Parcel delivery firms ranked as survey finds 'miserable' service for customers
Parcel firms have delivered a “miserable” service to consumers for the third year running, according to an annual survey by Citizens Advice.
Evri and Yodel ranked at the bottom of the charity’s league table, both managing an overall score of just two stars out of a possible five.
However, none of the major parcel firms managed to secure even a three star rating, with Royal Mail and Amazon achieving joint best position with a meagre 2.75 stars.
Meanwhile, 13.3 million people – or 34% of consumers – experienced a delivery problem in just the last month, such as parcels left in insecure locations or arriving late, a survey for the charity suggests.
Speaking to ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi, the Citizens Advice bureau has outlined some advice for those affected
Citizens Advice said there had been no improvements on delivery problem scores since last year, with the rate of parcel problems remaining “far too high across the board”.
The worst offenders were Yodel, with 40% of customers reporting a problem, DPD (37%), and Evri (34%).
The Citizens Advice parcels league table looks at the top five delivery companies by parcel volume and measures their performance against criteria including customer service, delivery problems and accessibility needs, such as people needing longer to answer the door.
Dismal deliveries? Let ITV News know if you have been affected
ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi spoke to people who are left "playing hunt the delivery" as seemingly careless couriers leave parcels in odd places.
He also heard from a disabled couple who have had 14 parcels go astray in the last two and a half years - they say often the delivery staff don't wait long enough for them to get to the door.
The firms insist that they are investing in their fast and reliable services and that most deliveries have no issues.
In the run-up to Christmas, millions of us will rely on delivery firms - so ITV News wants to keep an eye on how they are doing.
If you have an experience, good or bad, to share - please contact us on yourstory@itv.com
Of those consumers that experienced a problem with their delivery, nearly half (43%) then had a further issue when trying to resolve the problem, such as not being able to find the right company contact details or not receiving a response.
In the end, more than half of those that had further issues (53%) found it difficult to resolve their problem. This figure rose to 60% of people with a disability.
Almost all parcel firms scored two stars or below when it came to meeting the needs of disabled customers or individuals who require adjustments to how they receive parcels.
An estimated 7.2 million people had an accessibility need they would like to share with their parcel delivery company, but 45% of these people were unable to do so, the survey found.
Citizens Advice said its online advice page, titled: “If something you ordered hasn’t arrived” had been viewed almost 222,000 times in the last 12 months, a 78% increase in views since 2019.
It urged regulator Ofcom to review its new complaints and accessibility guidance by April next year, and consider enforcement action on firms if there had been no significant improvements by this date.
Citizens Advice chief executive Dame Clare Moriarty said: “For the third year running our league table reveals online shoppers are being let down by a substandard delivery service. This is an issue we feel has been neglected for far too long.
“We continue to hear from consumers that are chasing up lost, late or damaged parcel deliveries. It’s become an unfair and, at times, costly burden to bear.
“With a seasonal surge of deliveries on the horizon, parcel companies must take action to protect shoppers and get to the root cause of these persistent failings.”
Evri chief customer officer Chris Ashworth said: “We are disappointed with where Citizens Advice has placed us in its parcels league table after a year of significant investment and listening to our customers to improve our service.
“We have invested more than £130 million to improve our UK operations in the last two years with 99% of the 730 million parcels we handle annually delivered on time.
“We are the only parcel delivery company to mandate proof of delivery photos for every parcel and our AI-enabled Parcel Vision provides direct feedback to couriers on the quality of images or if a parcel appears to be in an unsafe location.”
An Amazon spokesman said: “The vast majority of deliveries make it to customers without issue. In the rare case something occurs, we work with customers directly to make it right.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We are pleased to come joint first of Citizens Advice’s parcels league table. We are working hard to further improve our quality of service and continuing to introduce more convenient options for customers to access our services, including automatic redelivery and safe place delivery preferences.
“We understand the importance of meeting the needs of disabled customers and since this survey was carried out. We have introduced an option for households to register their accessibility needs for parcel deliveries or collections via Parcel Collect.”
Yodel said: “We welcome feedback and invest heavily to continuously improve our service. However, this report is not reflective of our own parcel data, which indicates that 98.7% of the 200 million parcels we handled over the last 12 months were delivered correctly on the first attempt.”
Opinium surveyed 8,164 UK adults online between September 19 and October 13 who had received a parcel in the last month from Royal Mail, DPD, Yodel, Amazon Logistics or Evri.
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