Fun with DPD

ukaskew

ukaskew

Messages
3,839
Name
Chris
Edit My Images
Yes
Fun with DPD

I thought I would throw this one out there as it relates to orders from two photographic companies, and I almost admire how spectacularly wrong it all went.

Parcel 1) Photobox A3 Photobook
Parcel 2) MPB Photographic Lens

The Photobox book was heavily delayed due to a manufacturing issue, and finally headed out via DPD last Friday, for delivery on Monday. The MPB order was an impulse purchase made on Friday for a weekend event I had, so I upgraded to Saturday delivery to ensure I had it for the event (unless I take a day off Saturday is the only day I could ever accept courier deliveries).

Saturday morning arrived and I received no text from DPD, very unusual. Phoning their CS desk didn't help, it physically wouldn't let me speak to anyone until 11am when they would have an update on the parcel, despite the desk being manned from 9am. 11am came, and the operative confirmed what the online tracker was saying...parcel still in Birmingham. They assured me it would arrive on Monday, not much use to me as I bought the lens specifically to use on Saturday afternoon/Sunday, but hey.

As I wouldn't be around after Sunday I asked MPB to take the lens back, they contacted me very efficiently on Monday morning to say they had arranged this with DPD.

Checking the tracker on Monday morning the parcels (both of them) had left Birmingham...and arrived at St Austell in Cornwall, a mere 170 miles down the road from me! This bit on the tracker amused me...

30 Sep 2013, 08:06, Cornwall: There's a delay with your parcel and we've now sorted it.

Not quite! Watching the tracker the parcels then both went to Birmingham after a day out touring Cornwall, then impressively they eventually sent them to Bristol, my nearest depot.

I get two texts on Tuesday morning, both parcels are out for delivery. I'm away so it makes no odds to me, but slightly concerned they've put the cancelled MPB delivery on the van. I need not have worried, they contacted the driver to put a stop on the MPB parcel...and the Photobox one!

I contacted DPD who insisted the sender had cancelled the delivery, despite having two very distinct tracking numbers all they would tell me is that Harriet (from MPB) had put a stop on my delivery, so the Photobox order (nothing to do with Harriet/MPB) was going back as well. "We just do what the sender tells us. Sorry." was how my final communication from them ended, despite me stressing that there are two parcels, two tracking numbers, from two separate companies, and only one had been stopped.

I phoned Photobox, who confirmed they didn't put a stop on the parcel, they got on the phone to DPD straight away and managed to salvage the parcel before that one went back to Birmingham as well.

As of today both parcels are still in Bristol, MPB can't issue a refund until it's heading back to them, but for whatever reason it's still not moved. I gave up on the Photobox parcel as they wouldn't leave it in a safe place, and asked if I could collect it myself on Saturday, a 45 mile round trip. Taking bets on the lens being there for me to collect (but not the Photobook!) on Saturday.. :)

Both MPB and Photobox have been excellent dealing with it so far, frustrating that the refund is being held up, but hopefully that will be sorted soon.
 
You couldn't make it up with some of these delivery companies ... however I suppose it's better than stories of parcels being thrown over walls etc :eek:
 
Just had a refund from MPB, very efficient, unlike the ongoing saga I'm having with WEX...28 days and still waiting for some of my refund.
 
ukaskew said:
MPB can't issue a refund until it's heading back to them
Click to expand...

Won't, not can't!

The DSR say differently - however, I've struggled to find a single company who don't consider themselves above the law on this regard, so it doesn't surprise me.

With regards to couriers, my experience is that they're like telecoms companies - fine when everything's working, but dreadful otherwise. Each person has their own opinion on the least awful.
 
Llamaman said:
Won't, not can't!

The DSR say differently - however, I've struggled to find a single company who don't consider themselves above the law on this regard, so it doesn't surprise me.

With regards to couriers, my experience is that they're like telecoms companies - fine when everything's working, but dreadful otherwise. Each person has their own opinion on the least awful.
Click to expand...

I got it a day later, so not too bad really. Considering how long I've been waiting for my WEX refund I'm thrilled with the speed of MPB!
 
Collected my very expensive A3 Lay-Flat Photobook from the depot today, it has a very obvious manufacturing defect (large-ish white blob on a plain black area), you couldn't make it up...
 
Is it just me?! Placed an order on Tuesday and upgraded to Saturday delivery with MPB Photographic (Tamron 70-300 which I had planned to take to an event at Castle Combe this afternoon) who still use DPD.

Yet again...nothing. After waiting in all morning (the text this morning said between 07:00 and 12:00) I've just had a text from DPD to say it will be delivered on Monday.
 
Last edited:
DPD are normally pretty good, normally the driver will have an hours slot to deliver your goods.

I have seen a driver deliver me stuff, but had to wait for 5mins to sign for the goods as he was early and the system wont allow it.

But then again all company's do have problems I just think you have been unlucky with DPD.
 
skd said:
DPD are normally pretty good, normally the driver will have an hours slot to deliver your goods.
Click to expand...

I thought it was odd when I got such a wide time slot, they are normally an hour. I also couldn't track it, which is normally the case with DPD, makes me wonder if they ever actually had it out for delivery at all.

Royal Mail Special Delivery is the only service that has been 100% spot on for me over what must be hundreds upon hundreds of deliveries from them, unfortunately very few companies offer RMSD (I would pay the premium), they also have the benefit of a local sorting office, rather than the 60+ miles round trip every courier company are from me.
 
I have had no problem with DPD and despite having a Bristol postcode, a long way from Bristol (17 miles) in a sml village, with a difficult to find house, DPD, and RM, are consistently spot on. FedEx on the other hand.... disaster. Strangely MyHermes are spot on too.

As an aside, I will no longer use PhotoBox. Their quality control and packing has been appalling. 2 x A4 photo books were recently forced into a single package to the point that the spring tension binder on one tore through it's leather surround and ripped the cover on the second. A few other things around Xmas had to be reprinted.

Am putting together some more things and PhotoBox are not getting the work. SWMBO did some calendars through Vista print and they were very good.

Oh well.
 
Last edited:
Believe it or not DPD are one of the best. A popular computer forum moved over to them after shocking service from another parcel carrier.
 
Bless 'em!

08:33 - Text: "Your parcel will be delivered between 09:53-10:53"

09:08 - Text: "Sorry we haven't received your parcel yet, so we can't deliver it today"

10:05 - By a huge stroke of luck my wife was just popping back into home, delivery driver turns up with my parcel!
 
I have had several deliveries via DPD in the past month and have also returned defective goods via them. In all cases they have come when they said they would and I have been able to track them.

The only problem I had, on two occasions, was that upon placing my order the supplier gave me a tracking number and on following it through using the tracking button on the suppliers web page I got messages saying that the parcel had been delivered and signed for - one 3 months ago and 150 miles away and the other 6 months ago and 300 miles away.

In both instances the tracking system sorted itself out within a couple of hours and then worked perfectly.

I suspect that for some peculiar reason they reuse tracking numbers and if you try to track them before the new order is on the system you get details of the previous delivery - seems strange and I queried it with the driver but did not get any answer other than a shrug!
 
I find DPD the most reliable courier company and they've never missed a time slot in my experience. As has been said already, the new tracking system where you can see where the driver is located is really good.

They do resue tracking numbers but aren't alone in doing that. At least some of the drivers are 'owner franchise'. I imagine they won't have info about the process the company uses to allocate tracking numbers.
 
ukaskew said:
Bless 'em!

08:33 - Text: "Your parcel will be delivered between 09:53-10:53"

09:08 - Text: "Sorry we haven't received your parcel yet, so we can't deliver it today"

10:05 - By a huge stroke of luck my wife was just popping back into home, delivery driver turns up with my parcel!
Click to expand...
OK, I know *exactly* what happened there. Their system thought you were getting two parcels. The first text referred to the actual parcel and the second text referred to the non-existent second parcel.

Something like this happened to us last week. There was some sort of glitch uploading all our delivery data to the DPD website, and everything was duplicated. For people we were sending one lens, the system thought there would be two; for people we were sending two lenses, the system thought there would be four; and so on. We had a total of 48 lenses going out with DPD that day, but the system said 96.

I thought we had managed to contain the issue. Before printing any of the labels, I went in and manually deleted all the erroneous duplicate entries. That seemed to take, and the labels came out saying '1 of 1' etc, and there were only 48 of them instead of 96, and the manifest only listed 48, and it all looked OK.

Until the following morning. At around 9.30 we suddenly started getting a *load* of phone calls and emails saying the same thing: they had received notification that their parcel would be delivered within a cert time window, and then they had received a message that DPD hadn't received the parcel. By the time we realised what had happened we had a dozen emails and voicemails backed up, and we spent half the morning trying to contact everybody who had been on the previous day's dispatch list and reassuring them with regard to what was happening.

Great fun.
 
I had a DPD delivery recently and complemented the driver on delivering within the time slot I'd been notified of. His response was that he didn't get paid if he missed it!
 
Blackbat said:
I had a DPD delivery recently and complemented the driver on delivering within the time slot I'd been notified of. His response was that he didn't get paid if he missed it!
Click to expand...
Absolutely. And if he's running early he has to sit and wait for the delivery time slot to open, or he doesn't get paid. So if the slot is 10:37 to 11:37 and you get back from running errands at 10:36, you can be confident you won't have missed the delivery.

You can probably guess I'm a big fan of DPD, and the response I've had from my customers since I started using them has been very positive. They (DPD) invested a lot of time and effort into setting up the delivery time slot system, and it works. I'm just surprised that none of the other delivery companies has copied it.
 
DPD are used by Tesco Direct, recently bought a TV and that was delivered within the one hour slot, email even gave the drivers name so cheers Roland
 
StewartR said:
They (DPD) invested a lot of time and effort into setting up the delivery time slot system, and it works. I'm just surprised that none of the other delivery companies has copied it.
Click to expand...

I presume that other companies aren't as interested in customer satisfaction as you are. I guess that some of the crappier courier companies win accounts by being cheap.
 
Both me and my other half will pay a bit extra for DPD over any other courier.

Of the 11 or 12 times I've used they've only been more than 5 minutes into their time slot once, that was about 20 minutes into it.

Fantastic customer service in my experience
 
hollis_f said:
I presume that other companies aren't as interested in customer satisfaction as you are. I guess that some of the crappier courier companies win accounts by being cheap.
Click to expand...
The thing is, DPD's superior approach to operations saves money in all sorts of ways. Less overtime, fewer short-notice subcontracts, less vehicle mileage, fewer failed deliveries, and so on. They don't need to be more expensive than the others, and I don't think they are.
 
Very interested to hear that they manage to stay within their allotted delivery window most of the time.

It's been many years since I worked multi drop delivery but I don't see how they can achieve this (especially in busy high traffic areas) unless they have lots of drop depots that mean the delivery vans work over a fairly limited radius??

David
 
Willid1 said:
I don't see how they can achieve this (especially in busy high traffic areas) unless they have lots of drop depots that mean the delivery vans work over a fairly limited radius??
Click to expand...
They don't have any more depots than the other companies.

Before they set up this system, they fitted all their vans with GPS trackers and spent 2-3 years collecting movement data. That gave them a massive database which tells them how long it takes to get from "A" to "B" at different times of day; how long drops take at houses, flats, offices, shops; and so on. Then they crunch all the numbers to optimise the delivery routes, and they can calculate estimated delivery times with a high degree of statistical confidence. On the day they use the same technology in real time to refine the delivery window, and as soon as they can narrow it down to 15 minutes the customer is notified.

If any of their competitors wanted to copy them, I think they would have to do it essentially the same way, ie starting with a lengthy data collection phase. It's not rocket science but there aren't any easy shortcuts.
 
StewartR said:
They don't have any more depots than the other companies.

Before they set up this system,.............................................narrow it down to 15 minutes the customer is notified.

If any of their competitors wanted to copy them, I think they would have to do it essentially the same way, ie starting with a lengthy data collection phase. It's not rocket science but there aren't any easy shortcuts.
Click to expand...

Thanks Stewart, I had to guess it was something like that, when I did multi drop delivery it was me and a clip board!!

David
 
I have a parcel on its way from Belgium. DPD say delivery tomorrow, I've requested it to go to a neighbours.
 
DPD/interlink are far the best courier out there at the moment. Text and email alerts and they always hit their time slot (in my experience). The live (ish) GPS tracking on the map is fun too.

The only infuriating thing with seeing where the van is their route planning, they drive past my office several times in the day to deliver in the afternoon :D
 
Last edited:
neil_g said:
The only infuriating thing with seeing where the van is their route planning, they drive past my office several times in the day to deliver in the afternoon :D
Click to expand...

That may be due to timed delieveries tho
 
My parcel arrived today within 10 mins of the estimated time. Very pleased with them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top