No doubt this has something to do with DHL attempting to break into a market where UPS and FedEx are giants, and where our U.S. Postal Service is attempting to become more customer-friendly and service-oriented to compete with them.

DHL competitively bid on numerous contracts, including Amazon’s, but had not yet established the internal structure and experience to truly become interchangeable with its competitors. The result has been slow delivery and awful customer service, which is even more frustrating from the customers’ perspective since contact with CSRs usually means a problem has already arisen.

I can only hope that DHL Express here in the States intends to work on both of those before next year’s holiday season.

At any rate, my package is here and for that I’m glad. I can only hope that if any future deliveries to my house come via DHL the problem won’t occur again.

Dear Kate

I work for DHL and I am apologetic of the experience you have had dealing with my company. It is, I believe, irrelevant to go into why and how we managed to screw up the delivery of your package but let me just say that for all the times when it seems that the sky is falling, we do a damn good job of delivering on time too. It is coincidental that you have a popular blog and your shipment came through DHL and we managed to botch it up time and again. Shit happens!

I can confidentally say that we at DHL (well, a fine majority of us at least) are committed to doing a good job and we have a myriad of internal programs which try and ensure we adhere to all the process cycles and customer calls in a manner that aims to be perceived as
efficient and business enabling.

This post is not to justify the actions of any of the 3 customer service agents or the mysterious driver and his stagnant van. As an employee and someone who believes very strongly in DHL’s ability to deliver shipments on time, I would appreciate if you try and put this behind you and give us another opportunity to serve you – I wish I was in the US so I could take care of this personally – Unfortunately I am in India and the most I can do is take this case up with my office in the US if you give me the details of the shipment. I promise I will be prompt.

TO everyone else in this blogathon on DHL’s inadequate abilities – Keep the faith…

happy holidays

Dale, I imagine we do have the same courier. When I spoke with their national office yesterday, the service rep (Kelley) said that my package has been with the same courier the entire time, and that s/he has been claiming weather problems were preventing my delivery… since December 12? I don’t think so.

My guess is that because we’re an hour drive from St. Joe the courier figures coming to our town would interfere with his/her ability to get all of the deliveries done north of here. Perhaps s/he is waiting until the pile of packages to go to Leavenworth gets big enough to bother with?

12/17/2007 7:00 pm Scheduled for delivery Kansas City, MO
6:22 am With delivery courier. Kansas City, MO
12/16/2007 8:20 am Arrived at DHL facility. Kansas City, MO
12/15/2007 9:27 am Arrived at DHL facility. Kansas City, MO
12/14/2007 7:17 am Arrived at DHL facility. Kansas City, MO
12/13/2007 6:36 am Arrived at DHL facility. Saint Joseph, MO
3:41 am Depart Facility Kansas City Regional Hub Sort, KS
1:14 am Transit through DHL facility Kansas City Regional Hub Sort, KS
12/12/2007 7:46 pm Processed at DHL Location. Kansas City Regional Hub Sort, KS
7:39 pm In transit. Kansas City Regional Hub Sort, KS
7:03 am Depart Facility Atlanta Hub, GA
1:01 am Processed at DHL Location. Atlanta Hub, GA
12:57 am In transit. Atlanta Hub, GA
12/11/2007 7:49 pm Shipment picked up Norcross, GA

I did talk to Dell and asked for overnight delivery on a new order…no luck well here goes another phone call to DHL to see if I can pick up the package where ever it is.

Problem is, the roads were only closed 1 day here after that ice storm of 9 days ago. So, in other words, it’s a BS excuse.

I asked the woman (Kelly today) at their national customer service department to put me through to the KC office because I want to talk to that driver’s supervisor.

So NOW I’m on hold with Kerry at the KC office who apparently doesn’t know the answer to WHERE IS MY DAMN PACKAGE, either.

DHL must stand for Delivery/Handling Losses.

It’s now Day 10 since my 2-day delivery was supposed to be here. I’ve spoken with customer service 3 times and all 3 times have been assured that the package IS on the van and it WILL be delivered.

Uh-huh. And tomorrow I’ll wake up with thin, sleek thighs and my virginity restored.

I have been around and around with them for the past two days. My UPS packages all came with no problem. My FedEx packages came with no drama. DHL was the problem. They screwed up on every one of them. This is the second year in a row that not one of my DHL packages was delivered as promised.

My “favorite” screw up… I was out shoveling until 6:00. Came in, tracked one of my “wandering” shipments and found that not only did they claim it was delivered, (while I was outside shoveling, with no DHL truck in sight) but also that it was signed for by me! This is the second time that one of their drivers has signed my name to a package claiming it was delivered.

I know this time of year is hell for the carriers, and I know the potential for screw ups is greater. I work for FedEx so I DO understand the problems. But what are the chances that for the past two years, every package I’ve received that was shipped by DHL would go astray?

DHL has undercut the other carriers with their pricing. That old saying “You get what you pay for” comes to mind.