Parcel2Go : Customer Service Experience

[Naughty Vend]

We ship regularly import / export and thought I'd share our experience today of Parcel2Go, one of the discount parcel companies available online offering lower rates for the same service via DHL, UPS and Fedex etc.

Generally speaking the cut off time is 1430 in our area, but P2G have a self-enforced policy of midday (up to them) so I contacted P2G and asked if they could manage to get the package collected... the computer says no and three different online support agents told me that despite me politely informing them it was possible if they pick up the phone. Nope, Monday and that's that was the response. Then I call DHL and they say "no problem' but "we need the account holder to call us" which is obvious, so I go back to P2G and guess what... the computer says no. Useless *******...

Anyway, I go to http://www.transglobal.org.uk and online they confirm collection same day and it already has been just two hours later by UPS to arrive 1-3 days transit for about a fiver less. Happy Days! You get what you pay for but this time I paid less and got more, will I be using P2G again... nope.

 

[Jeff FV]

In August, September & October I spent over £1000 with parcel2go. Towards the end of October a parcel got lost. I accept that when you are sending that many parcels, the odd one will get lost, its how companies then deal with that loss that marks them out.

Parcel2go were pretty appalling. In the 1st instance I got some bad advice from them (which they have admitted) about what should happen next. They then admitted that the parcel was lost and asked me to submit a claim, which I did. But they then kept messing up the claim, mixing up parcel numbers, telling me they'd look for parcels which had already been delivered. After a lot of angst, frustration, time and phone calls, they have at long last sent me a cheque for my loss.

But, as soon as I have time to find an altrenative company I shall be going elsewhere. I'm afraid their customer support was very poor and has cost them thousands in lost business.

Jeff

 

[APC Nexday Overnite Ltd]

Naughty Vend do you mind me asking whereabouts in the country you're situated?

I'm asking because I know Parcels 2 Go are based in Bolton and if that's the case for yourself also I may be able to give you a good rate and a great service!

....you'll also be dealing with me direct as well not going through middle men. If you have a problem you would deal with our depot direct you wouldn't be telling someone something in the hope they fully explain the same problem to me fully.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I recommend using APC . I have used them for quite a few years and as each depot is managed by the owner in most cases you will get an unrivaled service.
Very often the depot will let you take consignments there yourself. This of course is a major advantage as there is no cut off time and you can normally put them through upto 1730 each day

 

[Naughty Vend]

Naughty Vend do you mind me asking whereabouts in the country you're situated?

I'm asking because I know Parcels 2 Go are based in Bolton and if that's the case for yourself also I may be able to give you a good rate and a great service!

....you'll also be dealing with me direct as well not going through middle men. If you have a problem you would deal with our depot direct you wouldn't be telling someone something in the hope they fully explain the same problem to me fully.

We are in the KA postcode area, currently pay £5.95 up to ten kilos + £0.25 per kilo thereafter next day, £18.00-£19.75 for Europe (EC mainland) on a one to three day service with Business Post / UK Mail.

 

[longleaf1]

I recommend using APC . I have used them for quite a few years and as each depot is managed by the owner in most cases you will get an unrivaled service.
Very often the depot will let you take consignments there yourself. This of course is a major advantage as there is no cut off time and you can normally put them through upto 1730 each day

Can say the same about APC round here as well. They try to collect before 3pm but we can take anything to the G-force depot up till 6pm.

 

[Rasta Pickles]

I cannot emphasise this enough - AVOID Parcel2Go at all costs.

To start with, they don't publish negative feedback so it looks like they're doing fabulously when, in fact, they're crap.

I made the mistake of using them to send a parcel at the end of last month. It was picked up ok and as soon as it got to the DHL depot in Kilmarnock, it was marked as "out for delivery" - and then all tracking stopped.

After nine days (and after I'd already refunded the buyer because he was pi$$ed off with wasting several days waiting in for the delivery) the tracking changed (after many phone calls badgering them) again to "out for delivery".

To cut a long story short, they claim to have delivered except (a) the signature didn't even have the correct recipient surname and (b) the recipient was out of the country at the time.

I'm still waiting for their "customer services manager", a Sally Chandler, to provide feedback from DHL Kilmarnock before I involve the Police.

As I said, avoid avoid avoid.

 

[voyage]

I am glad I am not alone, i found P2G real easy and simple to use. I carried on using them untill a parcel went missing. There customer service was utter crab! Have had to write it off as it was taking so much time it was just not cost effective. Will not be using again, but I am really struggling to find another service like this. I dont send a large amount of parcels via courier so dont have much bargaining power. Any ideas?

 

[QuickHomeBuyers]

I am glad I am not alone, i found P2G real easy and simple to use. I carried on using them untill a parcel went missing. There customer service was utter crab! Have had to write it off as it was taking so much time it was just not cost effective. Will not be using again, but I am really struggling to find another service like this. I dont send a large amount of parcels via courier so dont have much bargaining power. Any ideas?

www.interparcel.com

similar prices

 

[voyage]

www.interparcel.com

similar prices

Thankyou, Similar horror stories ?

 

[Babycakegifts]

We have used interparcel over the last year and never had any problems with them

 

[longleaf1]

In contradiction to this, I don't use them as no need to change from APC however my dad uses parceltogo quite a bit and he never has any probs...

 

[APC Nexday Overnite Ltd]

We are in the KA postcode area, currently pay £5.95 up to ten kilos + £0.25 per kilo thereafter next day, £18.00-£19.75 for Europe (EC mainland) on a one to three day service with Business Post / UK Mail.

I'm really sorry for not getting back to you sooner. You're quite a distance from ourselves as we only cover the Bolton & Wigan postcodes.

I don't know how much you send Naughty Vend but they are good rates.

I've offered to particular customers £6.00 UP TO 20KG then £0.25 per kilo thereafter (emphasis being on the up to 20kg!) in the past so dependant on how many you send, where you are in relation to the depot and also as to what time you would like a collection I don't see as to why you can't get a similar rate from your local APC depot
APC SPEEDFREIGHT
UNIT 7
JAMES LITTLE STREET IND ESTATE
KILMARNOCK

KA1 4AT
TEL: 01563 573175
FAX: 01563 573303
(thats going off you being in KA1 you can find out if that is your local APC depot by visiting www.apc-overnight.com)
Going off that particular rate it would be fair to say it costs you £7.95 +vat to send a 20 kg parcel consignment.
If your consignments sometimes are over 10kg or over 20kg then perhaps it may be worthwhile going with APC.

The other thing is if you are having all the problems you've said your having it's not just costing you £5.95 is it?
Resending of the consignment being an additional £5.95.
Time spent on the phone complaining to P2G
Time spent explaining either via email or phone to your unhappy customer.
Price of the actual goods
Time is money! If you pay that little bit extra. It gets delivered first time every time. Customer is happy your happy. They tell their friends & family to use you. You get extra business its all worthwhile!

Give them a shout! Wouldn't hurt would it to see what rates they could provide you with!

Be sure to ask them for Courier Pack and MailPack rates also! The cost could come down further!
CourierPacks are for items that can fit in a A3 size bag and up to 5kg.
MailPacks are for items that can fit in a A4 (bit bigger actually) and up to 1kg.

Tell them DEPOT 80 passed you on.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

If you google "M&S Bad customer service" you will find pages of google telling stories about poor customer service received from M&S customers. But, if you walked out in the street and asked 100 people what they thought of M&S customer service, the answer in the main would be positive.

The web skews opinion. Firstly because of that age old adage that a happy customer tells one person, and an unhappy customer less 10. And secondly, because google returns what you search for, and very few people who are worried about a company/service/product actually search for the positive - they tend to search for the negative. (so, if you google "M&S bad customer service" you don't see the thousands of posts up on the web saying how good and happy the m majority of the customers are).

Parcel companies process millions of parcels every night. There are those that get lost/broken etc, but in the main this is around 2-4% depending on the network, time of year, depot changes etc etc. Both Interparcel and P2G processed around £15m of parcel transactions last year. Which I think equates to around 2m parcels.

I had a business that did that, and had "hundreds" of negative feedback comments, to be fair, i'd take that as a pretty good result.

If I google "iphone problems" do those results imply that the iphone is crap and I should never buy one.

If I google "thomas cook holiday nightmare" should I interpret those results as meaning that all holidays booked through Thomas Cook are likely to end in death or disaster.

Do you get my drift??? So, say that over the company's lifetime P2G or Interparcel have processed over 10m parcel bookings, and say there are OK, lets be really extreme, say 100,000 individual bad reviews on seperate transactions from true customers (ie not those that "heard" of other peoples stories). Then that = 1% negative feedback. In an industry that works on a norm of 93-97% success. There are many thousands of business out there that would be very happy to have that kind of a ratio.