More than 13 million people had a problem with the last package they received, according to new research, as a ranking of the worst offending companies has also been revealed.
According to Citizens Advice, a third of shoppers have experienced an issue with a package in the past month, either due to late delivery or packages being left in an unsafe location.
The consumer body has also published its annual parcel delivery rankings, which shows that major parcel companies have provided poor service for the third year in a row.
Problems: New research from Citizens Advice shows a third of shoppers have had a problem with parcel delivery in the past month
In the latest parcel rankings, which looks at the top five delivery companies by parcel volume, no major company achieved even a three out of five star rating.
This Is Money has reported extensively on the massive delays faced by Royal Mail customers, particularly with first class mail. But it seems Royal Mail isn’t the only company whose customers are having problems with their deliveries.
Evri and Yodel ended up at the bottom of the package table, with a total score of just 2 stars out of a possible 5, closely followed by DPD with a paltry 2.25 stars.
Royal Mail and Amazon came together at the top, but with only 2.75 stars out of 5.
The top five companies were measured based on their performance on delivery issues – with Yodel, DPD and Evri being the worst performers – as well as on customer service, accessibility and trust.
Royal Mail and Amazon scored 2.6 out of 5 on delivery, followed by DPD with 2 out of 5 and Yodel and Evri both scored 1.8 out of 5.
This Is Money has highlighted that some households across the country have received their mail weeks late. Some claim Royal Mail is prioritizing parcels at the expense of letters, something the company denies.
Responding to Citizens Advice’s table, a Royal Mail spokesperson said: ‘We’re pleased to be getting together first… Our postmen deliver to all addresses across the UK and are doing everything they can to meet delivery needs and packages get to customers safely and securely.
“We are working hard to further improve our service quality and continue to introduce more convenient options for customers to access our services, including automatic redelivery and safe place delivery preferences.”
An Amazon spokesperson said: “Every day at Amazon, great associates and independent delivery partners come together to provide our customers with fast, safe, reliable and convenient delivery.
‘The vast majority of deliveries reach the customer without any problems. In the rare event that something happens, we work directly with customers to make it right.”
Bad customer service
When it comes to customer service, almost half of consumers say they experience additional problems when trying to resolve a delivery issue, such as not getting a response to their complaint.
Amazon’s customer service was miles ahead of the competition, scoring 3.6 out of 5, while Royal Mail scored a 3. Yodel came in at the bottom with 2.3 out of 5 and also scored the lowest on trust.
However, the parcel companies have hit back at Citizens Advice’s research and rankings.
A spokesperson for Yodel said: ‘We welcome feedback and invest heavily to continually improve our service. However, this report does not reflect our own parcel data, which shows that 98.7 percent of the 200 million parcels we handled over the past 12 months were delivered correctly on the first attempt.”
Yodel and Evri scored poorly across the board, with particularly low scores for delivery issues and trust.
Chris Ashworth, Chief Customer Officer of Evri, said: ‘We are disappointed with where Citizens Advice has placed us in the package rankings – after a year of significant investment and listening to our customers to improve our service…
“Evri’s performance improvements have been validated this year as Amazon accredited Evri for Prime delivery for the first time… and our reliability is why the Post Office started selling our services.”
He added that Evri is the only parcel delivery company that requires proof of delivery for every package.
Shoppers have turned their backs on major retailers using Evri, formerly called Hermes, to deliver their online orders, according to This Is Money’s sister title Money Mail.
Big companies fail when it comes to accessibility
Four out of five major companies scored two stars or less when it came to meeting the needs of disabled customers or those requiring adjustments to deliveries.
Royal Mail came out on top with 2.8 out of 5 stars, while Amazon, DPD and Yodel scored 2 out of 5.
Evri scored only 1.6 out of 5 when it came to helping customers with accessibility needs.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: ‘We understand the importance of meeting the needs of disabled customers and since this research was conducted we have introduced an option for households to register their accessibility needs for parcel deliveries or collections via Parcel Collect.’
They added that customers with disabilities or accessibility needs can ask postal workers to “knock louder” or take more time when waiting for the customer to come to the door.
Citizens Advice said an estimated 7.2 million people have an accessibility need that they would like to share with their delivery company, but 45 percent were unable to do so.
It calls on regulator Ofcom to conduct a review of its complaints and accessibility guidelines by April next year and consider investigations or fines if improvements are not made.
This week the regulator fined Royal Mail £5.6 million for failing to meet delivery targets.
Dame Clare Moriarty, CEO of Citizens Advice, said: “For the third year in a row, our rankings show that online shoppers are being let down by a substandard delivery service. This is an issue that we believe has been neglected for far too long.
“We continue to hear from consumers chasing lost, late or damaged package deliveries: it has become an unfair and sometimes costly burden to bear.
“With a seasonal surge in deliveries on the horizon, parcel companies must take action to protect shoppers and identify the root cause of these ongoing shortfalls.”
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