Hotel Chocolat Reviews 60,048

lovely product but customer services are woefully inadequate. 3 days to respond to your email and no one answers the phone

I’m very disappointed with my recent experience with Hotel Chocolat.
I placed an order on Easter Sunday evening for the Ostrich Egg – Everything while it was clearly showing as in stock. I even checked again shortly afterwards and it remained available, so there was no indication of any issue at the time of purchase.
I specifically ordered it to take advantage of the promotional pricing, which was not clearly advertised until the following day. Despite this, I’ve now been told the item is out of stock and my order cannot be fulfilled.
What makes this particularly frustrating is that the promotion has since been removed, meaning I cannot simply reorder or choose an equivalent item at the same value. Offering a refund alone does not reflect the position I was in when placing the order.
This has left me without a suitable alternative at very short notice over Easter, which is disappointing for what was meant to be a special purchase.
I hope Hotel Chocolat will take this seriously and offer a fair resolution that reflects the original promotion, rather than just cancelling the order.
Order number: 75443507

UPDATED: After emailing them full of disappointment and requesting for a resolution, I got a full refund and a voucher of the same amount added to my account. It's not an Ostrich egg, but better than nothing!

Excellent chocolate but their extra-thick Easter eggs are very misleading. The egg is split in half and only the edges are thick. It's a standard thickness egg

I purchased a sachet box from Hotel Chocolat in Shrewsbury. It was supposed to be on offer, but girl at the till said it was not coming up as discounted; so could do nothing!
I contacted Hotel Chocolat customer services, after several emails they agreed and apologised. They said they would refund me via an evoucher. They sent the voucher, but it needs a PIN to activate. This has not been sent. So far this issue has gone on for 14days!. They are not responding to my emails! What do I do? It is only £5..but the customer service is appalling.

We recently visited the Hotel Chocolat store on Frederick Street in Edinburgh as a family, and unfortunately it turned into a very disappointing experience.

We had been really looking forward to it, especially as we had seen a lot about the Velvetiser and wanted to treat our kids. The store itself was quiet, and our children were really excited looking at all the Easter chocolates. We noticed a sign offering a Velvetiser demonstration and encouraging customers to ask a member of staff.

Our 5-year-old built up the courage to ask, but was simply told “no, we are too busy” in a dismissive way. Given that the store was largely empty at the time, this came across as quite rude and left him visibly upset. As parents, that was hard to see, especially as we had encouraged him to speak up.

To be fair, the store manager did acknowledge that the situation was handled poorly and apologised at the time, and we were given a small gesture. Customer services also followed up afterwards and issued a gift card, which I do appreciate.

However, the overall experience still fell well short of expectations, particularly for a brand like Hotel Chocolat where you expect a higher level of customer care. What was meant to be a special treat for our children ended up being quite upsetting for them, and it did take away from the day.

I would suggest that other customers don’t assume that in-store demonstrations will always be available, even when advertised, and that service may not match expectations.

I do hope this feedback is taken on board, as it’s not the kind of experience you would expect, especially when encouraging young children to engage and build confidence.

Total shame that the recipes have changed. Completely reduced their quality since the sale of the company. Their £35 Easter egg tastes like a £2 supermarket chocolate egg, it is alot smaller than previous years and the flavours of the individual chocolates have been dampened down. Will no longer be shopping with them after many years of enjoying the old Hotel Chocolat.

My son bought me one of their premium Easter eggs. Paid £35. Next day they all went half price. My order hadn’t even been despatched. I emailed them asking them to match the price. It not requesting a refund. No reply and didn’t even acknowledge my email. I waited for a week for a reply. Nothing !
Not good customer service at all!

I purchased an easter egg for my wife this year , through amazon. She loves nuts in her chocolate so an egg that states equisitly nutty seems to be the one. However having paid a high price for this so called very nutty egg she was very disappointed to find no nuts at all in the egg or the chocolates that were within. This was not explained in adverts or on the egg packaging.
When she emailed Hotel Chocolate, they just said that the nuts are a paste mixed in the chocolate. and thanks for the feedback.
This is misrepresentation, we have asked for a refund , but not heard back from them.

Expensive but very nice products I’ve always found both the shop and online customer service friendly, courteous and professional. The one star is for the price of the velvitiser and sachets. I’d love to update mine but there’s no trade in or incentive for pre existing customers

Pretty disappointed with the expensive Easter egg. The flavour of the chocolate in the egg was just not enjoyable. I love chocolate and am very confused by the fact that standard mainstream chocolate brands are more enjoyable.

Have used the website for ordering gifts for friends for 10 years. Prompted to download Android App via Googlestore.

Entered order, delivery address etc. and confirmed order. Received security code confirmation from my bank by text, entered code in banking app.

Hotel Chocolat app then said there were no items in basket. Checked bank account & no payment had been made.

Checked my Hotel Chocolat account via browser, and the two intems were still in basket.

Several things to note:

1) App wants to store my debit card CCV. I do not want my CCV stored on any system. I prefer to enter it each time, at the point of payment.

2) Addresses previously stored in account when using browser on website, not shown in app.

3) As far as I can see, it's not possible to delete your online account.

Given the fact that their app doesn't work (does anyone test anything these days?) I'm now reluctant to use their web site, as it's obvious things have not been fully tested & will therefore delete my account.

It's only chocolate, after all. Will use Marks & Spencer from now on. Just as good, cheaper & far better value.

Bought some chocolate in their sale, and it was still overpriced. One of the "thick" eggs was WAY smaller than it's packaging, very misleading having huge egg shaped boxes that are an inch thick, with a much smaller egg inside.

And it was still over £17 at half price! Got about 10 chocolates inside it, not worth the money even with the sale.

Cocoa prices have gone back down lately, but chocolate prices remain elevated, we're being ripped off and I won't support it.

Hotel Chocolat has, in my view, been giving a poor customer experience for some time. The latest re-boxing and re-pricing is the final straw. The chocolate quality has deteriorated. Pricing is through the roof. Time to say goodbye.

Web site is always broken. They offer you prices. You add items to the cart. Then it tells you that the discount code THEY added can't be used. So you remove the code and then it tells you that one of the items they displayed and happily added just seconds ago isn't available any more, without giving any clue as to which one it is. So you waste time deleting item by item until you have just one item left and the message is still there even though the item is STILL there to be selected for purchase on the main site.

This has happened so often and you contact them and days later they tell you they are sorry and the web team have been contacted and then months later when you decide to give them another try you discover things are just as bad not worse.

Totally done with them now. Their prices are sky high but not a penny invested in fixing a broken web site. So sick of wasting time with them.

Not for chocolate lovers.
An upgrade over Cadbury' milky, cocoa free rubbish, but only just!
Bought an Everything Easter egg as a present. Tasted myself. What a disappointment.
Hardly any dark chocolate in the egg and the 'fillings' were at best ok.
£36 for something that is arguably just tolerable at half the price.

Thank you to Julian at Hotel Chocolat, Winchester, for giving me a free chocolate lolly as your Easter fried eggs ones had run out. Totally unexpected and gratefully received. I mentioned I’d given my elderly Dad lots of Hotel Chocolat treats and Julian wished him well. What a lovely, caring person. We need more of these people in the world. And the chocolate is always my favourite too. Delicious. Thanks so much 🙏🍫💝

My 2nd Velvetiser failed within 12 months of purchase, so this time I believed I had a claim. The coating on the inside has worn away and the spinner isn’t frothing the drinks anymore. I was offered a new spinner, but that won’t fix the problem. Customer services asked for photos and proof of purchase etc which I gave them. Haven’t heard from them again as the next step is to replace the whole jug and I guess they don’t want to honour the guarantee. I will buy another frothing drinks maker, but I won’t give Hotel Chocolat any more of my money. Other similar products are much less money anyway..

Velvitiser pouches used to be 35g. Now they're 31g, resulting in a weaker drink and reduced consumer experience. Another company who offers less for more...

I love the products but have stopped buying the hot chocolate now they are in individual sachets. HC say they have got the perfect quantity to make your hot chocolate but that depends on taste and cup size! Worse than that, this is a rediculous amount of packaging and goes against sustainability, at a time companies are encouraged to cut packaging.

. I had bought the proper cardboard tubs for years but they have lost a customer now. What a shame but I can’t justify buying individual
Sachets with such a wast of packaging and to be told how we are supposed to like it. Very disappointed 😟

The 70% dark chocolate lost its special quality. It now tastes like most dark chocolates but is more expensive. One difference is the sugar content going down to just 27% but there must have been other changes. What a pity, but I always expected it when the company was taken over. Myself and my family were regular consumers, but we shall have to turn to other brands now.