People to do business with.

Recently I've had a few companies impress upon me that I really never want to deal with them again, but today I've had one of the other sort. I've been trying to accept a delivery via City Link. The first day we just got really unlucky, I got back here about 5 minutes after the driver had been. Their lines were busy and head office don't return calls. By the time I tried again (it had said they would call me back) the driver was out of the area and couldn't redeliver until the following day. Importantly they lady I spoke to apologised for no one calling me back and gave me the phone number for the depot so if I needed to get hold of them in future I could.

The next day I passed on all my out of the house jobs to other people and waited. I didn't listen to my audio books, I turned the longarm right down to keep it quite, and I opened all the doors between me and the front door. I missed the driver. Hmmm. He claims he had knocked for 10 minutes? I have a door bell which was working and yes he used that too. He tried my neighbours but they were all out (odd I could hear them talking through the walls over the sound of my machine. I called the depot and explained all this to them. They were again appologetic and arranged a morning delivery for today as I have a lot of booking this week and can't sit arround waiting for a package.

This morning there was a delicate rattle at the door, but I heard it, and ran for the door. The driver had almost made it back to his van, but I caught him. He asked if I was expecting a delivery? Um, yes that's why you're here. After a long rummage in his van he came back to tell us he hadn't got my delivery. Ah, maybe that is why he was so keen to leave the door. I called the depot again. Once again they were sympathetic and polite. They had to call the driver and check the story with him (yes he really had just not loaded it) and assured me they would call me back.

So why with this sort of story do I say these are good people to do business with? It's doesn't sound great does it. Well they called back, as promised. The first thing they said was we messed up, and we're sorry. Followed by, we've put your packages on another van and it should still get to you by 12. That is how you deal with getting it wrong, you put it right. I have huge respect for any business that can put it's hands up, admit a blunder and fix it. Lets face it, things do go wrong, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, when it does you do what you can to keep the customer happy. The companies I don't go back to are those who blame the customer unfairly, who don't apologise and who don't put it right. So if you are in the UK and need an courier consider City Link, they may not be perfect but they will go the extra mile to sort things out.