City Link has gone into administration

[brand]

I never find my heremes courier to be all that rushed this maybe because I live rural and they soon no where to collect and place there parcels if you are not in.

 

[welsh dragon]

I never find my heremes courier to be all that rushed this maybe because I live rural and they soon no where to collect and place there parcels if you are not in.

People in rural places tend to be a bit more relaxed than people in cities. Here we don't mind our well known delivery drivers handing our parcels to neighbours to pass onto the right owner, or even if they sign for the parcel themselves and leave it in a mutually agreed place. As a result of having respect for each other, I have very rarely had cause to complain. Delivery drivers here are excellent.

 

[mcshroom]

I usually write that I am happy to pay parcelforce or royal mail delivery charges in the comments box on websites. All the others are based in industrial estates on the M6, Fifty miles from home.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Big suppliers, such a Amazon, are using this as a chance to get their customers more closely engaged. Amazon Prime? Certainly sir and you can have good delivery service. Want free? Are you sure sir? You will get much more random service.

Its a good point. Amazon must have realised there is desire and demand and prepared to do things a little different.

 

[Wobblers]

It also appears that you didn't know there was a figure as you referred to drivers ' A living wage' not 'THE living wage'.

Or that Vernon is aware that "minimum wage" falls somewhat short of a "living wage", of course.

 

[Andrew_P]

I doubt it is stripping as they bought more vehicles and invested 2,500 new hand held scanners worth £2m. And their 2013 year end services score had gone up. Any CFO worth his salt would known what the financial state of affairs are and the announcement on the Eve suggest an event triggered incident probably the talks with the unions had broken down.

Like I mentioned they were on the up, but Rentokill had not done any core improvements for years and really 40 million was never enough to turn them round. My account manager told me today he had no clue until he saw it on the news. He only told me on Tuesday that my rates where going up 3.5% in Feb, despite having agreed they wouldn't in November. He said it had been had down from upon very high.

They like Yodel and Business Post still use a very manual sorting system, strikes me as this is where the problem is with the system.

 

[screenman]

What we have to remember is some of those guys will not get paid for the work they have done recently, so along with the big one many smaller one's will go as well.

 

[Arrowfoot]

They like Yodel and Business Post still use a very manual sorting system, strikes me as this is where the problem is with the system.

Thanks for this. Always keen to know about what ticks or what needs to be fixed. Amazon has the best technology money can buy for logistic and sorting. They actually bought over the company that developed their state of the art system.

 

[Andrew_P]

Thanks for this. Always keen to know about what ticks or what needs to be fixed. Amazon has the best technology money can buy for logistic and sorting. They actually bought over the company that developed their state of the art system.

The downside to modern hub and spoke automated system is that they have the power. DPD told me to go forth unless I conformed to their new parcel size requirements. They literally gave me 28 days to leave in October (been with them for 4 years) I am not a big customer for them but they were taking 2500+ parcels a month from me, and I wasn't the only one they did it too. Rumour is that they took on all of EE and O2 phone deliveries and some of their overnight trunkers went from an average of 2000 parcels to 4000. Great business decision for them.

I am trying not to think about it as I am off from work, but from a totally selfish point of view it is going to be a nightmare start to next year. There is just not the capacity in the system to fill the void. The last 18 months I have sensed a dramatic switch in power from the customer to the parcel carrier.

 

[Dan B]

There is just not the capacity in the system to fill the void. The last 18 months I have sensed a dramatic switch in power from the customer to the parcel carrier.

Interesting that you should say "customer". Perhaps part of the problem is that in the current model the customer is usually the sender, whereas the person who's really going to care the most about whether the job is done right or not is the recipient.

 

[classic33]

The downside to modern hub and spoke automated system is that they have the power. DPD told me to go forth unless I conformed to their new parcel size requirements. They literally gave me 28 days to leave in October (been with them for 4 years) I am not a big customer for them but they were taking 2500+ parcels a month from me, and I wasn't the only one they did it too. Rumour is that they took on all of EE and O2 phone deliveries and some of their overnight trunkers went from an average of 2000 parcels to 4000. Great business decision for them.

I am trying not to think about it as I am off from work, but from a totally selfish point of view it is going to be a nightmare start to next year. There is just not the capacity in the system to fill the void. The last 18 months I have sensed a dramatic switch in power from the customer to the parcel carrier.

If they did take over EE's deliveries, they didn't keep it for long. Delivery firm changed for EE last month.

 

[Andrew_P]

Interesting that you should say "customer". Perhaps part of the problem is that in the current model the customer is usually the sender, whereas the person who's really going to care the most about whether the job is done right or not is the recipient.

Strangely your perception is wrong, the better the carrier performs the less agro from the senders point of view. Even the most premium of carriers you will still get complaints, mostly due to unrealistic customer expectations.

 

[Dan B]

Strangely your perception is wrong, the better the carrier performs the less agro from the senders point of view.

But it's second hand aggro. If Carrier X delivers my parcel three days late I will be annoyed. The sender has my money already, and a convenient scapegoat for the non-delivery of the item it has accepted the money in exchange for, and will only really care that the carrier is rubbish if I contact them to complain that the carrier is rubbish. Which is even more hassle for me than the original failure was, so unless I'm extremely annoyed I probably won't bother.

 

[buggi]

I feel sorry for them but on the other hand, when you treat your customers belongings like they are worth nothing then its bound to happen. They are not nicknamed sh.itty link for nothing.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Strangely your perception is wrong, the better the carrier performs the less agro from the senders point of view. Even the most premium of carriers you will still get complaints, mostly due to unrealistic customer expectations.

I ordered some stuff on 19th December and the seller stated "order by 12 noon today for guaranteed delivery by Christmas". The courier then sent me an e-mail stating that I could track the delivery. At 6pm on 23rd December, when the order had not arrived, I had a look to find that the courier "guaranteed delivery by 4pm on 23rd" and had "completed" the delivery. So I e-mailed the sender and said "have they bollocks".

The courier delivered to me on 24th December just before noon, and the delivery driver said "what are these people like, eh? Thinking that we'll be able to deliver when they send stuff out on the 22nd." I mentioned that "they" might be under that impression due to his company "promising" a service which I had paid for. I questioned the business model and he reckoned it worked "most of the time" - he then told me he had another 200-plus deliveries to make.

I then e-mailed the sender and said something along the lines of "see my last e-mail, dinnae worry about it, the order has arrived." The sender e-mailed me back at 2pm saying "we'll contact the delivery company to chase them up" or such-like; I went for a pint.