Which courier service offers the most comprehensive international service?

[Adam Le Grand]

I am always striving to offer my customers the best service solution and with International Courier Services being in such a state of flux at the moment there is no time like the present to get some valuable feedback from people that are having success with their courier providers.

If your poll answer is 'other' then please do comment on who your preferred choice is.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

There is no right or wrong answer as each company will have its differnt strengths and weaknesses in differing parts of the globe

 

[Adam Le Grand]

There is no right or wrong answer as each company will have its differnt strengths and weaknesses in differing parts of the globe

That is totally true Jeremy but the feedback and comments provided could at least start building part of a picture which may help us going forward.

Even if we gleam a small nugget of information, like no one voting for UPS for example would at least start a process of elimination.

 

[fisicx]

The number of UKBF members who send stuff overseas is tiny. I doubt you will get many responses. Reddit or social media channels might be a more useful place to ask the question.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

There is no right or wrong answer

Just to follow up on the super helpful feedback, quite literally by definition, 'a poll is an opinion on a matter', there is not meant to be a right or wrong answer.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

The number of UKBF members who send stuff overseas is tiny. I doubt you will get many responses. Reddit or social media channels might be a more useful place to ask the question.

Interesting. I have seen a lot of people commenting on other post about services that they use. Just see what happens I suppose.

I thought Reddit was more of a US audience. Could definitely be worth a look though.

 

[MBE2017]

I have been out of the industry for a long time now, but internationally from the above I would have put DHL at the top, but all the big boys have good coverage overall.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

I have been out of the industry for a long time now, but internationally from the above I would have put DHL at the top, but all the big boys have good coverage overall.

Interestingly, we have recently dropped DHL due to the amount of damaged packages that were being returned to us.

We have recently just dropped UPS as well as their overall service is just absolutely shocking. Absolute cowboys when it came to their invoicing too, it got to the point where we were challenging near enough every single invoice as there were numerous charges being added to our account that were nothing to do with our shipments.

That is said, I do not envy anyone that works in the parcel logistics industry. With how much eCommerce has boomed in the last 5 years or so, especially since COVID. The infrastructure must be a breaking point.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

That is said, I do not envy anyone that works in the parcel logistics industry. With how much eCommerce has boomed in the last 5 years or so, especially since COVID. The infrastructure must be a breaking

Been the best two years of my life !

 

[Adam Le Grand]

Been the best two years of my life !

Oh, I am sure things have gone nuts for you. I just took a look at your website and have taken note of your contacts.

 

[MBE2017]

That is said, I do not envy anyone that works in the parcel logistics industry. With how much eCommerce has boomed in the last 5 years or so, especially since COVID. The infrastructure must be a breaking point.

I remember joining TNT right at the beginning of offering nextday deliveries around the UK many years ago, imagine 2/7 days used to be the norm years ago. Great times, beat my target for the year turnover in the first month of starting, my commission that year bought most of my first house.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

I remember joining TNT right at the beginning of offering nextday deliveries around the UK many years ago, imagine 2/7 days used to be the norm years ago. Great times, beat my target for the year turnover in the first month of starting, my commission that year bought most of my first house.

Wow! sounds like it was a great time for you then. I can't imagine that happening these days, especially paying for a new home.

 

[twobic]

the most comprehensive (i.e. delivers to the most places) is DHL, followed closely by UPS, then by FedEx. DPD/GLS(Parcelforce in EU) do not ship EU to Northern Ireland, which is an easy ship - so I'd say they have other holes globally too.

the most customs compliant I believe is UPS, followed by DHL, followed by none in particular
the reason I say this is that UPS were the only courier in the UK to have the Northern Ireland Protocol (i.e. the linchpin of Brexit) set up properly in their systems from January 01 2021, the first day of Brexit. Royal Mail didn't have it done until late Feb, DPD/FedEx/GLS(Parcelforce in EU) still don't have it done, and DHL had it done in mid Jan.

 

[Adam Le Grand]

the most comprehensive (i.e. delivers to the most places) is DHL, followed closely by UPS, then by FedEx. DPD/GLS(Parcelforce in EU) do not ship EU to Northern Ireland, which is an easy ship - so I'd say they have other holes globally too.

the most customs compliant I believe is UPS, followed by DHL, followed by none in particular
the reason I say this is that UPS were the only courier in the UK to have the Northern Ireland Protocol (i.e. the linchpin of Brexit) set up properly in their systems from January 01 2021, the first day of Brexit. Royal Mail didn't have it done until late Feb, DPD/FedEx/GLS(Parcelforce in EU) still don't have it done, and DHL had it done in mid Jan.

Great response, thank you. Very informative.

I can certainly testify that UPS and DHL have the most complaints. We have literally dropped both of them in the past 6 months as they were utterly shocking, especially UPS. They only credit I will give UPS is that they certainly did have a comprehensive customer service set up globally. I'd get emails for all over the world about the status of consignments. The utter joke was that is was absolutely impossible to get any response from our so called account manager in the UK. We even asked for a transfer of account handler and all we would get back is, "you have already been assigned an account manager, there is nothing that we can do".

To echo my previous comments, I've grown tired of even blaming the individual companies anymore as I feel it is a fundamental, industrywide problem that eCommerce growth has just absolutely crippled the logistics sector with it's severe growth. I am just hoping that the infrastructure catches up soon as it almost feel like you're picking from the best of a bad bunch at the moment when using a courier service.

 

[twobic]

Great response, thank you. Very informative.

I can certainly testify that UPS and DHL have the most complaints. We have literally dropped both of them in the past 6 months as they were utterly shocking, especially UPS. They only credit I will give UPS is that they certainly did have a comprehensive customer service set up globally. I'd get emails for all over the world about the status of consignments. The utter joke was that is was absolutely impossible to get any response from our so called account manager in the UK. We even asked for a transfer of account handler and all we would get back is, "you have already been assigned an account manager, there is nothing that we can do".

To echo my previous comments, I've grown tired of even blaming the individual companies anymore as I feel it is a fundamental, industrywide problem that eCommerce growth has just absolutely crippled the logistics sector with it's severe growth. I am just hoping that the infrastructure catches up soon as it almost feel like you're picking from the best of a bad bunch at the moment when using a courier service.

agree, UPS are awful at after-sales stuff, if you file a claim for a missing parcel they don't even get back to you half the time. I just got a claim settled for around 1k GBP for a lost FedEx packet. It took them 380 days to reimburse me, which is just ludicrous. to date haven't had anything go missing with DHL Express but I have had several problems using DHL Globalmail and the response time from the staff there is terrible, and sometimes they don't even respond. Totally agree it is an industry-wide problem and they are so competitive with price that none of them wants to invest in decent after-sales support

 

[Adam Le Grand]

agree, UPS are awful at after-sales stuff, if you file a claim for a missing parcel they don't even get back to you half the time. I just got a claim settled for around 1k GBP for a lost FedEx packet. It took them 380 days to reimburse me, which is just ludicrous. to date haven't had anything go missing with DHL Express but I have had several problems using DHL Globalmail and the response time from the staff there is terrible, and sometimes they don't even respond. Totally agree it is an industry-wide problem and they are so competitive with price that none of them wants to invest in decent after-sales support

You have hit the nail on the head there and this is the issue with nearly all industries these days that it is an absolute race to the bottom. I use this example a lot but as a business we also deal with printing. When I first started out in print around 15 years ago I would be charging around £60 for 250 business cards. Even though material cost have likely gone up by easily 400% since then, I am selling those same business cards today for around £35. Online retailers are just pushing prices further and further down an creating a race to the bottom.

With regards to your DHL comments, I would agree with that to. The loss rate was very high but unfortunately their damage rate was absolutely through the roof. To the point we even request a tour of the processing plant to see if we could spot what was happening to damage so many packaging. Amazingly DHL wouldn't let us visit their site.