Parcelforce: what a dozy outfit

In a highly competitive marketplace for delivery services, one would presume that basic competence was pretty much assured in any company that had managed to survive for more than a few months.

But Parcelforce seems an exception.

Tracking the progress of a package has become a standard part of the service offering for all national operators, and it makes a big difference. For all customers, it gives the chance of spotting when a time-sensitive item is not going to arrive in time, so a Plan B can be implemented. And for domestic customers, it means that they know whether they need to stay in and await the arrival of a delivery.

But Tracking is only of any use if it is reasonably accurate. That doesn't seem to be true of the Parcelforce system.

Late on 16th September, my supplier told me they had shipped my item by Parcelforce. They hadn't promised me delivery until the 20th - but previous experience suggested this would probably mean delivery the next day.

Checking at lunchtime on 17 September 2010, this is what the Parcelforce Tracking service told me

Good news: it would be good to have the item before the weekend. I stayed in all afternoon on Friday 17th, but there was no sign of Parcelforce. Late in the day, I decided to click through on the "Tracking Details" button, and a second page told a different story:

So - the parcel hadn't reached their "National Hub" (Coventry) until 11am - but an hour or so later, Parcelforce had been reporting that they expected to deliver it to me, in rural Derbyshire, the same day.

Worse still, later that evening (when the item had only just reached Nottingham) they were STILL indicating that they expected to deliver the same day.

And the next morning (Saturday: 18 Sep), here I am with no parcel, and STILL Parcelforce are telling me that their expected delivery date is yesterday.

This error isn't because a member of staff looked up a piece of information and read the wrong line. It wasn't some inexperienced member of staff who didn't understand what they were doing. This isn't even some newly-thought-of extra system that is being bedded in.

This is the standard Parcelforce website system that has been offering Tracking for ages. If they are feeding garbage to me, they are feeding garbage to others. If their system didn't update "Expected Delivery Date" when the parcel arrived at their National Hub after the delivery van had left my Local Hub - then it won't do it for other people.

Conclusion: Parcelforce wouldn't be on my shortlist of companies to entrust with my company's reputation until they have fixed their Tracking service - and explained to me why I should have any confidence in a company that seems happy to deliver such poor service to the end user without doing anything about it.