5 Responses to “The Curious Tale of The Stupid Shipping Company”

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  1. I feel your pain. I’ve have a computer delivered to my BACK door…in the rain…the delivery notice placed so it was not obvious. Argh!

    Now I will take you to task, mildly.

    I hope your discount is substantial because that trip out to your friends house for each delivery is going to tear at your very soul eventually. Also, figuring 50 cents a mile to get there and back DOES actually cost you money.

    So while DHL is certainly at fault, so is your printing company for not allowing you to use a different delivery service (I know they probably have a contract!). They need to advocate better for their customers with the delivery service.

    And as a customer, you need to make clear what your needs are and if they are not met do something different or let it go.

    Is this like chewing gum?

    Thanks for another interesting post.

  2. mensch

    Call DHL, yell at them, and report back. I am curious to read what their explanation could possibly be.

  3. Thanks, Avish. Good food for thought.

    There are many people who will do the least amount of work possible in order to still draw the paycheck. If all DHL requires of their drivers is that they drop off the packages, then that is all they will do. The extra second or two to push the buzzer is not worth their while.

    As you have seen, that leads to a lot of stolen boxes, and more work for DHL to deal with. But it’s a different department, so they don’t make the connection — no systems perspective. One guy saves 3 seconds by making the mess; another guy spends 15 minutes cleaning it up. It makes more work, but creates more jobs!

    Maybe DHL tells the drivers that they can leave the package if no one answers the buzzer, but the drivers can save time by just not ringing the buzzers, and going right to Plan B — leaving the box. There is a good business lesson in there, too, to not incentivize employees to pretend that Plan A fell through. And if the drivers don’t get reprimanded for just leaving it, then they really don’t care.

    People who shirk work like that are actually very smart. They have figured out the system and exploit it. They can wriggle out of the tiniest crack, pretending that they tried or didn’t have the information or resources to do the task. The fault is with the management for not plugging up those cracks. I worked at one company for two years where that was a huge problem.

  4. Viviane

    Avish, Sadly I too had a bad experience with DHL and mine was a good 15 years ago. At the time I was so frustrated I asked the sendor to use another delivery service and I got the same reply you did. They must have attempted delivery three times (this was time sensitive financial paperwork!). After that experience, I swore I would never use DHL again and I haven’t. Talk about bad customer service…

  5. avishp

    Amy: Thanks for the comment. You are right I suppose – people who shirk work are smart. if only they applied those smarts to being better at what they do!

    Mensch: This was a couple of years ago. Little late to complain now. Plus, I think DHL doesn’t operate in the US anymore (no surprise!)

    Michael: The dicsount was definitely significant enough to warrant going to my friend’s, even adding in cost of dricing there and back. Besides, that’s a friend I see regularly anyway, so unless it was a rush situation I woudn’t have to make a special trip. But you have a good point about factoring in that time and cost.

    Viviane: 15 years! Amazing! All that time and it hasn’t gotten any better…

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