City Link

Don't, just don't.

Ordered a tyre on eBay on Sunday. Despatched on Monday.

Come Saturday... nothing. Contact them (25 minutes on hold) and the
response "I'm really sorry, it's been on the van since Tuesday but they
haven't attempted delivery". I ended up collecting (80 mile round
trip).

Polite email sent to their CEO recording my 'customer experience' but I
suspect it's a waste of time.

 

wrote in :

UPS are cunts too. I ordered a new phone yesterday from Virgin and the UPS
delivery bloke woke me up at 0830am this morning. Anti-social bastard.

 

A complete waste of time. Every single time someone's sent something via
City Link, City Link have completely fucked it up.

Every time I've complained, every time nothing has changed. They simply
don't give a shit - and with just Amazon's custom alone, I'm not
surprised.

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine

 

+1

 

How spooky, I was asked to organise transporting a laptop for updating
at work a couple of weeks ago. I was advised we had a deal with City
Link, so had to use them.

They totally fucked it up. We got the laptop OK, but when it came to
sending it back to its user, they firstly 'forgot' to pick it up [1],
then when they did it went missing. It turns out they'd delivered it
back to our goods-in office, instead of the address that was on the
label, and on the fax I sent them.

The entire process was amateurish though, send an email to order the
collection, send a fax to order the redelivery, no tracking.

I gave up in the end, and used the courier we normally use [2] for
samples delivery, as they are reliable - albeit not cheap.

[1] it turns out they'd actually gone to the original address to pick it
up again.
[2] YDL/APC if you're interested.

 

When I compain, I send the same letter or email cc'd to three or more
execs. ND, sales, customer service, for example.

One communication gets ignored. X-referenced to several; things start to
happen as people won't ignore it once they know other people are 'in the
loop'.

 

We have had similar problems with them , paid for before 9 am
delivery , doesnt turn up and we are basically told tough , arrived
three days later .

Dont like refunding the additional charges either for the early doors
delivery service .

We use UPS these days

 

We just dont use them any more , we request that any of our suppliers
who are dispatching to us do not use them if possible either .

Any late deliveries get notified to the suppliers straight away and
we deduct the delivery charges from the invoices as a matter of
course if they are late .

 

Well, I rarely complain but emails sent at the weekend to CEOs
*sometimes* get read by the CEO.

But I suspect you're right.

 

OTOH - my annual spend with CityLink is about £10,000 and I rarely have
problems

The worst courier that I use is DHL

 

We use Royal Mail exclusively for sending packages and parcels
worldwide, and I'm sending upwards of 20 parcels a day - in 4 years of
using them my boss reckons only one package has ever got lost, and that
turned up a year later. They're the cheapest for most things as well,
courier firms such as City Link and DHL are extortionate.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Tourer, CBR600F-W racebike in the making, TS250C, RD400F
(somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

We use Royal Mail exclusively for sending packages and parcels
worldwide, and I'm sending upwards of 20 parcels a day - in 4 years of
using them my boss reckons only one package has ever got lost, and that
turned up a year later. They're the cheapest for most things as well,
courier firms such as City Link and DHL are extortionate.
[/QUOTE]
The problem I have with royal mail is that when something does go wrong,
there doesn't seem to be any "buck stops here" person. When someone's
boiler has gone down, "if it hasn't turned up in 30 days, fill in this
form" isn't what the customer wants to hear. With cityLink and APC I
have someone on the end of a phone who will sort the problem

 

Now that's really not my experience.

There's certainly someone on the end of the phone ... who'll lie like a
****, even in the face of absolute proof they're talking bollocks.

--
Veggie Dave
http://www.iq18films.co.uk

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim
that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine

 

That's because I have a better phone number than they gave you

and maybe because I give my girlies in the CL office chockies every xmas
-

 

They don't go astray as much as people make out. Like I said, our
firm's never actually lost a package in four years of sending 20 plus a
day, but one did get there a year late.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Tourer, CBR600F-W racebike in the making, TS250C, RD400F
(somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

I know[1] a non-exec on the rentokill-initial board. That's the next
step if the CEO doesn't respond. All I'm really looking for is an
apology if I'm honest.


[1] Worked for someone who worked for him about five years ago. Was on
'nodding terms' in the company gym but no more.

 

Apart from spending 20 odd minutes on hold the experience of speaking to
CityLink's helpline wasn't that bad and they were very helpful and
apologetic. Something I pointed out to the CEO.

I didn't repeat that "Oh, it's been on the van every day since tuesday
but they haven't made an attempt to deliver" because I figured this is
the sort of honesty that gets bollocked.

 

you're both petty, self-important twats.

 

Indeed.

I can however recommend DHL - they've not fecked one up yet for me.

I book through www.parcel2go.com who appear to actually take customer
service seriously, as any queries I've had in the past are usually
dealt with promptly, and you've got the added bonus of being able to
speak to one of their droids via 'online chat' should you need to
raise a query.

If you do use them, forget using HDNL even though they're usually a
quid or so cheaper - tried them a couple of times and they've fecked
around / not turned up when they say they will etc.

DHL have not gone outside the stated delivery time yet either - I
usually book a two day service for UK stuff and most of the time it
arrives next day.

Getting back to City Link... recently used them inadvertently (1), and
found they were still as shite as ever - three days of sitting around
with them not turning up to collect when they said they would, and 45
minutes of my life I'll never get back on the phone to them in an
attempt to pin them down on when they'd actually be collecting / just
why it was they thought this was acceptable.

Avoid.

 

Ignoring the fact their customer services, (in other words, the
centrally based part of the business), are unhelpful, some of it comes
down to which area you are in; the depots still appear to be as
variable in quality as when plenty of them were franchises (pre 2005),
as whilst I've found the one local to here universally shite (1), I've
had someone based elsewhere say they've never had any problems with
them.

(1) Given my recent experience of them, it would appear things haven't
improved there since as a franchise they went bust and the operation
ended up back in company hands back in... 2004, IIRC.