I’m fed up with home delivery for things I’ve bought online – why can’t it be more like buying a pizza. Time for a bit of a moan, methinks.
Here’s how my local pizza shop works – I phone them up, they tell me how long until they can deliver it, then they deliver it. I’m always at home when they deliver because I phoned them up and they told me when they’d deliver it. It’s never more than an hour after I phone them that it turns up. The pizza box has the delivery driver’s mobile number on it, in case after he’s sped off I realise he’s forgotten something. It’s like magic.
Here’s how DHL works – they don’t tell me that they’re coming except through some cryptic code their deeply unusable order tracking page. A page, of course, that I have to make a point of remembering to visit.
They put a big note through my door telling me I was out. The note says “While you were out…” with ‘you’ printed in a big red italic font to make me feel special. The note itself is a masterclass in poor design. Attached to the note is a map to their local delivery centre, presumably in case that I forget what I paid them for and go and collect the parcel myself.
I phone them to arrange redelivery, hoping to speak to someone who might be able to get in touch with the van driver and tell him he missed me by two minutes and I’m at home now. No luck. Just an automated service that lets me get it redelivered tomorrow – not tomorrow morning or afternoon, but just some time tomorrow. It’s like… well, shite.
Of course DHL aren’t alone in this – I don’t think I’ve had a good online delivery experience. They all seem to be geared towards delivering to 9-5 businesses with receptionists or stockrooms to take delivery.
Update: oddly enough, I’ve just been searching their website and found a press release announcing their DHL@Home service which sounds like it’s just the job. The press release was written in April, and talks about all the things that pissed me off today. I wonder if the service actually exists, it didn’t for me, and now I know that they’re well aware of the problems I’ve mentioned.
2 comments ↓
None of these delivery companies are worth a damn.
I spent Wednesday evening waiting for a new fridge to arrive. I’m not going to mention which major electrical retailer it was, except to say that I don’t know which orbiting celestial body their idea of service comes from.
They were supposed to come some time between half past noon and six pm (which is unacceptably approximate to start with), but actually turned up after nine o’clock.
Paradoxically, that time would have been really convenient for all concerned - if they’d told me in advance! But they couldn’t. At six, they said that they would be there in half an hour. At half past six, they were forty-five minutes away. At a quarter to eight, they were ‘just round the corner’. I don’t know whether that was expectation management, lies, or simple incompetence, but it was infuriating.
I think the frustration comes from the feeling of complete impotence at the mercy of these companies who don’t value anyone else’s time.
And don’t get me started on Royal Mail …
At least they had they courtesy to phone you; DHL just assumed I have no job to go to and would always be at home.
Hmm. As it happens that’s largely true.
Am I being nostalgic when I hark to more civilised times when managing expectations was known as apologising?
“Goddamit. Don’t say sorry, just manage their expectations. We’re in business here, never apologise, never admit you’re wrong, never show that you’re aware of your weaknesses…”
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