The parcel courier companies small business owners should avoid

Consumers have ranked Yodel as the worst delivery service in the UK in a survey of the best and worst parcel courier companies in the country.

The poll, undertaken by MoneySavingExpert.com, took the views of over 11, 000 British shoppers at the end of the 2016 Christmas period to shed light on the many different courier services available to businesses.

Yodel topped the rankings after being rated poor? by 57 per cent of consumers and great? by just 18 per cent. Considered the third worst courier in 2015, the company watched as rivals iPost Parcels and DX made improvements to push Yodel as the most poor service.

The firm voted the best courier for a fourth consecutive year was DPD, while Royal Mail Parcels went from third in 2015 to be ranked the second-best UK courier.

Poor courier services are damaging to firms relying on reliable deliveries, and small business owners looking to safeguard their reputation and carry on delivering products and services on time would do well to give these courier companies a wide berth.

Martin Lewis, financial journalist and founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said that a company settling for a poor courier service was at risk of driving customers away.

we live in the age of delivery, yet service levels from some firms are dire.They don’t ring the doorbell, parcels are misdelivered, they’re left in bins or under cars and it leaves many grinding their teeth in frustration.

I was once booed by a conference of senior retail-company bigwigs when I told them that I hoped they suffered brand damage if the firms they chose to do deliveries messed up.

Lewis added that firms would be forced to justify? to customers the use of poor courier companies or face losing business.

if they won’t do it, then we must vote with our pockets and stop buying online from firms that use crap delivery services, he warned.

Responding to its poor consumer ranking, a spokesperson for Yodel told Business Advice that the firm stood disappointed.

we continuously challenge ourselves to improve our service and we have seen huge improvements over the last two years but clearly we still have significant ground to make up.

we have specifically invested over 30m in technology over the last two yearsbut we recognise that there is work we need to do with our retail customers to boost this service experience further, the spokesperson said.

Worstcourier delivery companies

2016 rank	Delivery company	great?	oK?	poor?	2015 rank
1	Yodel	18 per cent	25 per cent	57 per cent	3
2	City Sprint	13 per cent	51 per cent	37 per cent	5
3	iPost Parcels	16 per cent	48 per cent	36 per cent	1
4	DX	18 per cent	46 per cent	36 per cent	2
5	Hermes/myHermes	30 per cent	29 per cent	42 per cent	7

Best courier delivery companies

2016 rank	Delivery company	great?	oK?	poor?	2015 rank
1	DPD	71 per cent	19 per cent	9 per cent	17
2	Royal Mail Parcels	49 per cent	40 per cent	11 per cent	15
3	Collect Plus	47 per cent	42 per cent	11 per cent	16
4	UPS	47 per cent	38 per cent	16 per cent	14
5	Amazon Logistics	46 per cent	39 per cent	15 per cent	=9