Dear Purolator Courier:
As a freelance writer who works from home, I deal with a number of different companies and organizations on a daily basis. Because a good deal of my business is focused on product reviews, I also receive shipments from a variety of couriers on a fairly regular basis. For this reason, I have a fair amount of experience with such shipping companies as Fedex, UPS, and DHL, as well as Purolator Courier.
All of these couriers effectively offer the same service, but they differ vastly in the area of customer service. I don’t expect any of these companies to go beyond the call of duty, but I do expect them to do their jobs well. For example, I appreciate how I can quickly and easily schedule a pickup through the UPS website. I’ve also been very pleased with the telephone manner of the operators at Fedex. However, I have yet to have a positive customer service experience with Purolator. Allow me to describe two incidents that I have experienced with Purolator.
Some time back, I needed a replacement satellite box shipped to my home. I arranged for this delivery through my satellite TV provider and their courier of choice happened to be Purolator. The satellite set-top box was to be delivered to my home and while the shipping time was a little longer than expected, I still felt positive.
My family missed the first delivery attempt, because none of us happened to be home at the time. We called Purolator to ask if the second delivery attempt could be made to a different location, my parents’ workplace, because it is more likely that someone would be there during regular business hours. The Purolator customer service rep on the phone said that this was fine and the shipment would be redirected. We confirmed the new address and expected the delivery to be made the next day. It never did.
We called Purolator back to inquire about what happened. The customer service representative said that we never gave the unit number for the address, so the delivery was not attempted. I am 100% positive that we provided the unit number and the business name, so there is no way that the driver could not deliver the parcel. The rep remained adamant that we did not provide the unit number. Not only did Purolator provide a poor customer service experience, but it also called us liars. Fed up with the experience, we asked the shipment to be sent to the closest Purolator centre instead and we would just pick it up ourselves. That’s what we did, but needless to say, the experience left a very sour taste in our mouths.
More recently, I was expecting the delivery of a product that I will be reviewing. Again, the delivery took longer than I expected, but I’m not entirely positive if part of the delay was caused by the original sender. In any case, I had to follow up with my client and the sender to see what was going on. They said that Purolator would be coming on Friday, but they would call first to make sure that I am there. This sounded fine.
So, instead of going out for a cup of coffee or a walk in the neighborhood, I made a distinct effort not to leave my home that day. Purolator never came. Instead, I got a phone call from a Purolator representative around 5pm, informing me that there was a package there for me and he asked when I would like to pick it up. What is the point of a courier if the item is not delivered to your door? Unlike the previous incident, I knew that this shipment was a much larger one and there was no way the box would fit in my car.
I told him that I would prefer for the box to be sent to my door. The representative’s tone of voice sound very disgruntled and negative, as if he was very frustrated with the fact that I would like to receive a proper shipment. I asked if he would still be able to complete the delivery that day (Friday) and he said, “No, it’ll have to be Monday.” Again, later than I expected, but I said Monday would be fine. Monday came, I stayed home all day, and — you guessed it — no delivery. That’s frustration. The delivery was finally completed the following day, Tuesday. The driver was perfectly friendly, but as expected, he had no knowledge of what had transpired thus far.
Purolator Courier, it amazes me that you are still in business with such horrid customer service practices. I haven’t dealt with you as the shipper (only as the recipient), so perhaps you offer better rates than the competition. If I did need to ship something, though, I would happily turn to the company with better customer service (and higher rates) than to ship through you. I highly suggest that you make some adjustments to your business model.
Respectfully yours,
Michael Kwan
Whenever I get something shipped I make sure its not through Purolator and will even got to a different company if they ship through them.
The only company that I have to use Purolator for is Dell. They kept trying to drop it off during lunch time, of course nobody was in the office. And even better they left no note, UPS, FedEx and even Canada Post leave stickies on your door to say delivery attempt. So we had no idea, finally I went down to pick up the package, and they wouldn’t give it to me because my drivers license didn’t have the same address (obviously I don’t live at my office), and then since it wasn’t addressed to me, even though I had a business card I worked for the company, nothing.
I’ve dealt with most of the couriers. I have shipped and received via Purolator and I don’t mind their shipping service but they’re receiving (delivery) service is blah.
FedEx is good but you pay a bit more for it, which isn’t bad. I can call them and have packages re-routed without an issue and one case when the driver was dropping off an item here at work I asked about another item that might be on his truck for me for a delivery at my home. He said yea its here and that I could get it from him now. That’s pretty cool!
FedEx also has a policy if the driver believes it is safe to leave a parcel at the door, then they will. If not you have to drive out to Burnaby to get it! lol Also Apple has a special contract with them where they require a signature on anything being shipped which is nice that FedEx won’t leave my MacBook Pro at my door stop if it ‘looks safe’ hehe
Surprisingly Canada Post isn’t too bad to deal with either 🙂
In my experience, Fedex usually requires a signature, whereas I’ll get a lot of stuff from UPS where they’ll just leave it at the door. This happened with a couple of laptops before!
I only ship Canada Post and I prefer if they ship it Canada Post. They are my rock.
Purolator’s counter at this one kiosk location was pretty bad. There was a massive line up with one poor lady working by herself. People were pretty pissed.
I can relate to your pain. While I’ve never dealt with this particular courier, I recently had a horrifying experience with DHL after ordering a very pricey laptop from Dell. My own open letter would have involved some not-so-choice language, hence my not writing one. 🙂
Wow, note to self, don’t ship anything via Purolator or have anything shipped via them. Thanks for the warning.
I have had the worse experience with these guys. They parcel came cod (Cash On Delivery) From USA. My brother was home when they came and guess what? THEY WONT TAKE CASH!! Credit card only or certified cheque. They were delivering on behalf of UPS so how was I supposed to know this? Anyhow to make a long story short after waiting the weekend and trying to get the parcel rerouted to my work it didnt show up i showed up again at my house.
So I called them and they told me it would get rerouted to my work tuesday. Guess what? It went to my house again and third attempt no one was able to pay for it so it got returned to sender!
only 21 dollars owing on it and they wouldnt take cash. Unbelievable Failure of a company.
I HATE PUROLATOR. I’m actually surprised that they were willing to do a second attempt for you! Last time I missed a delivery (I stayed home but I still had to go out to walk my dog), they left a note saying that I now had to pick up my package from their depot. I called them up and asked if they would make a second attempt and the rep said they don’t do that anymore. WHAT!?
The thing is, I bought something from futureshop.ca. I LIVE RIGHT BY A FUTURE SHOP! But I had to buy it from their website because all the locations in the area were sold out. So instead of driving for 2 minutes to my local FS, I had to fork out $20 for shipping and drive 20 minutes to the Purolator depot since they refused to make another attempt at my house. AAAAAAAAARGH!!!!! WHAT’S THE POINT OF PAYING FOR SHIPPING!?!?!?!?
Oh, and have you ever been to their depot in Scarborough? The people working there are so blatantly rude and make it painfully obvious that they hate their jobs. Isn’t Purolator part of Canada Post? Canada Post employees get paid really well with plenty of benefits! Of course, they’re unionized so maybe that’s why they can get away with this behaviour.
Puro-LATER… GOLD!
Most major chains that I know of will let you order something online and have it shipped to the nearest store for free and you can just go there and pick it up, or you can have the option of having it shipped to your house for a fee….doesn’t Futureshop offer this same kind of deal?
You would think so, but give it a shot. Future Shop’s in-store pickup is only available if your selected location is carrying stock. They will not ship the item to the stores. Strangely, if you’re at the store and something is out of stock, you can ask them to special order it for you from their warehouse. The stores take warehouse shipments at least a few times a week so I don’t understand why they can’t just piggyback online orders. Even Sears got it right.
That’s kind of a strange way to do it….so if you special order a sale item, can you pay at time of ording to get the lower price? If so it wouldn’t be so different than doing the online to store thing.
Good question. Usually, if they’re sold out of a sale item they’ll say no. But on one occasion they did do it for me, on their suggestion no less. So they most definitely can do this, but I’m not sure what logic or policy guides them.
Everybody has issues with a certain courier, the problem is its every courier that somebody has an issue with. Me myself, I have never had an issue with Purolator, or UPS, but I hear lots of flaming going on about them. I am sure I will encounter a few bad deliveries.