I’m posting this for two reasons, firstly to make site users aware of what a terrible service they deliver and secondly as I know that it will come up on google searches due to singltracks font of all knowledge when it comes to showing up on search engines.

I have used them 3 times in he last week and so far one of the deliveries hasn’t turned up but has been signed for. Investigating this it appears that its been delivered to a number 30 instead of number 12, however there are only 12 houses on the road!

The second was delivered and left on a doorstep, no attempt to leave it with neighbours who were in, no card left, just dumped on the door step!

Consistently shite IME.

Not detracting from what the OP has said, I’ve had good service in my area.
I’ve not had frequent use, but the packages I’ve had delivered have arrived when expected and even a re-delivery was required (due to being out) it was delivered the next day as requested.
However, having read up on their delivery model it seems the assignments are ‘acquired’ by the people making the final delivery and this is where the system could potentially fall down, as above.
I think I may have been fortunate up to this point.

funnily enough I’ve just had a pretty good outcome – expected worse I must admit

Initial attempt, nobody in. There’s a note in our door asking to deliver to a numbered neighbour but card said needed to be delivered to addressee in person

Next day I was due to be out again so left another note saying “yodel, please try …, they’ll open up here & receive it for me” WHich they offered but he let ’em sign at their house instead once it was obvious I’d specifically asked him to go there
😀

Only had deliveries from them, but in my area, been very good, really early in the morning (not bad for rural area) so catches people before they go out, not left things in bad places. May think twice about sending anything with them though from the above.

Ive been a recipient of Yodel deliveries. All four of which have ended up in my garden. Three were accompanied by no note, and the fourth with a note that said, ‘Left by Garage’. Which is interesting as I dont have a garage, and neither does anyone in the road.

Luckily nothing that could be damaged but terrible service. I emailed the companies that had despatched via them to let them know how Yodel were conveying their company image, but strangely none of them seemed to care either with a stock email response saying they were the chosen courier blah blah. Yodel asked for the driver number to ensure it wouldnt happen again, but it did, twice more.

Its obviously totally dependent on the actually courier.

I only ever use RM to send stuff, but have had good service from the various YODEL deliveries received.

YODEL = shite!

Absolute rubbish i will not use them again. Had a collection organised it took them a week to attempt to get it. I got annoyed and took it to the depot and the service was appalling.

Someone sent me a parcel via Yodel. No ides who as I never got it despite following the instructions on the card to get a redelivery attempted.

I prefer Royal Mail to any courier as the sorting office is only a mile away and Mrs IRC passes it going to work.

I have them both delivering and collecting packages today.

Will let you know how I get on.

…I do know Amazon is filled with people bitching about them, since they became Amazon’s default courier.

Toolstation use them.. last next day delivery from them took 7 days

We’ve had nothing but trouble with Yodel.
Had parcels left out on the doorstep in the middle of winter and more parcels thrown over the fence! Needless to say, the dogs live it when a parcel is launched over the fence as its just another toy for them! As a result they’ve destroyed those parcels!!

As a result now we won’t shop online with anywhere that uses Yodel for delivery, it’s simpl not worth the hassle.

Last time I had a delivery from Yodel the guy looked at me accusingly and said “I came twice yesterday afternoon but you were out.” This was on a Friday afternoon.

And the thing they were supposed to collect I ended up taking to the post office and sending it back at my own expense. Chumps.

I’d class them as the worst company i’ve ever had to deal with.

They were supposed to collect 2 parcels from me last week which i left out for them in a secure place which i had informed them to collect from. They are clearly labeled as yodel parcels. By chance i had a collection by UPS that same day so that was left near the Yodel parcels, again very clearly marked.

You can guess what’s comming i’m sure, Yodel turn up first and take all 3, unsurprisingly they loose the one that wasn’t theirs. After 7 trips to the depot they finally admit they took the additional parcel but havn’t got a clue what they have done with or or where it would be. After offering no adivce other than “it might turn up” they handed out some mobile numbers of people i can call who “might be able to help” on it’s route to the possible delivery address.

Just to make things better they then lost one of the parcels they should have picked up, but hey they’ll pay out pittance insurance on that one..

Best option? Call the police and report theft? Maybe that’ll focus the mind of the incompetent useless Yodel management?

All these couriers, apart from UPS/ParcelForce/DHL (and a few others) contract out the routes to self-employed couriers.

I tried to send something via Hermes recently – booked for next day collection – didn’t turn up.

I phone them up and ask why they never turned up (business address during office hours)… person on the phone said “As they are self-employed, it might not have been worth their time to make a collection in your area”.

Right….

They did turn up the next day…. I guess they could be bothered…

The two or three times I’ve had packages via Yodel have all arrived when expected and were left in the requested place & with a note posted through the door.

It seem’s that Yodel need to be more thorough with vetting who they employ to do the local deliveries.

Dont even get me started on My Hermes, they got me barred from ebay for a year due to rediculous delivery times and ensuing poor feedback left by recipients

My Hermes

Had a delivery from them this morning. They are always very good. As it’s a franchise of sorts, it really depends on the individual. Factor in the pittance they get paid, though, and it’s understandable if some are a bit shite.

We’ve had a problem with a yodel delivery…didn’t turn up but the status said it was delivered. It turned up on the doorstep unannounced about 3 days later after arguing with various people trying to convince them that we hadn’t received.

It turns out the Yodel delivery drivers are all self employed, you just need a car.

I suspect that our package was in the boot of the car and he forgot about it so just marked it as delivered. Given the choice I wouldn’t use them.

I think Yodel is used by companies who care more about cost than customer service.

they’re not as bad as City link.

Yodel sometimes deliver a parcel, sometimes they don’t.

City sometimes deliver a parcel, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they deliver death threats*.

(*i’m really not kidding)

sometimes they deliver death threats*

On the plus side, at least they delivered it.

Edit: I thought I got a weird sense of deja-vu.

in contrast DPD seem to be really good…

Had very good deliveries from them in past. Don’t mind them leaving packages at back door or in wheelie bin etc. My gf though had a package lost by them and they took agaes to admit it before the shop sent another one.

in contrast DPD seem to be really good…

Their notification system is bang on.

Our experience has been universally bad to the point they just don’t bother attempting to deliver to us. We live a little way out in the country but nothing too remote. They just don’t seem to bother. At least if it is something you ordered yourself you know to expect it but when somebody else sends you something e.g. a birthday present you don’t know its coming so don’t know it hasn’t been delivered. I talked to a couple of companies that use them and both were in the process of terminating their contracts for poor service. If I have to choose between two companies for an order where one uses Yodel I will pay extra to the other company that doesn’t use them so that I can actually get what I order.

Used yodel a couple of time, deliveries took longer than expected to be picked up but they were delivered alright. We now use nightfreight n they’ve been spot on, really good for small business with sporadic pick ups and deliveries. They seem to be in it for the long haul and deliver good customer service, and our local pick up guy is a right laugh which is a bonus.

Yodel deliverist fired a ‘sorry we missed you’ card through the front door so forcefully that it was a whole week later I discovered who had left that box of goodies behind the wheelie bin. It could’ve ended badly, but didn’t.

Our last experience of Yodel was them being unable to deliver (as we were at work), and Mr Toast arranging with the courier to have it taken to the depot and he’d collect it. The courier was rather rude, “Yeah, yeah, ok mate”, then abruptly hung up.

Next day Mr Toast cycles to the depot to collect the parcel… and nothing. The woman there was annoyed at the courier, and phoned him to give him a bollocking. He admitted that it had been arranged for it to be taken to the depot… but he’d forgotten. Instead, he’d tried redelivery, but again, we weren’t in (as we were at work). So this time he’d left it with a neighbour.

Only it wasn’t our next door neighbour, it was ‘one of the houses on the other side of the road’… and he couldn’t remember which one. He hadn’t written it down for his own records, and he hadn’t bothered to leave us a card – we had no way of knowing where it was. He then tried to claim that he’d phoned us, and that ‘a woman’ had said on the phone that it was OK if he left it with one of the other houses, which was a blatant lie.

Fortunately t’husband managed to retrieve the errant parcel through door-to-door investigation, but it beggars belief that a nationwide business with huge contracts employs people that blatantly don’t give a toss.

DPD managed to lose a parcel of ours. It was a 14ft long narrow boat propshaft.
Yodel are hopeless, we have stopped using one of our suppliers due to their use of them as their courier, parcels took up to a week to arrive which is of no use at all when ordering parts for vehicles required back on the road next day.
In our experience only TNT are consistently good but as always depends how good your local driver is.

I’d never heard of them until this thread, but wierdly I’ve just been downstairs and found a ‘you were out…’ card from them. There was a mobile number which I called and got through to the driver. He said he was two streets away but wasn’t coming back this way. I asked what to do now, he asked if I was in later (not sure why that matters as I was in earlier, too), when I asked roughly what time he hung up. Great!

To follow up my post, I just phoned the 0800 number and got through to a person very quickly who took my details. The parcel has just arrived from a very grumpy courier. Not a great experience but it was all resolved pretty quickly

Yodel just delivered and picked up my packages. No complaints today.

Only had experience of them once. They delivered some specticles with a value of about £300.

They had put a card through the door saying they were left round the back of the house. The parcel was partly open, and for a £300 pair of glasses they should have been signed for and not just dumped round the back of the house, not covered up etc.

I actively discriminate against businesses that use Yodel. I’ve been driven to utter distraction by their terribleness. Driver was basically just taking parcels back to the sorting office as no-one at home without bothering to attempt the actual delivery. They then refused to give me the parcel as I didn’t have an attempted delivery note!!

They lie, accuse you of lying and then make you feel like you’re doing them a favour by sorting out their mess.

Key the vans I say. 😈

Yodel were formed after HDNL , the previous worst courier ever, took over part of DHL’s UK business. From Wiki:

Following a takeover of DHL’s UK domestic B2B and B2C arm, HDNL rebranded itself as Yodel.[18][19] Yodel received much negative publicity in December 2011 for alleged instances of poor performance.[20][21] Yodel ascribed the failures to unexpectedly high demand.[22] However, The Daily Mail later printed a clarification after exaggerating the amount of backlogged and undelivered packages by Yodel.[23] In March 2012, the BBC’s Watchdog (TV Series) consumer programme broadcast a segment highly critical of Yodel.[24]

It’s great to see that they have carried on delivering, or not in this case, the worst courier service in the UK.

They sponsored the Tour of Britain. They had loads of bannerage up at the start in Jedburgh. I wondered what kind of company it is, now I know, a rubbish one.

I will never use Hermes or Yodel for work.

As mentioned, they have a very cheap delivery model involving self employed drivers using their own cars to make deliveries.

They pay these people a pittance per delivery and so can hardly expect them to deliver great service.

I recently had an item shipped with Hermes from Germany – it took 48 hours to get from collection in Germany to the UK and a further 5 days to get delivered.

it beggars belief that a nationwide business with huge contracts employs people that blatantly don’t give a toss

Let’s be honest – this phenomenon isn’t restricted to Yodel.

British customer service is too often something along the lines “What can I do for you? Not much I hope” …

Tesco use Yodel, and I’ve just had Tesco customer care tell me that they’ve missed three deliveries and the article which was meant to be delivered next day is still sitting in a depot somewhere.

I suggested that Yodel are shit and even the Tesco customer care operative agreed.