Things DPD lost: my parcel, my money, the plot, etc.
Shit happens. Good companies make it right. DPD — “Your delivery experts” make it worse.
It all started on Wednesday 24 August. My parcel was supposed to be delivered, but I was at work. Too bad, I missed it! Slightly annoying that there was no phone call, no calling card left etc, but never mind, not a big deal.
I didn’t know until the next day that they had been to my flat. Thursday 25 August. I got a call, a driver for DPD trying to delivery my parcel. Yeah I am at work still, sorry. The driver kindly told me I could go to DPD’s website and schedule a weekend delivery, which I did, for the princely sum of five English pounds. Five pounds debited to my account, and a delivery for the coming weekend scheduled.
I waited on Saturday for my delivery. And waited. And waited. By the afternoon I thought I should check, so I called DPD and a call center operative told me my parcel wasn’t coming, apparently it was stuck inside an impenetrable trailer. What about the five pounds I had paid? She couldn’t explain why, but there was no reference to my paying five pounds in their system. Well, the payment is on my bank statement already. Here’s a tip: don’t lose your customer’s money!
The call center lady went back and forth for a while about the five pounds but eventually told me the best she could do was re-arrange delivery for the next Saturday. Ok, well I have to wait another week, but at least I will get my parcel on the weekend like I paid for.
Fast forward a week.
Of course my parcel didn’t come the following Saturday either! So that is both 26 August and 2 September blown away by DPD. How … does … that … happen?? Failing to deliver as scheduled once is unfortunately, twice is starting to look incompetent.
I called DPD the following Monday 4 September and they promised to launch an investigation! Wow serious business!! Apparently my parcel was genuinely lost at this point. Ok, shit happens, you can solve this, no biggie. I was informed that a search would be launched for my parcel. I was informed that I would be called when it was found. I was informed that if they found it in time, I could get my parcel on the coming Saturday 10 September! OK, fingers crossed. They still didn’t have any clue about the five pounds I had paid, but they were sticking to their story that I could get a Saturday delivery anyway. I just had to hold on tight for them to find my parcel and call me.
They did find my parcel, but they didn’t call me. I saw on the online tracking system that my parcel was processed for returning to the sender. WTF??? Here’s a tip, don’t promise a phone call and a delivery and then do the opposite. I called DPD to rant about how idiotic this is. You have already failed to deliver on two arranged dates (27 Aug & 2 Sep), and now, after finding my parcel, instead of delivering on 10 Sep as I was informed, my parcel is in fact being returned. How can you screw your processes up this badly? An absolute embarrassment. I would have preferred it if DPD just told me “Hey mate we just hate you so we brought your dumb parcel to your stupid house then burned it in the middle of the shitty street you live in because that is what you deserve”. Despite being totally deranged, that would at this point make more sense that what actually happened. The fact that I had paid five pounds for a Saturday delivery that had been failed three times now, and would apparently never be honored was still lost on the experts at DPD customer service HQ.
Of course I wanted to complain! Complain complain complain! I complained! DPD’s complaint procedure is a process called “make it right”. It is a web form that sends an email. I submitted the form, it sent an email. I thought “make it right” was optimistic in the circumstances, and I was right to be skeptical. DPD’s “make it right” complaints procedure vomited a digital error back into my inbox and then nothing else happened. Nothing. Nothing was “made right”.
I am no expert on customer services, but I can think of many ways DPD could at least try to make this — if not right, a bit less wrong. Right now things are pretty damn wrong though, so almost anything would be progress. How about contacting whoever was taking my parcel back to the sender and tell them to turn their ass around? How about contacting the sender and saying “Hey we screwed up this delivery, please send it back to us so we can try again”. How about telling me how hard you are willing to try to make sure I can eventually get my parcel somehow … anyhow? How about reassuring me that you haven’t lost my five pounds, will refund it since the delivery obviously hasn’t happened as it should have done, and will give my the very best complimentary delivery service when my parcel finally comes back to your depot? Nope. “Make it right” for DPD is a web form that throws an error.
As so many right minded people do in this day and age, I went to Twitter to rant about the poor service I have suffered, hoping the spotlight of publicity would spur DPD into action. Spoiler: it didn’t.
DPD’s social media presence have said they will “do what they can” (so far nothing), “look into this” and “update [me] soon”. But only after lots of prodding and reminding was I able to get any sort of apology — “yeah we screwed up, that’s it. The End”. I get that you lost my parcel, I don’t get how you managed to tell me wrong stuff every time I called you. I don’t get how you lost my money. I don’t get why you can’t work a bit harder to get my parcel to me. I don’t care if you have returned it to the sender, contact the sender and sort it out! And by the way, where is my five pounds? I do get that a parcel company could lose a parcel. They really shouldn’t but it happens. But how do you lose my money too? I know it’s only five pounds but come on. Either call me a liar and say you think I never paid, or refund it, or … anything, just say something. Try to “make it right”.
Where is my money?? And why don’t you care?? It is 10pm Tuesday now and I am still waiting for any response to my tweet from Sunday “And how about the 5 pounds I paid for Saturday delivery, is it lost too”?
