Lost delivery - what's your procedure?

1. Customer orders
2. Royal Mail say they've delivered (tracked)
3. Customer claims non-receipt

How do you tend to handle it?

 

Either refund the customer, or send another item and at the same time claim off royal mail but not sure how far you'll get

 

I have a simple procedure.

1. Form an opinion as to whether or not I believe the customer (this is not an exact science)
2. If I feel they probably have the goods but are playing up, I refund.
3. If I feel they are genuine, I resend.

I tend not to claim off Royal Mail because life is too short.

 

Yup, even with a signature requested Royal Mail claims are all but a waste of time as they're not getting the customer to sign right now.

It might be a slight deterrent for false claims but that's about it.

 

Have you ever had a successful claim Paul?

We've never bothered before but then a £100 order went missing the week before Xmas so I did and got nothing but a standard fob-off reply a month later.

 

Same as above.

Either send replacement or refund, depending on the situation with the customer and cost of goods. Customers cannot really argue if you refund them.

Claiming for parcels seems to go nowhere at all now. We had 3 claims in at the start of January for items that had been collected by the courier and scanned on to the vehicle and then never seen again. All 3 were rejected on Monday because they could find no evidence the items were missing. Case closed, cannot be re-opened. It's really getting silly now, as these parcels were on the couriers van but never got scanned the other end.

Even our account manager is useless, as everything is handled by the 'Loss/Claims Department' and they seem to be robots who just close cases without asking for any evidence.

 

First thing I do is check the address is correct. It is amazing how often customers make a typo on their house number or click on the wrong address on an address finder.

Then I say I have asked Royal Mail to check the GPS on the delivery and return to the delivery address. Often customers magically find the parcel at the thought of an angry postman knocking on the door. I now use tracked, so can actually do this, but still threatened it before.

If customers are asking for a replacement, then it is normally a genuine claim. If they want a refund (why would they suddenly no longer want/need the item?), I make them work a bit harder and send an legal looking INR form for them to sign.

Of course, a lot depends on the item value. A £4 order I may just resend or refund instead as its not worth the time spent.

 

This sounds like the best route to go down. Alex

 

The RM refund may only be £1 per kilo

 

I had a fun one recently with Hermes.

I'd already sent out a replacement to the customer.

Raised a claim with Hermes for non-delivery. They wanted the customer to sign some kind of non-receipt form. No way am I going to ask a customer to sign something from another company when it's their fault. Hermes kept insisting - until I pointed out that they had already acknowledged on another support incident that the courier had left the parcel at the front door of a block of communal flats because he didn't have time.

They paid up sharpish after that.

 

Unfortunately this is very common. As we send out high value goods we will not let anything be left without a signature.

We had a situation recently where client can prove no delivery (Ring doorbell) but courier had signed it as delivered. We raised a claim with the courier, who refused it as there was a proof of delivery on their system... We are now looking for new couriers as this has been happening too often, and the courier company is losing a seven figure contract due to their claims process.

We ask for clients to advise us of any issues within 5 working days so we can raise claims etc.

 

No.

Not against the Royal Mail. DPD, and even Yodel, have paid up in the past for lost parcels. But never the Royal Mail. Which is why I stopped chasing them.

Let's put it in perspective, though. The number of parcels lost is a tiny percentage of the parcels sent across all carriers.

 

Yeah agree it's small but the ones that go missing always seem to be much higher than the average order value

 

I doubt that is entirely an accident!!

If an operative is mislaying the stuff into their own garage, I reckon they would get quite good at spotting the right packages.

We sold trainers. We also sold tee shirts. We never had a tee shirt go astray.

 

Who do/did you ship with Paul if you don't mind me asking?

I'm wondering if a change from RM to the likes of DPD would help.

But with an average order value of £35 (inc VAT & postage) I'm not really sure the added expense is worth it unless it's going to be a huge deterrent.

 

I shipped with Royal Mail and DHL, with a small stint of Yodel, over a period of 12 years.

My choice was based not so much on the value of the shipment but a combination of the weight, and the destination.

Small parcels (like a tee shirt) went Royal Mail because the price gain is big. Anything much larger went DHL, and everything to the USA went DHL.

In Europe, it got more complex, mainly based on experience of local postal services to whom the Royal Mail contract the onward transmission. In Spain, DHL. In Germany, only DHL for the over 1kilo.

It does sound complex! But over the years you kind of evolve a system that works - and it is a bit subjective.

 

My Strategy...is always delay remedial action (refund/resend) as long as I can - while still trying to keep the customer onboard

....why? Because most things do show up ...if I act too fast, the customer simply gets free stuff. - A lot of my customers have got free stuff due to a pesky bug going around & thereby causing havoc with delivery times.

 

Most of our orders are through eBay.
Customer claims non receipt.

If I can see tracking from parcel or large letter I look to see if item delivered.
Strangely sometimes item is delivered but system never updated.

Ok, item shows delivered. I email the customer telling them the day and time.

90 percent of the time that ends the matter. Occasionally someone comes back and says their son picked it up and put it in a different room. As you do of course.

If they still insist they have not had it then choice is refund them in full or ignore the problem.
eBay will back me regardless as item shows delivered.

However from experience I know sometimes items get delivered - to the wrong house.
Right number, wrong road. Or in with post for a house down the road.

So it can happen that both royal mail and customer are telling the truth. Some I do refund.
Talking around 5 to 10 pounds a year in losses these days I think. Possibly a lot less.

 

I never send a replacement for an item missing in the post. One goes missing so can the next one.
A chunk of the missing items do eventually make their way back to us uncollected. Did once have an item and it's replacement both arrive back several months after being sent out.
I just refund and block the buyer. Simpler.

 

I understand you don't want the customer to get free stuff and I agree that most items do show up. I've had a "missing" item show up several weeks later after I'd sent the customer another item so they ended up with an extra item they said they would donate to their local charity shop.

I'd be interested to know if you've found that delaying remedial action is more likely to lead to negative reviews for your shop. That's a real concern for me.