City Link - stink

We all know that most consumer parcel delivery companies are pretty disdainful of their customers (recipients and retailers). However my latest encounter with City Link shows them plunging to new depths. I’ll tell you the tale in a moment, but first why write about it here? I’ve long cared passionately about customer service, which in the UK is too often completely lacking or given reluctantly. Yet as our manufacturing base declines it’s our service industries that sustain us. And service industries have to do what it says on the tin: provide good service. I write with some experience, having once run a home delivery company, albeit one with a very different customer service ethic to City Link. Indeed we were winners of the Daily Telegraph Customer Service Awards.

To excel in customer service requires a particular mindset: one that puts the customer first come what may. And this mindset has to exist at every level of the business, every employee has to buy into it. Having a flashy website and a call centre with soothing regional accents is not enough. Customer service has to pervade the organisation. And this is where the UK too often has a problem, for there are employees out there who just can’t be bothered, which (if our employment laws weren’t so restrictive) should put them out of  a job, doubtless to be replaced by some charming immigrant worker who is prepared to try his or her utmost to do well for the customer’s benefit.

Now, back to my City Link tale. The basics will be all too familiar: I ordered some shoes for my son from Javari, next day delivery, City Link went to the wrong house (took a photo to prove it) and returned the shoes to their depot. So far so typical, but an error that I’d normally be willing to forgive. The next day was a Saturday. I know that parcel delivery companies won’t deliver on a Saturday, but my son needed those shoes that day (we were off on holiday). So I went online and followed the tracking details to establish where the shoes were: City Link’s Reading depot. But then I noticed that the depot closed at 12 noon, and I noticed this at 11:40. Knowing where the depot was I was aware that I could drive there in 20 minutes with favourable traffic. I should just be able to make it. To be on the safe side though I asked my wife to ring City Link’s customer service hotline and see if they could forewarn the depot that I was on my way, albeit cutting it fine. Amazingly she not only got through on the hotline, but a very helpful lady said that she would ring the depot to let them know I was coming and to confirm the parcel details in advance. Even better, she then rang me in the car to update me. That had all the makings of good customer service and I was impressed.

But here’s the kicker: the manager of City Link’s Reading depot informed his own customer service co-ordinators that he would not stay open a second after 12 noon, even though he knew I was on my way. The nice lady rang me back with the bad news, and by that time I was one set of traffic lights away. Nonetheless, I carried on and arrived at the depot at 12:03. The customer service counter was indeed closed, but the office next door was still open, filled with returning drivers and other staff. It was still busy and there in the middle was the manager.

“Ah yes, I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

“Great, may I have my parcel?”

“No, we’re closed.”

And that was it. No amount of remonstrating; offering to find the package myself; explaining (calmly) that if they’d done their job correctly in the first place I wouldn’t be there; pointing out that by giving me the parcel today would save them a redelivery on Monday; or that my son would be completely stuck today without his new shoes, would change his position. It was past 12 and that was it. What irritated me even more was that this truculent manager was surrounded by perhaps a dozen other City Link staff (drivers and office staff) all of whom turned to listen to my pleas. And not one of them tried to intervene or offered to get the parcel instead.

So this brings me back to my original point: customer service is of no value unless it is practised by every employee in an organisation who encounters a customer. And staff who cannot be bothered, frankly, should lose their jobs to someone who can. I cannot do anything more than complain, and remove my custom from Javari, which is a shame because I was impressed when I first visited their website (although they might want to reconsider their banner above). I won’t be shopping there again though while City Stink are making their deliveries.