Citizen Advice Parcel league table

Citizens Advice (CA) published its Parcels league table today, 16 November 2023. Now in its third year, the research shows a substandard performance by all the major parcel delivery companies.

CA’s report reveals that in just the last month a massive 13.3 million people faced a problem with the most recent parcel they received.

It will probably come as no surprise to consumers that Evri and Yodel were in joint last place! But although Royal Mail and Amazon were jointly at the top of the table they still only received an overall score of 2.75 out of a possible 5!

A pretty poor show.

The Citizens Advice Parcels league table 2023

(Source: Citizens Advice)

Royal Mail dropped from a satisfaction score of 3.00 in 2022 to 2.75 in 2023. No surprise there then when we saw Royal Mail fined £5.6m for missing delivery targets by OFCOM just two days ago. It was told it could no longer use COVID and strikes as excuses and it would appear that consumers agree with the regulator.

A spokesperson for Evri said:

We are disappointed with where CA has placed us in its parcels league table – after a year of significant investment and listening to our customers to improve our service. Our ambition is that every customer’s experience with Evri is a positive one, and we work hard to understand each instance when this is not the case.

Our rising parcel volumes are proof that customers and retail clients are voting with their feet and trust us with their deliveries. 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.

It perhaps comes as some consolation that whilst Evri is still clearly bad, with a score of 2.00, it is actually an improvement on last year when it scored just 1.75. It is the only company that has increased its score.

Amazon Logistics, DPD and Yodel scored just as badly as last year.

When producing the league table, CA analyses the top 5 delivery companies by parcel volume. Its measurement of performance includes factors such as customer service, delivery issues and accessibility needs.

Citizens Advice found for 2023:

 

• 13 million experienced delivery problems – a third of shoppers (34%) experienced a delivery problem with the last parcel they received. Problems included parcels left in insecure locations and parcels arriving late. Worst offenders were Yodel (40%), DPD (37%) and Evri (34%).
• Poor customer complaints processes – of those consumers that experienced a problem with their delivery, nearly half (43%) of consumers 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, over half (53%) of those that had further issues found it difficult to resolve their problem. This figure rose to 60% of people with a disability.
• Failing disabled customers – almost all parcel firms scored 2 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 have an accessibility need they’d like to share with their parcel delivery company. However almost half (45%) of these people were unable to do so.”

Earlier this week, the Post Office announced that for the first time in its 360-year history, parcel customers will be able to send packages using DPD and Evri, as well as via Royal Mail. The end of the monopoly means more choice, and hopefully lower prices, for postal users. (See Post Office delivers more choice for sending parcels). How this will affect customer service remains to be seen.

CA said that Ofcom’s “current guidance on accessibility and complaints procedures has not yet resulted in meaningful improvements.”

The CA research showed that nearly all parcel firms scored 2.00 or below when it came to meeting the needs of disabled customers or individuals who require adjustments to how they receive parcels. 45% of consumers with an accessibility need they want to share with their parcel delivery company were not able to do so.

We may or may not see this change as we enter into a full year of the new guidelines being in force by the time the next league table is published. In March this year Ofcom announced new regulations for couriers and the rules for serving disabled customers came into force on 1 November 2023.

Below are some of my appearance on television regarding deliveries. I am frequently in the media talking about deliveries and also talk about other sectors such as retail, travel, motor, banking and topical issues. See Helen Dewdney – Consumer Rights Expert & Media Commentator

Ofcom says that postal operators “must have policies and procedures in place to ensure disabled customers can communicate their delivery needs to them, and firms will need to ensure couriers will meet those needs when delivering parcels.”

When I asked why the rules were coming in much later for disabled customers, a spokesperson for Ofcom said:

Parcel operators need sufficient time to develop and implement new policies and procedures, including ICT systems changes and training programmes, to comply with our new rule. We expect parcel firms to be ready for the deadline.”

Ofcom has warned that if it does not see substantial improvements in customer service and complaints handling as a result of these changes, it will consider enforcement action or further regulation.

However, it has not taken any real action on complaints-handling over the last five years! But, it claims it is tightening its rules and guidance to reflect how the parcels market has grown considerably.

An Ofcom spokesperson said:

“In line with how we regulate other sectors, we’ll keep a close eye on the market once the guidance is introduced, and our monitoring work could include consumer research, information gathering and tracking complaint levels.”

We will wait and see what changes there are in a year’s time and what action Ofcom has taken!

CA is calling on Ofcom and parcel companies to take action now and proposes three recommendations:

 

1. Parcel companies should use the league table results to identify areas they need to improve. It’s clear from our results that delivery problems remain an outstanding issue, with a particular focus on parcels being left in an insecure location. With no improvements on delivery problem scores since last year, the rate of parcel problems remains far too high across the board.

2. Ofcom should conduct a review of their new complaints and accessibility guidance by April 2024 and should consider enforcement action, such as launching investigations or issuing fines, if there have been no significant improvements by this date.

3. Ofcom should expand its monitoring processes, to fully capture the type and rate of delivery problems across the board. This should include issues consumers have when they both receive and send parcels. And results should be used to take action against companies with persistently high rates of problems.”

Evri Chief Customer Officer Chris Ashworth talks to me on The Complaining Cow Consumer Show on East London Radio.

Further help with complaining about deliveries

How to complain about a delivery, online and mail order

What to do when deliveries don’t reach you

If you can’t get the help you want from a courier, contact the CEO who won’t respond personally but it should help! You can find the email address from ceoemail.com

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