DHL HORROR STORY!!!

[jingle_jangle]

After a couple of years of dealing with this company, I'm convinced that they are the worst company in customer service in any business on the planet Earth.

Are you ready for a long saga/rant? If not, please go back to your new Parker novel (It's a good 'un, BTW!).

My only dealings with DHL before 2005, were when DHL entered the US market in strength back in the '80s, and I built the 1/8 scale model GMC van that was used in their early TV commercials, before digital animation made most replicas of this sort obsolete.

Fast-forward to the first time I ordered from Stewart MacDonald. I needed some hardware in a hurry, my local supplier was out of stock (typical in SF, but that's yet another rant), so I ordered a couple of pounds worth of shiny stuff, and requested it be shipped overnight--an expen$ive proposition, but necessary in this case. I was about to have my first experience engulfed by DHL's absolute, unbelievable incompetence.
"
The hardware arrived--NINE DAYS LATER. So much for "time sensitive". I'd made a few calls to their "customer service" line, receiving nothing of the kind. Well, to be truthful, after long hold times, I did talk to a proto-human, but no information was forthcoming.

After the stuff arrived, I called to complain, and was told my complaint would be forwarded to the president's office, and I could file online paperwork to recover the price difference between the Overnight Service price and the Standard Service (30 days? 60 days? What constitutes "Standard Service" with these Neanderthals? I still wonder...) price.

Temporarily mollified, I put the whole incident behind me. But by the third incident with Stew Mac sending stuff via DHL, and having it arrive anywhere from 3-5 days late, I called Stew Mac and requested that they use the USPS or UPS. Since then, everythiung has arrived when it was supposed to.

But I still get deliveries via DHL when I forget to ask a new vendor or supplier NOT to use them. The record is thus: Since mid-2006, 37 items have been "delivered" by DHL to my office in the large industrial building on one of SF's busiest corners. Exactly TWO have arrived on the day paid for.

My building is hard to miss, being 4 stories tall, a quarter of a city block on each side, and having a 24-hour-a-day scrolling red banner above the brightly-lit antique car showroom on the ground floor. It's also open for 15 hours every day except for Sunday (only 10 hours), with a uniformed guard posted at the entrance, part of whose job description is to sign for and receive packages. But many of the DHL online status reports said "unable to find building" or "building closed".

Just about my tensest few days with these jokers involved a Candy Apple Red Gretsch Brian Setzer Hot Rod, which I neglected to tell a Denver music store to ship UPS or FedEx. Yep, they shipped it DHL, and although it should have been in my hands two days later, it was delivered overnight to the SF hub, and it then was promptly lost for a week. All of my efforts to track it and shake it loose, met with failure. The morons at "customer service" were powerless to tell me anything; they were located in Houston and could not get anyone at the SF hub to answer a phone! They would not give me the address of the hub at that time, either.

OK, time-shift again to last month when I ordered a set of legs for my VOX Jaguar organ from Gary at NCM. He promptly packed them up and sent me a notice that they'd been shipped--via DHL. You could hear me shouting "NOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....................." as I ran down the hall outside my office...I wrote Gary and asked him to send me stuff via FedEx or UPS in the future, and he wrote back that he only uses DHL for large packages, because DHL is the easiest company to file claims with and actually collect from with any degree of speed.

(So now we know where their efforts go--to settling claims with speed, while their on-time delivery record is an UTTER failure.) This corporate policy is quite efficient, I suppose, in attracting new business from the shipping end, but it means that customers on the receiving end can be frustrated, angry, and feel completely, absolutely, totally, undebatably, screwed.

Back to the VOX amp. Gary's work on the organ legs was spectacular-the plating alone is far superior to that on the originals; I expected great things where this amp was concerned, and in the end was completely satisfied with the results of his efforts and professionalism, with plans to become a regular customer. See the picture in the "December Morning" thread. Gary actually called me to ask if I would prefer that he install a special set of new speakers himself (I had ordered the individual parts and had planned to do the install at my own shop) and wire them so that I'd get the full 100 watts out of the head unit. We had a pleasant half-hour conversation on things VOX and Rickenbacker, before he signed off with, "I'll call UPS in the morning to pick them up". I was heartened. Had he actually said, "UPS"?

Back to our tale of whoa. Homonymic spelling intentional, because where DHL is concerned, all progress on anything stops dead while they futilely try to find their butt with both hands.

Gary sent me the tracking email on a Friday, with delivery of both parcels "scheduled" (a laff riot!!!) by DHL for delivery five days' hence (on last Wednesday). I, therefore, was a bit surprised that it was a DHL shipment. So, I girded my loins for another epic battle with the worst delivery service in creation.

The amplifier was shipped in two boxes: one contained the head unit, and the other the lower cabinet and chrome trolley. On Saturday, less than 24 hours after it left Wisconsin, the head unit turned up at my door! I was, to say the least, pleased, both with DHL's service (it was the second on-time delivery I'd had from them since 2005) and with the spectacular quality and attention to detail of Gary's conversion.

The cabinet/trolley did not arrive on Monday, however, and I'd failed to notice that Gray had put both tracking numbers in the same email, so I dropped him a line and he responded with the information and the comment that it was the Christmas rush, and packages often got separated. I went online to track the cabinet, and found out it was sitting for the fourth day, in their hub in Ohio, about 400 miles EAST of where it had originally entered their system". Two days, however, was plenty of time to get to SF from Ohio, so I let it go, but put it onto my schedule to check first thing Wednesday AM.

Wednesday rolled around. I logged in, to find that the cabinet had made it to SF overnight, but had NOT been put onto the truck for delivery. That's when my phone calls started. I've done this at least a dozen times before, so I knew to remain calm and use my own "customer service" voice and demeanor. I placed my first call on Wednesday, and after being put on hold by their system for 22 minutes, talked to a nice human who told me that she'd call the SF hub and have them call me. I'd heard this all before, and told her that they would not answer their phone. She turned testy and insisted that I'd receive a call within two hours. The day got very busy, as it usually does during final exams week, and at 6 that evening I realized I'd never received the promised call from the SF hub. I called the 800 number again ,and was told that due to unexpected high call volumes, wait times exceeded 15 minutes and I should call back during normal business hours. I gave up--too easily, I'll admit--for the day.

All day Thursday I tried the 800 number (probably a half-dozen times between 7 AM and 10 PM) and received this same message each time.

Friday morning I had a new strategy. I'd call the 800 number and request the billing department, and it worked. I got a very helpful billing person who listened to my tale and agreed to connect me immediately with a tracking specialist who would fill me in on status. After about ten minutes on hold, I did speak to someone in tracking (in Houston), who although she could not get SF on the phone, gave me her direct callback line (Houston area code) and told me she'd have an answer for me in an hour if I called her back.

I did so at the agreed time, only to be told by a recording that DHL no longer accepted calls at that local number, and referred my to an 800 number. I called that 800 number, and got yet another recording, telling me that this number was disconnected, and all calls were being referred to--are you ready for this?--1-800-CALL-DHL. This is the same number I started with, on Wednesday, and which was disconnecting after playing the "high call volume" message.

I did call, got billing on the line again, and was told by a rude billing rep that I had no business calling billing, when my problem was a tracking problem. She refused to listen to my story and hung up on me. I called billing again, and this time got a harried but businesslike guy who agreed to connect me again with a tracking specialist. After 20 minutes on hold again, I did get through to another nice lady who told me my package had not been loaded that morning, but she would have SF call me back. I calmly explained my problems with THAT scenario, and asked for the address of the SF hub. This time she agreed to give it to me, and added that she'd have them call me to fill me in on status. That was at 10:30 AM.

At 3:30 PM, having completed my class' final critique, I went back to my office...no call from DHL. No surprise. I engaged my good friend Tom (who has lots of good friends owing to the fact that he owns a new Toyota pickup truck) and we headed to the DHL hub in SF's "Dogpatch" 'hood. BTW, it's at 555 23rd Street. As we exited the parked truck and walked towards the door, we were passed by a guy tossing a small package into the air and jubilantly proclaiming, "I've got it!!! Finally!!!".

Surely we had arrived at the Source. The Place. The Location where we would finally do Battle with the Many-Headed DHL Hydra!

...who attended a small counter in the guise of a Robert Crumb lookalike wearing a Bluetooth headset, a dirty apron, and a sweat-stained DHL gimme cap. I gave him the tracking number. He told me that his computer said it's been loaded at 9 that morning onto the local delivery truck. NEXT!

Hold on, I beseeched him. Could he at least check in back? The doorway to Dante's Seventh Level stood, firmly shut, behind him, and we realized that since we'd arrived, there was a phone ringing faintly in the background, constantly, uninterruptedly. No human voices...

With an exasperated sigh, he disappeared through The Portal to Hades. The phone grew momentarily louder. We waited. New people entered the queue...I offered to buy pizza and beer for everybody in the room and got a few takers. The phone in Back went on ringing. Horror stories floated in the miasma of despair...

Then--KA-RUNCH!!! Something--something large and thumpy--hit the door from behind. I could hear a heavy box sliding. The door opened, and my amplifier, swathed in several layers of tape and 200 pound "C" flute Kraft corrugated--surely was appearing, being pushed by Mr. Crumb himself. A clipboard was produced. Please sign here...

I asked, why wasn't this loaded on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday morning? Why was it sitting there for three days in a row, with delivery a mere 15 minutes' drive away?

"I'm not the driver, sir." The Corporate Flunky Monotone. I signed and left. I had my amplifier cabinet and trolley. I knew better than to question Fate, when I'd emerged, the long-suffering victor. The sound of the ringing phone faded as we loaded the amp into the truck and hurried away.

(BTW, I've left out many, many other botched deliveries and phone calls relating thereto. DON'T use DHL if you can help it at all.)

[kenposurf]

Well Paul at least you got your amp without damage! I've had like issues with all three carriers. My favorite is the time I went to the fedex depot to pickup a long overdue custom shop strat and found it on the catwalk where they unload the trucks...lying flat in the path of traffic and covered with boot prints..gotta love it...

[ajish4]

Paul,

You are a better man than I, I would have lost it!

California sounds ALMOST as bad as Florida in regard to the "customer service" you receive locally.

I'm AMAZED how some of these companies stay in business.

By the way, your Freudian slip on "TIME-S*IT" was priceless!

Glad it all worked out in the end.

[jingle_jangle]

Darned Freudian fingers...

[jps]

My DHL story is nothing like yours, Paul. It only relates to an idiotic sales rep. who made me realize I should just keep using Fedex; he even said so in so many words!

[rickenbrother]

I've had the miserable feeling for quite a while now that there are very few companies and retailers that actually give you customer service. The days of, "The customer is always right" are over. I know the customer is not always right. I've been on the service side of the table, but a place can totally wrong you and when you call them on they are less than helpful...and the people they hire...

[brianeharmonjr]

Wow, that's scary stuff. At least I know to ask for anything but DHL in the future.

[mfb]

Wow, that's scary stuff. At least I know to ask for anything but DHL in the future.

Only in the US of A though, everywhere else it's better than fine.

No offence, but I think it comes down to being able to read and comprehend what those characters on the shipping slip mean, in english ...

We've had no trouble anywhere else but the USA, even China knows that AUSTRALIA is not the same as AUSTRIA or ATLANTA ...

[jingle_jangle]

Yep. No doubt, literacy is much higher everywhere than in the USA.

NOT.

I believe it's got more to do with a strange malaise affecting service industries in this country, and from my experience it's fairly recent--within the past five years. I've gone on about this in various posts and threads, so repeating myself here is superfluous, but a decade ago this was the exception; now it seems to be the rule.

And still FedEx and UPS (not to mention the USPS) get letters and parcels to their destinations with virtually 100% fulfillment here in SF.

I mean, 35 out of 37 failures? That's a 95% FAILURE rate.

[paologregorio]

Darned Freudian fingers...

"Time S**t" is brilliant, and MUST qualify as a new term. Since you've created the term, you get the honor of formally defining it-in once sentence, of course

[squid]

For all the flack they take, I've never been let down by the U.S.P.S. Call me crazy, but when I bring something to Canada from the U.S., they're my preferred service. I only wish I could get larger packages sent through the mail. Even Canada Post has improved ten-fold since the evil eighties (when they routinely nicked the Christmas parcels that my Gran sent from the U.K.).

[jwilli]

Years ago, I bought a '64 615 from a lady in Canada. She shipped it DHL. It went to more Countries than I've ever been to. Seriously. It was nuts. They finally tracked it in Mexico. When it finally arrived, the first thing I noticed is that it was a refin..... The good news is that Paul W. refinned it again, beautifully. It was then shipped back to me and the headstock snapped in transit.

[winston]

Sorry to hear about your less than stellar experiences with DHL Paul.

I have had similar problems with DHL and unfortunately UPS as well, so they are both on my banned list. I have experienced two damaged shipments with UPS that they refused to cover.

The carrier that has been 100% every time for me is USPS, followed closely by Purolator and EMS. I have never had a bad expeience of any sort with any of these carriers.

My experience with FEDEX however is that they are both expensive and slow to deliver plus like UPS they automatically send my parcel to a custom broker (some sort of business alliance I suspect) when it's an international shipment entering Canada. That decision on their part always costs me a lot more money, whereas shipments by USPS clear customs without the use of a broker and my cost per transaction is significantly lower.

With both UPS and FEDEX, I have often been in my home office all day waiting for the shipment and yet when I call to see where my package is they both have used the excuse that the driver reported that no one responded to the door at the delivery drop.

[ozover50]

I don't know what it is (perhaps my surname is an influence) but I have yet to experience anything like the horror stories recounted here - both within Australia and international via UPS, Fedex or EMS.

Touch wood!!

[jingle_jangle]

Just changed my name to "Father Pope Cardinal". Now I'm ready to receive...