Home delivery network - I just want my parcel!

Forris

HDNLMAN wrote: »

Lol at the holiday joke. As for how they could cope with 75 million items? Who cares . I dont get big fat bonuses. Im just a sardine in the parcel ocean. Thats for big fish to decided. I did however read somewhere that all parcel companies are geared to maximum , in other words they operate at the exact capacity to their intakes. Any sudden access and they will struggle. This may have happened to HDNL when they took the big Amazon contract so close to christmas. I have seen a big increase in drivers but that takes time to filter through. Im not a fan of HDNL however I think they will become bigger and stronger. Which in turn may be worse for the drivers. Maybe I should join the Royal Mail?

Whilst price is the deciding factor for retailers choosing their courier partners then, yes I agree, HDNL et al will continue to grow. What seems to be happening is that some couriers (including PF) are targetting business-to-business parcels (B2B) and some are targetting business-to-customer (B2C). The B2B contracts tend to involve less drops for a given amount of parcels, but tend to be heavier consignments.

The interesting thing will be wether there is a customer backlash against the poor customer service that results from low prices, or wether we'll all just learn to accept it!

Just a note regarding Amazon; they are a very fickle customer. They've used 4 couriers in the last 5 years that I can recall, so don't get to used to them!

StudentMoneySaver

I'd never had any problems with HDNL until yesterday/this morning. I was expecting a Blu ray player to be delivered yesterday, the tracking service said it was out for delivery from 1015 from a depot that seemingly isn't too far from me. It wasn't delivered so I'd given up hope of it getting here before Christmas. That was until about 0830 this morning when the buzzer went, it was someone with a package for me. I went down to get it (I can't open the front door from my flat because the LL is a ****), it turned out it wasn't a delivery man, it was a nice man who had found my package on his (I think/hope) doorstep.

I'm struggling to understand how it ended up on any doorstep, there are no houses on my section of the road (it's a long A road), only flats and businesses. I'm sure they didn't get the Flat Number and Building Number mixed up, otherwise it would have ended up about 80 addresses down the road.

The cheeky thing is, the tracking service says the package was delivered at about 2215 last night but the location says it was delivered to the depot (other trackers usually say at least the part of London I live in). I'm fairly certain it needed to be signed for, not sure who did that if it was left on a doorstep without anyone's knowledge until this morning.

I'm glad I have it in one piece and I'm thankful to the guy to bringing it to the correct address.

magpiecottage

We have had problems with HDNL. They couldn't deliver on Monday. Not their fault at all - only vehicles with snow chains could get around the village at one point - even 4×4s were being abandoned.

But then they simply left my item at their depot. When I contacted Amazon on Thursday (Christmas Eve) they called HDNL and were told the couldn't deliver so they were sending it back.

I said that was stupid because the roads were all cleared by Tuesday. Amazon phoned again and were told the depot was snowed in. I said my 82 year-old father in law had managed to get out on Wednesday the chap at Amazon gave me a number for HDNL. Note that this is NOT the 0871 number, it is

08000014260

They told me that they could not deliver to us because of the volumes of incoming parcels to the supposedly snowed in depot!

Still not delivered. I have complained to Amazon and agree with Forris that it will only be if complaints are made to retailers that they will change courier.

I do want the item - but if it comes up cheaper in the Argos sale then it will be sent back to Amazon as delivered too late.

But if you want to chase HDNL then at least we seem to have a freephone number to use!

Forris

In HDNL's defence, all couriers have had problems with deliveries this week. The road conditions in some areas are still really bad. I was not planned to work yesterday but was asked after the snow hit. I spent the day in High Wycombe, attempting to deliver as many parcels as I could. I had 197 parcels on, and on a good day I could have managed this, but the condition of the residential roads (Wycombe is all hills) meant that I couldn't get down some roads in the van and had to walk down which took extra time. All this meant that I could only deliver about half of the parcels.

Even in areas where the conditions had improved, there would still have been a backlog of parcels to get through, as well as the 'new' deliveries each day, and there is no chance of getting extra staff or vans this close to Christmas. This means that the work has to be prioritised to enable the maximum amount of parcels to be delivered. So, for instance, if a driver normally takes out 3 postcodes, he would only take out 1 or 2 (but with more parcels on each) to make the route smaller and 'do-able'. Yesterday we left any parcels for business addresses at the depot, so that we could deliver more residential parcels.

One of the benefits that we have is the ability to leave parcels at a local post office. Some drivers in rural areas have been phoning customers that they were unable to get to, letting them know that they would leave their parcels at the post office for them to collect (as most people living in these areas have 4x4's).

Anyway, its all over now! Apologies to anyone that didn't get their parcels in time for Christmas. Believe me, it wasn't for lack of effort (2 of our drivers didn't get back to the depot until 2 AM on Tuesday morning after getting caught up in the problems in Wycombe on Monday). Any outstanding deliveries will be made next week, and you will get you parcels eventually.

Happy Christmas everyone!

magpiecottage

Well done for getting out Forris. I live about 5 miles south of Marlow and on Monday even 4 wheel drive vehicles were being abandoned in our village.

But a colleague of yours delivered out post on Tuesday morning, despite driving two miles over ungritted roads to reach us.

The problem with HDNL seems to have been that they had no idea what to do when the snow stopped them on Monday - our package seems to have been forgotten about. They also only have a depot in Reading whereas we would go to High Wycombe for most other couriers and, at worst, Slough for Parcelforce.

We have since found we can now get the same item for £22 less in the sales so we have bought it and told Amazon to cancel the delivery.

It is now coming from somebody else - what's the betting it will also come via HDNL and both arrive together!

Forris

Probably back in Wycombe tomorrow, as there is still a fair bit of backlog to deliver. I had loads of happy people on Thursday, but I just knew that I wul dbe disappointing just as many with the stuff I couldn't deliver! It also wasn't helpful when my handbrake cable snapped midday! I had to deliver on foot until the depot sent someone out with a spare van for me.

Oh well, its what makes the job such fun!

KimmieJ

Personally I'm a fan of HDNL. My address is awful - my bank almost refused to change it when I moved as it causes errors in their system, and the grocery delivery people often get lost. Within the last few months I've had a couple of hundred quid's worth of stuff delivered by HDNL and everything's been pristine, perfect and the couriers themselves friendly if a little rushed off their feet.

schmodes

HDNL i havent had a problem with so far, touch wood. But DPD in edinburgh man alive are unbelieveable. In the last month they have left 2 orders at 2 different address, the one was miles away. They currently still have 3 parcels of mine (£500 intotal of my kids xmas presents) they've had them since 21st of dec and so far all i can get out of suppliers (had to phone supplier cos after hours of searching for a nb for DPD, they dont answer) is their tracking says. unable to deliver, not enough time. i just got back from the depot for the 3rd time in a week without my stuff, because apparently its yet again on the van for delivery, but somehow it never gets delivered and i cant call back because he doesnt know when the driver will get in. Its ridiculous, granted its a busy time of year, but if they agree to deliver they should make sure they have the drivers available to do it, their lack organisation and good business isnt my fault, or my suppliers yet they gave me a 25% refund of my order. Anyone here know if i could and how to lodge a complaint, would it just be a letter to manager? god i feel better now for moaning lol

sarah

misskool

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HDNL apparently delivered a parcel to my home today. Left it in a safe place in the rear of my house, which backs a public car park.

So many words, so little time HDNL

Forris

schmodes wrote: »

HDNL i havent had a problem with so far, touch wood. But DPD in edinburgh man alive are unbelieveable. In the last month they have left 2 orders at 2 different address, the one was miles away. They currently still have 3 parcels of mine (£500 intotal of my kids xmas presents) they've had them since 21st of dec and so far all i can get out of suppliers (had to phone supplier cos after hours of searching for a nb for DPD, they dont answer) is their tracking says. unable to deliver, not enough time. i just got back from the depot for the 3rd time in a week without my stuff, because apparently its yet again on the van for delivery, but somehow it never gets delivered and i cant call back because he doesnt know when the driver will get in. Its ridiculous, granted its a busy time of year, but if they agree to deliver they should make sure they have the drivers available to do it, their lack organisation and good business isnt my fault, or my suppliers yet they gave me a 25% refund of my order. Anyone here know if i could and how to lodge a complaint, would it just be a letter to manager? god i feel better now for moaning lol

sarah

I've said it before and I'll say it again - any complaints should be taken up with the retailer, not the courier. Your contract is with the retailer. The retailer's contract is with the courier. You should be chasing the retailer to either refund you or to arrange an alternative delivery. You ordered goods from the retailer who have not supplied them - the retailer needs to address this. The more complaints that a retailer receives about it's delivery partner, the less likely it is to use that courier in the future.