Deliveryblues

Friday, March 24, 2006

The rest of the parcel collection tale

Here's the conclusion of the posting of 9th March....

Guess what, the collection didn't happen. Don't forget, this was the day given to me, not the day that I selected. Ideally I would have like it a day or 2 earlier - and they still didn't make it. Nobody called me to apologise and I had no point of contact to find out what was happening.

Now, here is exactly why they are so much cheaper than many of the competitors. There is nobody on the end of the phone with whom to share a rant! Merely the opportunity to log a missed collection. I was going on holiday the following day so I knew that another collection day within the next week would be no good. I couldn't tell the parcel company this, so I e-mailed them telling them not to attempt a collection within the next week. Guess what, this e-mailed was ignored (because it was not part of the automated process) and I was allocated a collection slot for the next day - but I was only told this on the next day!

What did I find when I got back from holdiday? One of those "You were out when we called to collect...." notes. I called the courier company..."We can't do anything unless authorised by the parcel company". I called the parcel company, you know the one with the completely automated service with nobody to speak to. So I logged a missed collection and waited. Next day I received an e-mail telling me that I had been allocated a collection for that day. The rest all went smoothly and the parcel was collected as promised.

So what did I learn from this?

1- When there are 2 separate parties involved; one selling the service and the second one providing it, it can be difficult to talk to who you need to if there is a problem.
2- If a shipment may be critical to your business, you have to use a Company with real people at the end of the phone - otherwise, when problems arise, you won't be able to sort them out quickly.
3- You get what you pay for.

Would I use them again?

Maybe, but I would also consider a provider that allows me to drop the parcel of at their depot too. At least then I can stay in control. You would think that the Post Office / Royal Mail / Parcel Force (I think they're all part of the same organisation aren't they?) would come into the equation here wouldn't you? Well they do just, but how confusing is it trying to use them - but that's for another day!!

Monday, March 20, 2006

Collections and returns

Whether you’re shipping an item that you’ve sold or are returning something that you’ve bought via mail order or the internet and that is faulty or the wrong size/colour/style, being in your house is still an issue. You may have received it with a minimum amount of fuss, but now you have got to wait in for somebody to come and collect it. I know that some slightly more intelligent retailers allow you to return the “home-shopped” items to their high street stores, but in the majority of cases you can’t do this.
I can only imagine that this must put off a lot of potential home shoppers. I wonder if anybody knows how many? It would be interesting to know if there is any research into these things.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Well done that delivery man

Just had another home delivery today. The postcode and house number was right, but the street name on the package was wrong – how could that happen? No wonder the poor delivery guys get lost!! Anyway, this was a case of a delivery driver with his head screwed on – he remembered delivering something to my house quite a few months ago and thought he recognised it when he drove past. He was also lucky in that I had only just got home about 2 minutes before he showed up. So with a double dose of luck I got my delivery first time.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Cool idea aims to transform home shopping

Cool idea aims to transform home shopping

I found this article that was published in the Yorkshire Post Today (Leeds, Yorkshire, UK) about a refrigerated container that enables groceries to be delivered when you are not in. Note the bit that says it’s endorsed by Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and ASDA etc, which sounds impressive.

They’ve priced it so that you can rent one per week which looks a good idea (about £2.50) because to buy one outright is about £350 and you can buy a really good additional fridge freezer for your garage for the same price.
I’ve never seen one of these in use. Has anybody used this yet? If so, let us know how you got on? Is it good value? How do you manage with accepting substituted products if you’re not there when the delivery is made? Has it changed your life?!?

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Left hand / right hand!!

I ordered some goods from a mail order company and waited patiently for them to be delivered. After a few weeks I phoned the company to enquire about them, to be told that they had been delivered. I told them this was not the case and asked for them to be delivered immediately or to be refunded the money they had taken from my account. I was told that they would send out a customer complaint form, and when I’d filled it in and they’d received it they would do as I requested. I was livid. I found out who the courier was and phoned their depot directly. They had a record of the attempted delivery, I had not been home and I was supposed to have been given a card to re-arrange delivery, obviously I had not got the card. They found the parcel and re-delivered it next day (fortunately I was in). Unfortunately, the company in question thought better of making me wait for a customer complaint form and they re-filled the order and sent it without checking with their courier. I then had the trouble of returning the extra goods. This company really wants to sort out its delivery system, because they will loose customers with this kind of performance.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Collections and pick-ups

Today, I’m currently waiting for a parcel company to collect an item that I’ve recently sold on eBay. I need to go out, but you can guess that the law of Samuel Oliver Davy will come into play the moment I set foot out of here and the delivery van will turn into the road.

It’s quite a big item that weighs nearly 20Kg and is being shipped to mainland Europe. Why is it that one of the relatively new shipping companies, that has grown up largely on the back of eBay, can ship for less than half of the price of the more established companies? Maybe it’s something to do with the quality of service or lower overheads etc? Anyway, time’s moving on and the collection deadline approaches. I’ll let you know what happens.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Sound Familiar?

What I find interesting is that just about everybody I mention this blog to has a story to tell of a failed delivery. Here’s a typical one from a friend of mine….


I ordered 2 pairs of shoes from Hawkshead (BOGOF sort of deal!). I didn’t know when the delivery was due so I missed the delivery and was carded. I phoned to re-arrange the delivery and had to agree to morning or afternoon (8-1pm, 1-6pm). I waited in all morning and they turned up at midday. One pair was wrong. I telephoned and was told that they could be collected the next day, morning or afternoon. Again, I waited in all morning and finally they were collected. The next day I had a lot to catch up on (as I’d stayed in for 2 days waiting for delivery people) and I went out and missed the re-delivery of the second pair of shoes and was carded. The next day I waited in and the delivery didn’t turn up (some clerical error!) So I waited in again the next day when the shoes finally arrived. The shoes are fine, but really nothing special and certainly not worth the hours of frustrating waiting and inconvenience…

Sound familiar?

Monday, March 06, 2006

Brassed Off Britain

Did you know that according to the BBC TV programme called Brassed Off Britain, consumers considered that delivery issues are right up there (or rather down!) with banks and call centres in the top 10 of gripes. Take a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bob/ to see what all the fuss is about - there are some very familiar tales of woe here.

Friday, March 03, 2006

It's all in the delivery

Continuing on the theme of what's really good about home shopping....

.....The right products seem to get onto the delivery vehicles faster and more reliably too. When did you last have to wait 28 days for a delivery for a fairly standard item? And lots of the delivery drivers are kitted out with sexy GPS handheld navigational, database tea-making gizmos (without which they cease to function I believe) that take them right to your doorstep - providing you have keyed in the postcode correctly.

There’s just the small matter of finally getting the parcels into the hands of people like me – the customer. As far as I can tell nothing has changed much in this field since, oh probably the moment when some genius had the idea of cutting a hole in a front door, putting a flap across it so that anybody who dared to use it had the skin stripped from their knuckles and then calling it a letter box. Apparently, this was something that homeowners were encouraged by the Royal Mail to provide from 1849 (thanks to Paul of www.wicks.org/pulp/part1.html for that little gem). But the problem is that I’m not always at home when the parcel man calls and anything bigger than a couple of DVDs won’t fit through your average letter box.

So everything to help me shop from home has rapidly progressed, except for the final step. Here’s where it gets interesting.

I’m going to post some of my delivery experiences; the good, the bad and the comical. And I’d like anybody who is interested to add his or her experiences too. But rather than just a collection of gripes, why don’t we try and be constructive too? If a delivery driver or company has gone out of their way to get the job done, used a bit of initiative or whatever, then let’s celebrate that and give him/her a mention.

If a retailer has been particularly attentive in providing a service then we should give them a mention too.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

That’s it; I’ve finally had enough. Eventually, I think that everyone reaches the point on an issue when they have to do something about it. Individually we may not be able to change something, but collectively, there’s just a chance we can get things done.

My issue is all about home shopping and the intense frustration that I feel with some of the resulting delivery problems. I despise going to the shops – the driving, the parking, the crowds, the wasted time, and so on - give me ten minutes on a high street and all I want is a coffee. The out of town stores make me feel even worse – toy-town identikit stores fronted by a sea of cars and a couple of fast food outlets (or quick-service restaurants as they like to be known) – talk about an urban desert!

Whence, I take the opportunity to shop online from my PC (which I bought online) whenever possible. Most of the shops are always open, I get to control the temperature (not some crazed hypothermic store manager) and I don’t play Christmas music in September. Actually, there’s a point, why do so many shops have hot air blasters right by the store doors that are always open? I can almost hear the polar bears drowning as I walk past.

I know I can’t buy everything (quite) from sitting on my backside in front of the PC, listening to some music, but there’s a lot that I can buy.

Just look at the progress that has been made over recent years to make home shopping via the internet easier and more reliable
- Broadband connection and download speeds mean you don’t have to “plan” your logon to avoid peak usage times and browsing through images and catalogues online is just about as fast as you need it (unless it’s a site completely besotted with images, animations and all sorts of other incomprehensible “flash” blurb – yes some still exist),
- The ability to search for, and quickly find exactly what you want is something you can just about take for granted now,
- Most sites give you a good view of your shopping cart and make it easy to add and remove items,
- Sites don’t crash, well mostly they don’t. But a recent reminder when trying to get a car insurance quote online when the system crashed right at the end and all my information was lost, reminded me of that hollow feeling one gets in the stomach at the complete and utter waste of time. But it’s rare now.
- And I could go on. But the fact remains – the buying process is a billion times better than it was, say five years ago.

But the picture is not yet complete. Later I’ll explain what I think is missing. But feel free to let me know why you shop from home and what you would like to see done better.