Waitrose.com

Waitrose needed a clear view of the customer experience across its online grocery delivery journey, from order communication to the doorstep interaction and driver departure.

With orders fulfilled through both CFC-managed and Retail-managed routes, the team needed a consistent way to compare performance, identify where standards were slipping and understand exactly where friction was happening.

Shepper built a comprehensive mystery shopping programme to measure the full Waitrose online grocery delivery journey, from order confirmation through to doorstep experience and driver departure.

We activated our nationwide community of Shepherds to complete 2,650 checks across 171 UK towns, capturing real customer experiences across both CFC-managed and Retail-managed orders.

Using the Shepper app, Shepherds recorded key evidence at every stage of the journey, including order confirmation emails, delivery updates, receipts, arrival experience, driver interaction, substitution handling and departure.

This gave Waitrose a consistent, evidence-led way to benchmark performance across fulfilment models, trading periods and individual locations.

Shepper provided Waitrose with a clear score at each stage of the delivery journey, helping the fulfilment team see exactly where friction was occurring.

The programme showed that Retail-managed orders were outperforming CFC-managed orders overall, with the biggest gaps appearing at arrival and departure. It also highlighted specific service behaviours that were being missed, including first-order acknowledgement, customer care signposting and offers of further help before leaving.

By comparing CFC and Retail-managed orders side by side, Waitrose gained clearer visibility of where the delivery experience was strongest, where standards were dropping, and where fulfilment teams could focus improvement efforts.