I’ve had an ongoing battle with getting Yodel to actually deliver goods I’ve ordered rather than kicking the shit out of the parcel and then dumping it on my garden path, on a main road in a less than salubrious area, whatever the weather.

I had a lengthy exchange of views with their “executive complaints” department, culminating in this:

I have engaged directly with our Operations Manager at Middleton and he has requested I pass on his sincere apologies that we have let you down.

The previous courier was removed from the business due to poor performance. The new courier which is covering your deliveries has been personally spoken to and it has been reiterated that under no circumstances are parcel’s to be left unattended or left in an unacceptable manner at your property and the appropriate action has been taken to monitor future performance.

I am genuinely sorry that we have failed to expedite this delivery accordingly and for the upset and inconvenience which has been caused.

I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to my attention and if you require any further assistance in this matter or in the future then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Since then, they’ve managed to actually deliver things for the last year, though how much of that is because there’s usually someone in to accept them I can only speculate.

Until today. I ordered a few hundred pounds’ worth of clothing earlier this week for my wedding, and have just come home to find a large cardboard box dumped outside, in a blizzard.

To say I’m cross is an understatement, I’m **** incendiary. How are they still in business? If ever a company needed boycotting it’s this shower of spunkmonkeys.

So, I’m through. Whenever I order something in future I’ll be asking which courier they use first, and if the answer is “Yodel” I’ll be explaining exactly why they won’t be getting my business. And I’d consider it a personal favour if everyone else did the same.

Yodel. The Dave Hinde of the delivery world.

Oh yeah,

At least they had the foresight not to put a card through the door, so if it’d been stolen (a fairly likely outcome) I’d never have known.

The drivers around me are fine. I can honestly say I have never had a problem with them.
Parcelforce on the other hand. I was sat in 2 days this week waiting on a parcel. 2 times the card was posted through the letter box. No attempt made at knocking or ringing the bell.
I got them to deliver to a post office in the end where my mate went to pick it up with my ID. A pain in the proverbial arse.

We went through a spate of cards being opened prior to delivery with Royal Mail. They rate on my list much the same as Yodel do with you.

Just got a text message asking to complete a satisfaction survey.

I laughed.

Yodel. Making incompetence an art form.

If you’ve not done so already, let the retailer you bought the clothes from know. They’re ultimately responsible for the delivery and have more clouts to make things change.

Yep. I CC:ed them in the email complaint I made.

Yodel suck. Like OP I wont buy anything from anyone who intends to use them.

At the other end of the spectrum is DPD. Got a delivery from them today. Had an email yesterday telling me it would be delivered today. Had an email this morning telling me it would be between 1130-1230 and I could track the driver online. At 11.30 I went online to do so and it showed his location up in my village and said he was 15 minutes away. 15 minutes later he rang the bell.

I realise you’ve agreed with geoffers already but what he said +1. Couriering as a business is still in a massive race to the bottom and I guess we’ll be left with a supermarket style situation in a few years where there are only a few big players with a few specialisers and mega-discounted throw your box in the recycling bin (yes, I know) picking off the easy stuff from the side. We’re all part of this every time we choose one online retailer over another because delivery costs are less. We saw a major casualty at Christmas when CityLink bit the dust. Hell, iirc, some folk on STW were saying “good enough for ’em” because they’d had some shitty delivery experiences. Less costs will inevitably lead to poorer customer service when there’s nothing left to cut.

So yeah, every time you have a shitty experience with your order fulfilment, tell the bloody retailer. And keep telling them. Demand a solution, and tell them you won’t purchase again until they fulfill their orders properly (they like the word “fulfilment”).

Anyway, I hope your blue velvet suit didn’t suffer any damage. 😛

EDIT: it’s hard to decide on a retailer using their choice of courier as criterion. I order from Amazon – sometimes it’s DPD (excellent), sometimes it’s Amazon Logistics (v good) and sometimes it’s been Yodel (one slight problem once but otherwise fine).

TBF the Yodel guys around here are good / average. And for balance, the Parcelforce guy is flippin’ great. He’s well turned out, cheery, knows where to leave stuff if I’m not in, get pleasant wave from his van if he passes in town – just down to folk in the end to some extent.

And DPD don’t do the final mile round here so it goes to a third party whereupon the text / email route doesn’t work. They are good when it works though.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5rg11fTx10[/video]

Have you ever spoken to a delivery driver?

less than 80 p per delivery, usually self employed, 60 + hour weeks to take home £3-400, massive expenses on a liveried van, crippling insurance and fuel prices. Bosses making massive demands, expected to deliver everything and return with an empty van. Its no wonder they leave the parcel anywhere [ they use the bin at mine….well why not eh]

As DD notes we get what we pay for and what we pay for is overworked people scraping a living who will dump a parcel anywhere to get 50 p rather than have to return tomorrow at a loss.
Its shit and the solution is to pay more or use click and collect

I’d be pretty pissed off too OP but have to say that I’ve had no problems with Yodel deliveries. I guess it helps that us or neighbours are around most of the time.

So let me get this right. , you ordered stuff. , probably told what day it was coming ? Why were you not in waiting for it. ? , 45 pence per parcel is the delivery amount for the driver and if you ain’t there to collect you need to try again the next day with no more money to cover your fuel !

Gordy – are you able to stay at home at will at short notice to take deliveries? Have you considered that others may not be able to?

That’s one of the issues with Yodel though, you have no idea half the time when there going to turn up.

The last parcel I had from them , I got a email from the retailer saying it will be delivered ‘By’ x-date, effectively giving a 3day window.

Which day should I arrange to be home to receive said parcel then?
If Dpd can give a 1hr window which they nearly always seem to achieve why can’t these other muppet companies do this also.

I noted that Planet X now give you the option to pay slightly more to have your goods delivered by DPD rather than Yodel.

What do you expect when they only get paid 40p ish per parcel to deliver to your house.

When the cost gets pushed down and down something has got to give.

deadlydarcy – Member
a business is still in a massive race to the bottom

…

I order from Amazon

😀

Al, if you want to stand on your tippy toes, the point might hit you smack in the head, in the process maybe knocking some sense into you, instead of flying straight over.

I’m waiting for a parcel to arrive, it’s been due for days. We get loads of deliveries and every time a courier comes in, I get excited but it’s never my guy. I mentioned that to the regular DHL feller. “Yeah mate, Yodel isn’t it” he says. How did you know? “Because I’ve seen one of their drivers zooming all over the campus all day looking like he’s going to cry” “Could you tell him where to go” “Tell you what, stick a DHL label on his van and we’ll deliver it”

Have you ever spoken to a delivery driver?

Funnily enough, I spoke to a Yodel driver only today when he turned up with my second order.

we get what we pay for and what we pay for

Well, point the first, that’s demonstrably not true as I paid to have a parcel delivered, and what I got was an expensive consignment dumped on the path, exposed to the elements and the passing scrotes.

Point the second, I would have gladly paid for an alternative. I asked the supplier over the phone if I could pay the difference for a non-shit courier and was told “sorry sir, that’s who we use.”

Why were you not in waiting for it

I’m surprised it took so long for a cleverclogs to turn up. We’re growing as a forum. Do you work for a courier?

I wasn’t in because I work for a living. My partner was in to take delivery, but by the time she’d covered the ten yards to the front door the driver had gone. To be fair she’s got mobility issues at the moment, but it’d only have taken her about the same time to answer that it’d have taken me from upstairs. Every other delivery firm in the area manages to let her get to the door, or leave it with a neighbour if we’re out, or take it to a nearby depot where I can go and pick it up, or you know, anything other than dumping it in public and sodding off.

overworked people scraping a living who will dump a parcel anywhere to get 50 p rather than have to return tomorrow at a loss.
…
45 pence per parcel is the delivery amount for the driver and if you ain’t there to collect you need to try again the next day with no more money to cover your fuel !
…
What do you expect when they only get paid 40p ish per parcel to deliver to your house.

I don’t give a toss. Yodel’s internal policies and procedures aren’t my concern. If their business model can’t provide the most basic of services that they’re selling, then they’ve failed as a service provider.

What I expect is for them to deliver my **** parcel. Is this a difficult concept or an unreasonable expectation of a delivery company? What do you expect? If you came home to find a disintegrated cardboard box containing two ruined suits and a build-your-own snowman kit, would you shrug and think “oh well, they were probably a bit busy, I’ll just get married in jeans and a t-shirt then.”

And actually, no, that’s not what I expect Yodel to do. I expect them to do exactly what they’ve just done, because Yodel.

I noted that Planet X now give you the option to pay slightly more to have your goods delivered by DPD rather than Yodel.

I would have gladly paid for an alternative. I asked the supplier over the phone if I could pay the difference for a non-shit courier and was told “sorry sir, that’s who we use.”

THIS! A thousand times this.

Whats missing in this sector is the ability of the victim of the poor service to bring the appropriate market forces to bear on the perpetrators. If the general public were routinely given a choice of couriers – service standards would improve overnight (as would price – but I think people would be willing to pay a little extra)

Point the second, I would have gladly paid for an alternative. I asked the supplier over the phone if I could pay the difference for a non-shit courier and was told “sorry sir, that’s who we use.”

I’d probably have included that snippet in the OP. I’m not joining the Flame-the-OP culture here Cougar, but was this supplier the only one that could supply the blue velvet suit(s) you required? Could you not have said to them that you’d purchase from somewhere else? If enough of your money “walks” down the road to someone else, then they might change their policy of “that’s who we use” to “who would you like us to use sir?”

What pisses me off is the race to the bottom is being imposed on me, I’ll happily pay for better service but do not often get the chance.

The problem with delivery companies is that their is a disconnect between the problems with delivery and the company themselves. Even with Yodel a majority of deliveries get though ok.

With the problem ones the customer only really deals with the delivery company, so most times it is resolved, and as long the customer gets the goods ok the retailer never knows. Out of that small proportion there may be some that the retailer gets to know about – where goods are damaged or lost – and I assume in those cases the delivery company pays up in some way (may depend on agreement with the retailer?) and the problem is resolved.

Only a very small amount of people complain to the retailer, and is that going to make much difference when changing a delivery company would involve changing expensive contracts they are probably tied into?

I’m not defending Yodel or the retailers at all, and it does seem with companies that are offering delivery options the tide is changing, but unless we complain direct to the retailers nothing will change. Hopefully they will listen!

The thing is, I quite like my couriers to leave parcels outside my house if I’m out, but then I’m rural, and (touch wood) haven’t had one nicked yet.

Parcelforce don’t get my business after the shock theft shocker last year.

As DD notes we get what we pay for and what we pay for is overworked people scraping a living who will dump a parcel anywhere to get 50 p rather than have to return tomorrow at a loss.
Its shit and the solution is to pay more or use click and collect

or shop locally…

FWIW we’ve never experienced any problems with having anything delivered, either here (very rural) or previously (smaller town urban).

Could always go to a “real shop” then you could get all shouty face to face, but I guess from behind a keyboard is easier 😆

oldnick – Member

What pisses me off is the race to the bottom is being imposed on me, I’ll happily pay for better service but do not often get the chance.

Yup. I’d often pay the extra for the choice. I offer that for ebay- most of my auctions are freepost via myhermes, with the option of an exact-cost upgrade to royal mail. I kind of set it up by mistake if I’m honest but a surprising number of people take it up, at least a quarter. It’s not faster or anything, it’s just not myhermes.

I’m about to place an order with PX. I’ve already ticked the ‘not Yodel’ box as I’ve also had terrible experiences with them. So yeah, people will pay more, for a decent service. No shocker there, but I still expect my delivery to be not shit when I pay for it in the first place.

I’m not joining the Flame-the-OP culture here Cougar, but was this supplier the only one that could supply the blue velvet suit(s) you required?

(-: I do take your point but really, no. This whole thing has been a nightmare if I’m honest, I hate clothes shopping at the best of times and I’ve procrastinated and put off sorting it out because every time I sat down and tried to sort it out I got all het up about not really knowing what I wanted and being terrified of buying the wrong thing. I found the whole process so stressful that it’s taken me till four weeks before the wedding to actually buy everything.

When I finally came to order, one of the jacket sizes was out of stock so I (pooed myself and) looked around to find something remotely similar and couldn’t without spending stupid money. In the end I filled in a contact form asking if / when they’d be likely to have stock, and apparently their head office then rang round all their stores asking if any had stock in their store (which was pretty impressive service I thought). The shop that rang me going “stop the clock, I’ve found it!” was in Cardiff.

I quite like my couriers to leave parcels outside my house if I’m out, but then I’m rural

Does it not rain there, either?

Could always go to a “real shop” then you could get all shouty face to face, but I guess from behind a keyboard is easier

I could’ve driven to Cardiff, yes, then I could’ve got all shouty at someone whose fault it wasn’t. But I prefer written complaints, I can get the subtle nuances of my grievance in order in a controlled manner rather than going purple and screaming “you’re all bastards!!” and it’s more likely to be delivered verbatim to those who are in a position to do something about it.

I suppose that’s the answer though, isn’t it. If I’m happy to pay more not to use Yodel, I could’ve driven a 400 mile round trip to Cardiff to collect.

Alan sums up Yodel pretty well

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Heybq1s79Y[/video]

45 pence per parcel is the delivery amount for the driver and if you ain’t there to collect you need to try again the next day with no more money to cover your fuel !

I had an order from Amazon which was supposed to be delivered to me at work on a Monday. Perfect I thought! Didn’t get a card through the door (do they not do this?) but I did get an email on the Saturday saying they could’t deliver as there was no-one in. No shit Sherlock. Appreciate that’s not the driver’s fault but who/what ever is co-ordinating the deliveries is not doing them any favours!

On a plus note 2 x items i ordered from crc and merlin yesterday arrived this morning via Royal Mail.
Sorry Cougar….

On a minus note, the 2 items which I ordered from Amazon and were despatched from the Glenrothes (approx 20 miles away) warehouse were mis-sorted are now sitting in DPD’s distribution centre in Teeside (approx 200 miles away) 😥