Yodel - Shambles

[adamuk18]

Well I tried hermes they were not brilliant, Just had experience this week with Dhl and that was not great.

But my god Yodel take the biscuit - What a discusting and terrible services. You cannot speak to anybody and the foreign call center staff cut you off the online chat.

For the record we now use DPD and are happy to pay more for quality service.

If you want to damage your business then yodel away!

 

[Noah]

But my god Yodel take the biscuit - What a discusting and terrible services. You cannot speak to anybody and the foreign call center staff cut you off the online chat.

More details please?

For the record we now use DPD and are happy to pay more for quality service.

Not sure their "franchisees" see the benefit of you paying more.

 

[UKSBD]

Have you ever looked in the back of a DPD van?

I make a habit of getting outside and to the back of the van as soon as see them turn up.

Last 2 times the boxes were absolutely everywhere, tipped on edges, sprawled all over back of vehicle, a right mess

Had a delivery today, the driver nearly missed the stop and jammed on brakes, hate to think what happened to all the boxes, glad mine was right at the back and well packed.

 

[MikeJ]

I had a dog food delivery by yodel a couple of months ago. Because I was going away, I asked for it on a next day courier, otherwise it would be outside the house for a week.

It took them a week do deliver something on a next day service. When I complained I got a comment of "well, it's there now".

A colleague was expecting a delivery on Tuesday from them at work. The online tracking said it would arrive around 6.30. They claimed they left it in the porch, despite the fact our gates were locked from 5.30. Nobody has any idea where that delivery is.

Yodel are an insult to this country. I'd avoid doing business with any company that uses them.

 

[Dimo]

I used Hermes some years ago and got hacked off with failed collections, failed deliveries and breakages. I got some useful insight into the world of couriers by joining a couriers forum - http://www.lifestylecouriers.net/index.php. Reading through various threads told me a hell of a lot!

Since I switched to UPS it's been plain sailing.

 

[ecommerce84]

The quality of courier services seems to have slid downhill across the board imo, a lot of it (as with lots of things) has to do with the ‘race to the bottom’ as consumers only seem to look at the actual cost and go with the cheapest.

I remember Yodel purchasing DHL Express and when querying with the driver what the change meant, he said ‘it’s just the name really, although it does stand for Your Ordinary Delivery, Even Later’! It turned out he hit the nail in the head! The driver where I used to work couldn’t speak a word of English and would just grunt at us.

I do like DPD when receiving parcels mic they are always on time. I even looked at their franchise options but was put off by an afternoon of reading reviews from franchise holders.

You can’t beat UPS in my opinion, you pay a bit more, but the service level (from my experience) is better than the rest.

 

[Tin]

Way tooooooo many bad experiences with Yodel. I've ordered things from various suppliers and when a Yodel delivery turns up I don't use that supplier again. Had late deliveries and complete delivery fails from them regularly.

I can recommend DPD though because their tracking is good, they're always on time and don't mess me around. Yodel, not a way on this planet would I choose to use them.

 

[Colin_W]

Interesting timing with this thread as I had two deliveries from DPD last week.

First delivery due Tuesday; no text message by 2pm so tried online chat only to experience the least helpful chatbot ever. Called customer services where the only way to speak with a person was to enter an incorrect delivery number. Was helpfully told my parcel "might" be on a van, but probably wasn't as it showed as being at their depot, but that it would be prioritised for Wednesday delivery. On Wednesday, still no text by 2pm so called again to be told the matter needed to be escalated to the depot. Depot phoned an hour later to explain they had no idea why my parcel wasn't delivered and that it would be prioritised for an AM delivery on Thursday. Parcel eventually arrived at about 4.30pm on Thursday and the box looked like it had been used as the depot football.

Second delivery due for pre-noon delivery on Friday. Phoned customer services at around 12.15 to be told I should never have been given a pre-noon delivery option as DPD don't offer it and that I should contact the seller for a refund of delivery charges. Delivery arrived at around 12.30pm.

Prior to last week, I had always been happy to see deliveries being made by DPD, mostly thanks to their tracking, but after last week I'm not so sure.

 

[UKSBD]

Not just the ones mentioned but have you ever noticed that when you have larger awkward to handle parcels delivered they nearly always have holes in the boxes?

It's probably due to the fact that they punch holes in them to get grip holes so they can pick the boxes up easier, I've seen it done 3 or 4 times :-(

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I am slightly concerned about the comments here

Yes they are all right but you are paying such a small amount of money to these companies to get the job done . Then complain about what the results are .
When you are pay a fiver for a delivery you cant comment on how the van is loaded

 

[UKSBD]

I am slightly concerned about the comments here

Yes they are all right but you are paying such a small amount of money to these companies to get the job done . Then complain about what the results are .
When you are pay a fiver for a delivery you cant comment on how the van is loaded

Yes, but when we buy a product online what else can we do?

I've never seen a retailer offer an option;
Special delivery - boxes are handled better than our standard delivery service.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Yes, but when we buy a product online what else can we do?

I've never seen a retailer offer an option;
Special delivery - boxes are handled better than our standard delivery service.

You have the option that the retailer accepts that you are sending your own courier to collect the goods .

This is the biproduct of online shopping There is nothing that can be done without drastically increasing the price . Nobody should be complaining under the circumstances

 

[Mitch3473]

We had a 'delivery' from Yodel a few months ago, signed for,according to their call centre, by a Mr Jones. My name is not Jones and we live in Wales......I knocked on all the doors up and down the road and unbelievably, not a Jones in sight. Turned out the drivers name was Jones, he'd signed it and he'd left it in a plant pot, no notice, card or email....nothing and it had been there for over a week.
Bit of a shambles and we always ask when ordering on line now, who the courier is

 

[adamuk18]

Yodel are are a discusting excuse for a company.

My parcels that is supposed to have been delivered last wednesday and every day since is not on its way back to the sender.

despite me on there online chat everyday, several phone call and asking to speak with a manager.

Useless bunch of Numpties. [edited by mod]

I'm not sure I would of kept my cool if there delivery driver had turned up I can tell you.

So no delivery, no phone calls as promised several times.

USELESS, I would never touch a company that uses Yodel.

 

[chalkie99]

30 years ago I started contracting to a well known national parcel company.

A decent price then was around £6 for a next day delivery up to 20kg. Van purchase, diesel, the cost of keeping a roof over your head, etc., etc. was a fraction of what it is today and yet people are still moaning about paying the same amount to send their parcels!

Deliveries take a lot longer now - many of the high street shops have gone and the number of deliveries to private addresses have skyrocketed. People often hide behind curtains until the card has dropped on the mat in case the knock at the door is someone chasing money.

You have to realise that only so much automation is possible. Customer service is cut to save wages but actual people have to be used to drive the vehicles and the vans are already at maximum capacity.

Payments to drivers have been cut beyond the bone - I was getting £2-40 a signature in 1989 and that was down to £1-40 10 years later. Now, I believe, it is even worse and subbies simply cannot make a living.

The last remaining carriers have backed themselves into a corner and there is a nasty wake up call around the corner for a lot of people when they inevitably fail.

 

[ecommerce84]

Yodel are are a discusting excuse for a company.

As I said above I agree that they aren’t great but do we really have to use the C word on a professional business forum?

I like to use the word Numpty instead!

 

[Paul Norman]

The courier thing has many laps yet to run.

Customers of online stores want the delivery to be cheap - which is fair enough. But cheap is exactly that.

The courier companies have everyone working for close to nothing, and pushed hard on their timings. Customers want a smartly dressed English chap to stand patiently at the door whilst you finish your shower. Retailers want a completely reliable, tracked, service.

The sums are getting very creaky. I suspect this is where the online takeover starts to balance. Delivery goes up, some people return to local shops. But the local shops have closed, so people have to pay the higher delivery charges.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Deleted

 

[adamuk18]

I dont mind a polish chap delivering

Its a volume thing and the margins are tight but thats most business models for you.

Its a basic requirment however. If somebody pays to ship something that the courier at least attempts to deliver the item. When they cant do that then you have to bang your head against the wall and warn others.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Its a volume thing and the margins are tight but thats most business models for you.

I.

I'd stop some way short of saying it's most business models, though it is fairly prolific and in most cases it is flawed, particularly for small businesses.

The problem is that people seem incapable of resisting a race to the bottom (see supermarket price wars ad nausiem).

This problem was highlighted in the courier industry when CityLink went bust - I guess about 4 years ago - I guess now it's a question of who blinks first.

 

[adamuk18]

Funnily enough hermes made it onto watchdog last night.

Yodel must only be continuing to operate because the owners have deep pockets.

 

[Thermodynamic Man]

I worked for Yodel last year just to help them out with the extra deliveries over December. The timings were so tight and the wages crap. Going to a village at night time and looking for Rose Cottage, High Street was a nightmare. The chances are this cottage lies 20 yards off the road and the sign is on the property but cannot be seen from the road. So up and down drives until you find the correct drop. Brilliant heh? Loads of parcels just had to be taken back because I couldn't find half of them

Nobody in the office cared really. They were just sent out the next day for some other poor sod to try to deliver.

Apparently Yodel loses loads of money every year. It was only set up so that it could be used as a tax loss against it's parent company.

I would say in it's defence that the guys delivering would do their best to get the parcels delivered. ( at least the ones in my local depot did )