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whats your thoughts on Overnight delivery standards?
Is it me or is the standard of customer service in the overnight delivery service at rock bottom? We have a very wide catchment area for our graphics service or clients are all over the uk and abroad each time i gingerly promise that a consignment will arrive on site in good condition i have to take a deep breath WILL IT ACTUALLY ARRIVE AT ALL?
We have had many major problems with Target whose attitude when there is a non delivery is to the left of Atilla the Hun
they are all the same i guess i would welcome any other comments do you have trouble with this type of delivery? it is essential that our signage arrives on site on time as confernces and exhibitions wait for no man!! -
13 Replies
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We have just switched to securicor/omega and at the moment i am very impressed, i had a parcel that couldent be delivered , they took the time to read the packing tape, get our phone number off it and call me to ask what would i like to do about the situation, it duely arrived back to me the following day, in perfect condition and wes re-collected the next for arranged delivery.
may be rob should contact them for a UKSG account
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yep very good idea.
i think we will have to be a bit more establiched to head down this road. but its certainly possible.
i think once we have the plastics & metal sources sorted out. i will contact omega, tnt, fedex etc and see what kind of service and cost they could give us all.
it wouldnt only be good for us buying in supplies but shipping out our work also.
so thumbs up from me. 🙂p.s. hey steve wheres your pic mate. c’mon mate lets ave it! 😆
you too joe. i thought you were going to send me your cover shot. 😆 -
re pic im far too ugly to appear on the boards it might do more damage that the idiot hackers! i need to wait untill my new Jag arrives on Wednesday my baby Scoobie is finally going i will be gutted
ill get photo with car it might soften the blow!! -
For what its worth I found a small local franchise place and I usually drop my parcels round to their depot – this gets at least half the job done without damage!
I did once have a job collected from being finished around the corner from me (3 pallet loads) which was to be in Torquay next day (I’m in Manchester) and guess what! They delivered them back to me instead next day – I then had to pay a same day courier £200 to deliver it. -
I think the standard of overnight delivery is diabolical. The problem is everyone competes on price – and quality suffers.
I usually buy illuminated signcases from "Northern Signcases" – and very rarely receive a case that is undamaged. The delivery drivers are obviously worked to very tight schedules. The last delivery I received the driver asked me to mark the delivery note as "unexamined". Given their history of delivering damaged cases I refused to do this, and told the driver either allow me the time to examine the goods – or take them away again. The driver waited while I checked the contents which were (unusually for them) undamaged. The drivers parting shot to me was "good job it was undamaged because I wouldn’t have accepted it back from you once it was opend up" I calmly explained to him that He would not have recieved a signature from me and would have had no proof the goods had been delivered. On reporting this episode back to Northen Signcases I was told "they (the delivery company) were the best of a bad bunch!!!". The only solution is not to accept such a poor service – vote with your feet and do not accept any damaged goods. If everyone did this. the delivery companies would be forced to get their act together. Easier said than done I know (what can you do when there is a limited choice) but at least make a stand.
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good point phil. they guy had a bloody cheek saying that to you in the first place… you should have called his boss rather than the sign cases place.
we have recently changed supplier of our sheet metal.
we buy our metal in variuos colours by the half ton each colour. (not alloy)
it comes on pallets and is strapped with metal strapping. the guy would arrive and ask for tin snips to snap the straps. one day i did not have them and he said well you cant get the sheets then. i said fine mate keep the bloody lot. ill call your office and explain why ive cancelled my order of 3 ton of sheet metal. he laughed and said suite yourself. and i did.
i said to the guy on the phone where in the hell does it say we must supply your driver with tin snips before getting our order. i then said , does this mean every place this guy goes he has to ask for snips. he said im not sure but he must! i said well fine im not. i cancelled that order and got it elswhere. the next time he came back he had his own snips. but brought along some attitude to go with it. "that was my last order with them" 😡 🙂 -
I think this is a subject that everyone will have different views on, I use ANC as there is a depot on the same estate. I have always found the service from them to be excellent and the rates are very competative as well. But I bet there will be people who say that ANC in there area are diabolicle. THere probably isnt an easy answer to this question as the service from different couriers varies so much across the country. Probably the best thing to do is find a decent company in your area and stick with them.
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I think the all the delivery companies must’ve seen my last posting on this topic and decided to blacklist me 😕
Today I phoned up to arrange a pickup on two signs – one to go south to Malvern, the other north west to Tiaghnabruich. To my dismay – business post (who we have used in the past for this sort of thing) tell us they will not accept any jobs over 2m in length (both parcels were bigger – 2.6M and 2.2M). OK – we’ll get some one else to deliver (thinks I) . Six or seven phone calls later I’m beggining to realise that no one is interested in delivering my signs. One company was interested but wanted 270 pounds !!!! 🙄 Another offered to deliver to Great Malvern for 90 pounds and would call me back about Tiaghnabruich!!
We eventully got a quote from Interlink Express for 15 pounds and 22 pounds 😀 😀 . I nearly bit their hands off 😀 😀
Why have most of these companies decided they no longer want my business?? Have they read my earlier post on this board and decided to teach me a lesson or what??
Any one had similar experiences recently?
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Back to one of my favourite subjects.
Last week I had two totaly unrelated incidents of damaged goods being delivered. Both from TNT. (hot) (hot) (hot) (hot)
The first was a tin of flexiprep – this arrived in a steel two gallon container that was so battered it won’t stand upright on it’s own. Had this been anything remotely fragile it would have been completely destroyed.
The second was a consignment of aluminium signblanks and a steel post. The signblanks had been lost – the post arrived on its own. I was given a freephone number to phone by the driver to enquire regarding the missing items. 15 minutes later – having spoken to 4 different people a lovely girl in wales told me she would look into it and call me back. This she did – and the missing items arrived in the afternoon – covered in oil, with one of the signblanks dented.
Two incidents of damaged goods in one week by the same carrier tells me there must be something very wrong with the way they handle goods. I’m surely not the only one at the receiving end of such a diabolical service – so how come they are still in business ??
I will certainly never trust TNT to handle any of my deliveries and would urge others similarly to avoid this company with their total disregard for handling goods with any semblance of care. Like I said on an earlier posting VOTE WITH YOUR FEET – these companies will soon get the message (hot) (hot)
If any TNT senior managers (or persons related to or familiar with any TNT senior managers) read this post, I would urge them employ one or two hard faced Army trained warehouse supervisors to sack a few warehouse handlers. Any warehouse handler that can’t treat goods with any semblance of respect needs to be booted out. Any handlers caught deliberately damaging goods (Which I honestly believe is what’s happening) should be reported to the police for causing criminal damage.
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Old post I know but had a similar situation recently and it bothered me so much I thought I would search on here to see if anyone else had the same problem. Again it was the same company Phil. I only wish I seen this post before !!
Who do you use now?? I’m thinking of getting the dumbo to deliver for me. I think it would be safer!!!
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My last post was made more than ten years ago in 2002. Things have changed a bit since then and it is now unusual to get anything damaged. I honestly think there was a rogue element going on within the company back then.
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I think that rogue element has come my way lol
To be fair it’s a first but it was more the "I don’t know why"
It’s damaged response that bugged me.
Oh well just one of those things. -
The 3 great mysteries of an Irish Sign makers life:
1. Who are we?
2. Is there a god?
3. Where the f*"k is the courier?
😀
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