Yodel calls on retailers to set realistic delivery expectati

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Yodel boss calls on retailers to set realistic delivery expectations

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The boss of Yodel is calling on retailers to set more realistic expectations for deliveries and said carriers should not take the blame for delivery problems.

Yodel has come under fire in recent years, lambasted for delivery delays over Black Friday and more recently Mother’s Day.

Speaking to Retail Week, executive chairman Dick Stead said building capacity for one-off ‘mega days’ is an on-going challenge: “You can’t ask parcel carriers to build up the capacity that’s only going to be used three times a year.”

Stead said offering next day delivery during these peak periods is unrealistic. “Retailers haven’t quite grasped you can’t provide next day delivery at this rate, not this [Black Friday], next year or the year after.”

“We’re working really hard with retailers at the moment to say ‘Come on guys, there’s a certain limit of capacity for next day delivery’. Reserve it for people who really need it the next day, and for everyone else for goodness sake you’ve had the bargain of a lifetime, but it might take 3-5 days to deliver.”

He said delivery firms need to work closely with retailers to set customer expectations and to ensure they are in full communication over their parcel whereabouts.

“The difficulty is the people working in their supply chains understand it, but their marketers don’t,” he continued.

Over the recent Mother’s Day weekend, Yodel was offering flower deliveries between 9am and 9pm on the Sunday and Stead said 99.6% of bouquets were delivered on time. “The problem with flowers is it’s an emotional purchase,” he said. “A lot of the complaints weren’t that they didn’t get the flowers, but they didn’t receive them at nine o’clock in the morning.”

“This is about working in a supply chain together, how do we get the message to the consumer that for whatever reason your parcel is going to be delayed?”

But Stead noted that parcels and flowers don’t always have phone numbers to call customers if their parcel is late or the customer is not at home. Only 25% of orders have accurate phone numbers, meaning only a quarter of customers get an apology text message if their parcel is delayed, “I’d love that to be 100%.”

Referring to the industry trend where retailers are offering next day delivery later and later in the evening, he said: “You can push it back as far as you like, but there’s only a limited capacity.”

“We’ll create you the capacity and even sell the capacity at a higher price, but be realistic if you don’t leave any room for natural occurrences like traffic jams.”

[Sir Henry]

"how do we get the message to the consumer that for whatever reason your parcel is going to be delayed?”

Just tell them Yodel are the carrier

[trythat]

Why should I have to give out my phone number, I use false ones if I have to leave one, looks as though other people do the same. If you want text and couriers calling you late at night to say their lost fair enough, but lots of us don't. As the comment above says, just don't rely on Yodel, pay a little extra and get us to deliver it!

[janitor]

The phrase if you can't stand the heat springs to mind, if you can't deliver get out of the delivery business.

[bogstandard]

the moany old goat, he must have known he nor his workforce could not provide the service. Now its not his fault for tendering, its the companies fault for making such requests that they must have known he could not meet.
So in essence is he saying, "look you must have known we couldn't do it so you've only yourself to blame for giving me the work".

[TrueBlueTerrier]

He could try FedEx innovative style.

[scoobymunster]

Yodel should stop advertising/selling 48 hour delivery to NI when they blatantly can't even come close, anything I've ordered that they delivered takes a minimum of 5 days It's false marketing.

[DGP1]

My office can always clear, there is always someone willing to do it which is why we cope at Christmas.

[chrisj]

It is the retailers or merchants that use Yodel that is most at fault, and the customers that have not really done their research.

If the point of delivery is miles from the collection centre then customers should be made aware of this and/or Yodel should not be the default carrier in such a case, unless the recipient (not always the customers) is definitely going to be at home.

Recently I had a very poor experience with Yodel - where a birthday present was sent as a sort of Saturday Special but then I work virtually every saturday... They would not leave with a neighbour, they will not deliver to another address, and there were just 2 options: to wait 7 days for a re-delivery on another Saturday (still not in) or to go and collect with a round trip of 45 miles - NOT!

However, they made 3 delivery attempts before finally returning the item to the sender (I hope they have). They would have made a loss on that item and still the item was not delivered and they got a nasty feedback from myself and the sender also berated the retailer for using Yodel in my area as they are useless.

I do agree with the Yodel boss though that customers should be more realistic and plan better when buying and expecting delivery online. A 'birthday present' or 'flowers' do not have to arrive on the day of the event; and it would be a lot cheaper if people do not use 'next day delivery' or things that strictly require signatures.