisor or director, someone came on the phone, intro-
duced herself as the Client Manager and informed her that they could do noth-
ing for her and she had to follow the instructions of the logistics company and
dropped the phone. By the way, this lady had no idea who SED was! Feeling
helpless, Caroline called SED and after several minutes explaining who she
was a new delivery date was booked for five days later. On the said day, there
was a repeat episode and no delivery was made; she received no phone call,
neither was there an email informing her of the reason for the no-show. She
tried to contain her fury as she called the delivery company the next day where
someone informed her that the driver actually departed to make the delivery
but had to turn back because he couldn't find a parking space. What a use-
less excuse! When she enquired why nobody bothered to call her to inform
her, the person on the other end couldn't think of a further excuse. She apol-
ogized and promised Caroline that the delivery would be made the next day
before noon. Caroline decided to give them a final chance. The next day, as you
rightly guessed, there was no delivery, no call and no email. Caroline called La
Redoute, Sogep and SED yet again. At La Redoute she was told that she was
rude, at Sogep she was informed that the company no longer had any business
with her delivery and at SED the person on the other end of the line dropped
the phone when she expressed her feeling of their incompetence and unpro-
fessionalism. Finally, upon the second phone call to SED where she threatened
to call her lawyer, she was given a new delivery date for the next day. Your
guess is as good as mine - there was no delivery.
Caroline had reached her limit. She called La Redoute and asked for an imme-
diate refund. She was told her request could not be processed until the sofa
had been returned by the logistics company Sogep, who by the way needed to
obtain the sofa back from the transport company SED. The estimated time-frame
for this was six weeks, that is if Caroline followed up immediately by cancelling
her delivery file with SED and subsequently Sogep. After this, then the refund
request could be made and would be dealt with within three months. This
meant that she would probably not get her refund for another five months! And
she had already spent nearly one month running after her sofa to be delivered.
By this time she was sure that she was in a nightmare! How could a company
in the twenty-first century function in this way and demonstrate an apparent
