Tesco customers miss out on deliveries due to tech fault

A technical failure in one of Tesco’s systems has meant customers have missed out on deliveries from online orders.

While customers took to Twitter to complain about missing or cancelled deliveries, Tesco explained an issue with its IT systems meant in some cases it was unable to pick items for some of the orders placed through its Grocery Home Shopping service.

A spokesperson from the brand said: “We’re currently experiencing an IT issue which is affecting some online grocery shopping orders. We’re working hard to fix this problem and apologise to customers for any inconvenience this may cause.”

The supermarket claimed less than 10% of its customers have been affected by the issue, which meant some of the supermarket’s stores were unable to access orders placed by customers.

Some customers have contacted the brand via social media to complain about orders being cancelled at the last minute, while others reported that orders simply didn’t arrive.

How brands interact with consumers via social media is becoming increasingly important, with many consumers claiming social media services from a brand could make or break their decision to use a retailer or brand again in the future.

In 2015, Tesco saw a growth in its online grocery business as consumers begun to push retailers of all types into the omni-channel space, but this has since slowed down.

But consumer behaviour has also led to a drop in footfall in some of its physical locations, and the supermarket brand has previously blamed drops in profit on its shift to the digital omni-channel realms.

Despite the supermarket announcing in 2014 that it would be cutting IT budget to reduce its spending, Tesco has embarked on a number of digital projects in the past few years, including a pilot for image recognition software for product placement in stores and developing a shopping app for virtual reality Google Glass devices.

The supermarket giant has spent the past couple of years investing in improving customer experience across all of its channels, and as consumer habits are becoming increasingly cross-platform, retailers are under greater pressure to invest in digital initiatives to cater to fickle customers who are driven by low prices and good service.

In 2015, after some debate about selling off the unit behind its Tesco Clubcard loyalty programme, Tesco decided to keep data analytics arm Dunnhumby in an effort to maintain cash generation across the business.

In the same year, sister firm Tesco Bank suffered from an IT glitch caused by an automatic overnight update that left customers unable to log in to use the system.