DPD - Appalling... Truly Truly Appalling

Wazmeister

The point is here guys, I probably have more parcels than most delivered, and must have 2-3 per week from DPD...

I know the driver, he knows our street, and I have a dedicated drop-off bin. I must be the easiest drop he has. I also know how much they earn per parcel, how much their van hire costs (yes, some rent vans) etc etc. I have instruction attatched to our door; I sent safe place instructions to them; we live in a vry safe cul-de-sac; you could leave your doors open here... neighbours take parcels too...

I also know Ive planned this particular delivery for a while... its late, its delayed, and I needed this yesterday. This has affected activity for the week, and strongly affects a BIG rehearsal we have on Monday.

Strange thing is... having sent them a link to this thread, they have suddenly jumped into life and it’s definitely coming today now...having emailed me at 5.21am. The power of FB eh ?

This is better but shouldnt need this level of stress or involvement on my part.

As for waiting for the Oldbury Depot to contact me, Id be better speaking to one of the pigeons that frequent our garden...

mgaw

write a message in really little writing, grab a pigeon, tie afore mentioned message to leg of said Pigeon, let go and hope for the best...

Wazmeister

mgaw said:

write a message in really little writing, grab a pigeon, tie afore mentioned message to leg of said Pigeon, let go and hope for the best...

You been spying on me ?

west

My one experience was shit .... they lost my collings in their system for 5 days ... it went glos - dudley -oldbury- bham- then lost and turned up in hinkley leicester back to oldbury - delivery ... wankers ...

MLten80

idiots 

I know how shyte they all are, I had a 1500£ guitar "lost" by UPS recently 
  trying to actually get through to anyone on the phone is just jokes

it's laughable how bad they are, I read countless other stories online of similar situations 

TeleMaster

Ultimately lots of these courier companies self employ these drivers. They have offered them very limited in work benefits (sick pay, pension etc) for a very long time, and the result is a race to the bottom. You can’t treat your employees like absolute shit, claim all the rewards of their labour and then hope that they’ll deliver a good service, or care about their work.

They get paid per delivery and often get fined when they don’t turn up for work. This whole gig economy thing is a massive con and while it’s fucking annoying not to receive our items and easy to blame the actual person doing the delivery, I think that you have to look at it in a wider context as I feel that the real blame lies at the feet of companies like DPD for trying to drag our employment culture back to Victorian times. 

From what I can see, following the death of one of their workers last year DPD have pledged to improve their working conditions and in work benefits. But ultimately someone shouldn’t have had to die for them to change their ways. It’s common sense. 

I hope they read this. 

Wazmeister

@TeleMaster - good post mate.

Rest assured, they are reading it - I’ve sent them a link.

And you are quite right, the driver is the least to blame. Mistakes happen, I get it, but the inability to even speak to someone (whilst trying for 2 hours) is unbelievable.

Shocking culture throughout the company.

Monkeybone

I work for DPD as a driver. It is a horrendously stressful job, apparently the "industry standard" stop time for deliveries is two minutes per stop, which may seem a fair amount of time, but that includes finding the property (if you're new to the area, and your sat nav doesn't work properly, can be hard), finding somewhere to park (quite difficult in some areas), and sometimes phoning the depot to find the location, which with my depot can take an age, as nobody seems to like answering the phone. Some parcels we deliver say on them "team lift", which is hard when your team consists of just you. We are given very little assistance loading the vans in the morning, instead we get rushed out the door.

I do understand for the recipient, it can be a pain in the backside if your parcel doesn't turn up when the company says it will, most of our drivers do try our best to get them there on time and to the right places. Sadly, sometimes there are drivers that don't give the right amount of care and attention to their job.

I actually get excited when I see someone has ordered a guitar or amp, and make sure they get treated with care. 

TeleMaster

@Monkeybone ;I would imagine that it’s probably the case with some drivers that they’re under such pressure to complete X amount of deliveries that if they’re behind and get to a location and they can’t work out where the property is, or there’s an issue with parking that instead of getting in shit for it or being fined or whatever it just works out better for them to say that no one was home and to move on. 

boogieman

Our DPD guy is really good and he’s been working for them for at least 3 years AFAIK. Always turns up when he’s supposed to, polite, makes an effort. Don’t get me started on those wankers at Parcelforce though. 

Its already been said, but so much of the bad experience with courier drivers is down to poor pay and conditions and unreasonable expectations from their employers. The inability to get a straight, honest answer when they let you down is my biggest bugbear though. On the other hand how many people wouid pay a premium price for a better service? I bet it’s a tiny percentage. 

Headphones

My DPD experience has also been universally awful.  The worst one was their "no one in" photo - which included my son's face as he was opening the door! Chap must have literally run away!

They are a guaranteed deal breaker for any delivery here - which I make clear with any equiry.

JDE

Fuck it, I’m going to close my business account with them. 

Wazmeister

So, Oldbury are calling me this morning and the parcel is arriving...

So far.... nothing... no a sound.

Wait till i show you the email the ‘Make It Right’ team sent...

wesker123

One parcel I had from DPD the driver arrived 2 minutes early and couldn't scan it until within the allotted hour slot was due.
Seems crazy if driver is early they cannot let you have the parcel.

Monkeybone

wesker123 said:

One parcel I had from DPD the driver arrived 2 minutes early and couldn't scan it until within the allotted hour slot was due.
Seems crazy if driver is early they cannot let you have the parcel.

That is a pain in the ass for me. With our old scanners, if we arrived early for a collection, we could scan the parcels but have to wait until the allotted time before getting the customer to sign. With our new scanners, we can't even scan them until the time, which can then put us behind again if there are a lot of parcels to collect.

lukedlb

A guitar case was sent to me in Italy only last week via dpd and the Italian courier. First time ever that I was given a delivery time slot. Incredible. And it arrived on time. Here’s me praying all couriers could be this good and then I read waz’s Thread. 

Monkeybone

Just as an aside, our latest scanners don't let us leave cards unless we're a few yards from the property, unless we call the depot for an unlock code, so the driver in the OP's post must have done that and is therefore an ass. 

Wazmeister

As predicted, NO call and NO delivery today.

Still, the Chief Exec is now on the case so we shall see..

And guess what, Monday delivery. 

Truly shocking.

Monkeybone

Wazmeister said:

As predicted, NO call and NO delivery today.

Still, the Chief Exec is now on the case so we shall see..

And guess what, Monday delivery. 

Truly shocking.

Skeleton staff at weekends.

jeztone2

Someone at the DPD depot in Southall tried to steal my PRS when it was delivered. Then a Camera lens went AWOL. Fortunately the guy I’ve got now is ace. But I think the is the whole pay peanuts, get monkeys scenario.