Yodel customers vent frustrations online

Christmas shoppers are claiming that the presents they have ordered are going missing because delivery giant Yodel, used by retailers such as Amazon, Boots and Tesco Direct, is losing parcels or sending them to the wrong addresses.

 

Hundreds of recent messages on an Amazon forum tell of deliveries Yodel claims to have made which have never turned up, parcels that have gone to the wrong addresses and other poor customer service.

 

Yodel's Facebook page is also testament to people's mounting frustration, while messages to its Twitter feed are almost exclusively complaints. "I will now have two very upset and disappointed daughters on Christmas morning, as they will have no presents, because you failed to deliver them," wrote Alison Bass in one of hundreds of messages posted on Facebook in the last week.

 

"You are absolutely shocking," said Kelly Morris on the same page. "I've just checked my delivery status to see where on earth my order is. 'Attempted delivery, call card left'. I've been in all night and there is no card."

 

Ian Fox was one of those who complained on Twitter. He claims he was told his Amazon order had been despatched on the 14 December and that Yodel had attempted to deliver it on 18 December.

 

"Our opening hours are 3am to 8pm, so they must have "attempted" it after or before," he said. "I own a delivery firm and it's part of the nationwide delivery network APC Overnight. We're busy at the moment – our deliveries are up easily by 40%. So we've put on more staff and made sure that we're covered."

 

He added: "Just because it's Christmas it doesn't mean that service should go out the window. As a matter of fact it should be improved as a vast majority of these parcels are now urgently required Christmas gifts."

 

Yodel is the biggest delivery company in the UK after Royal Mail. It claimed it was being unfairly singled out for criticism and a spokesman said that it performed a lot better than many of its competitors and was now taking over contracts from them.

 

It said in a statement: "Yodel delivers over 170m parcels a year on behalf of the majority of the UK's top retailers. In the vast majority of cases deliveries run smoothly and on time, however like all carriers occasionally we do encounter circumstances, some of which are beyond our control, but in cases where we fail to meet our own high standards, we apologise.

 

"We have invested heavily in driver training and in technology systems ahead of this Christmas and are confident that we have learnt many of the lessons of the past. In the peak period of three weeks running up to Christmas we will handle approximately 13m parcels."

 

Yodel is one of a number of delivery companies used by Amazon, and it has contracts with other big retailers including Tesco, Argos and Boots. It has faced customer criticism since it bought DHL in January 2010, when it was known as Home Delivery Network Limited (HDNL). In an attempt to change its image it was rebranded later that year as Yodel, but the complaints have continued.

 

Shirtmakers Hawes and Curtis dropped Yodel five months ago because of problems with the company's delivery and customer service.

 

"Yodel's service works fine if the delivery is actually made but if there is a problem you just can't get hold of them," said Antony Comyns, head of e-commerce at Hawes and Curtis. "We would have customers calling us in desperation, we would apologise and then not be able to get through to Yodel."

 

Comyns said a common problem was the failure to put a delivery card through a customer's door if there was no response: "That happens with all delivery companies but we had a huge volume of those with Yodel."

 

He added: "If they delivered to the wrong address their response was really poor and getting those things sorted out with them was incredibly difficult. It had a terrible impact on our online reviews and our delivery performance on Amazon was rated so low that we were at risk of being struck off the site."

 

Of the 25 most recent threads on Amazon, 12 are on the subject of complaints about Yodel with 13,584 comments in total about the service. This compares to one thread about DPD, which has attracted 811 comments and one about Royal Mail that has 540 comments.

 

Amazon reiterated the same statement it sent to The Guardian in Augustand would not add any further comment.

 

"Amazon measures itself on its ability to deliver items by the estimated delivery date we provide customers and the delivery performance is very strong.

 

"We take all customer feedback on board, actively monitor the performance of our carriers and make improvements in order that we can provide an even better service in the future."