Unfortunately, despite my love of Huel, I’m seriously considering having to cancel my subscription thanks to DPD. My first delivery went well, however the last two have been a nightmare. The first was ordered on the 13th, DPD confirmed delivery for the 15th, so I booked it off work and waited. Nothing. I checked the tracking and it said the package was in the depot ready to collect, so I requested collection, drove to the depot, only to be told it wasn’t there. As I couldn’t take another day off work I requested it be held the following day. DPD then emailed to say they were going to deliver it instead, despite the request. Thankfully I was able to reach the depot before they loaded it onto the van the next morning. I contacted customer services who assured me it was just an anomaly and passed on my comment.
I rang before my next order as the new subscription manager was acting up online, adding extra vanilla pouches when trying to change my order date, etc. I explained the problem with the last order and was assured if I ordered on Thursday, I’d have my order on Saturday as NI receive 2 day delivery. Great! Ordered on the 7th, DPD confirmed delivery on the 11th. Not great. Same story. Booked half day off, requested to collect from depot on 11th, drove to collect, parcel nowhere to be found and told to come back tomorrow. Wasted another hour driving to the depot the next morning, only to be told that I had apparently contacted head office and requested delivery on the 12th. Why would I do that? I wanted to collect it before work. This time the van had already left despite arriving at the depot’s opening time. Had to book another day off work or go to the depot for a third time in 3 days.
Contacted customer services yet again. Assured it was the packing department’s mistake and won’t happen again. Order placed today (Thurs) for delivery in 2 days (Sat). Guess what? DPD are going to attempt delivery on Monday, when I won’t be home. I can’t even choose the following Saturday as a delivery date! I’ve basically begged customer support for a solution. Mainland UK customers can order up until 9pm and get next day delivery, other websites offer Saturday delivery with DPD, albeit at additional cost, so why can’t Huel? I’d happily pay extra to avoid this frustration, having to take days off work and losing out on wages.
I’m about ready to give up on Huel, despite ranting and raving about it to anyone who’d listen. Honestly, I’m getting a bit sick of being fobbed of with discount codes and excuses. It’s not about the money. If I’m paying for delivery in the price of the product, I’d just like to have my product delivered. Unfortunately I can’t have this delivered elsewhere, so I’d really appreciate a solution. If @Tim_Huel or @Olivia_Huel could maybe help me out, I’d be very grateful.
Such a pity. DPD works so perfectly well for me. Can you not get it delivered to your workplace or a friendly shop or neighbour who will keep it for you? I can’t imagine not ordering my Huel just because of delivery problems…
Hey Aaron, I can’t imagine the frustration of this for you. It sounds like the customer service team have been in steady contact with you so I don’t want to step on their toes, but I’m so sorry that DPD have been so problematic for you in Northern Ireland.
We use DPD because of the other solutions they offer. Within their app you can:
Leave with a neighbour
Leave at a pick up shop
Leave in a safe place at your house
So should you not be in you don’t need to worry. Have you tried all these options to no avail? If not, please please download the DPD app, it’s honestly so good. You should never have to take annual leave to receive a parcel.
So sorry to hear this. Fortunately for me, like @Africorn, DPD are great in my area. Having said that, I live in mainland UK so a bit different perhaps.
It must be really frustrating to be having so much trouble with delivery. It’s ok for me, I’m retired so can be home when necessary. If I was working though, I would have to find some way round it rather than stop Huel. Huel has been a real life-changer for me.
Unfortunately I lecture at a University where they do not allow delivery of personal mail. I’ve checked the DPD app and website and the options you’ve mentioned are not available to me as per the screenshot below. Even if they were, the only neighbour I trust has the same working pattern as me and driving miles to a pick-up location in rush hour traffic isn’t particularly favourable as I’m paying for delivery.
I have no issue with DPD’s staff, it’s the service I’m receiving from the company. No one from Huel seems to be addressing the issue of Saturday delivery either. DPD staff have informed me they deliver from my local depot on Saturdays, so why can’t Huel avail of this? I’d have made do with collecting from the depot if absolutely necessary, but I can’t even do that as on the last two occasions, the package either can’t be found or has been sent out for delivery despite my request to collect.
Huel has been a life-changer for me too, I think it’s fantastic. If it were any other product I’d have given up long before now, but I really want to continue using it!
DPD at its best. I am expecting a subscription delivery in about 15 minutes via DPD. Dispatched yesterday and been able to track delivery within an hour’s slot.
Yodel are usually good here too but for some reason their tracking is off today. I’m expecting an order from Zooplus via Yodel but have no idea when it will arrive.
EDIT DPD were right on the button but no sign of Yodel yet
As expected I had to spend almost an hour driving to collect my order once again. Unforunately I’ve cancelled my subscription as it seems you are unable or unwilling to provide a solution, as is my work colleague who is having similar issues.
Should you decide to start treating NI customers equal to those in the rest of the UK, please let me know.
To clarify, DPD offer a host of options but for some reason aren’t offering them to you in NI. We aren’t choosing to offer you less options because you’re in NI and it’s: more expensive/more difficult to us/etc. It is DPD that is not providing you with equal options to mainland UK. That isn’t something within our control, most other courier don’t offer any of these options, we use DPD because for the vast majority they do offer them.
That leads onto a great point raised about offering multiple couriers at checkout, because sometimes you know which couriers are great in your area - as there are sometimes local differences. It’s definitely interesting, but could have consequences. See below.
Maybe so @Tim_Huel but some customers are happy to wait 2 or 3 days for delivery, we have enough Huel until another order arrives, and wouldn’t matter what time the courier picks up the parcel from Huel. It’s great to offer a fast delivery service but it’s not everything. It would definitely be beneficial for all customers if there was a choice of courier in the checkout, as you say we know what couriers work best for us in our area. If I order something from Amazon or eBay it usually takes 2 or 3 days to get to me and I don’t mind that. If I was desperate for something to be delivered next day I would check who would offer a next day delivery service.
When DPD works it is phenomenal and easily beats other couriers. The problem is it doesn’t work for a lot of the time.(And I’m not in Northern Ireland) The solutions they are offer are in theory great, but if they ignore delivery instructions (which I’ve had, including for huel deliveries) then it doesn’t really matter how good their solutions are.
We can complain individually as customers, but if you as a supplier could take up some of the complaints then it may actually start to make a difference.
Thank you for your response. I must apologise as the DPD staff at the depot informed me they do deliver on Saturdays, and it is the choice of the company shipping their product to choose whether or not they offer this service to their customers. I don’t wish to cause additional work or hassle for the staff at Huel, I just want to be able to receive my delivery without chasing around after it. Hopefully I can come up with an alternative arrangement in the near future.
I’m quite happy to wait a few days for my orders too. What I’d really like here is the option to ensure my delivery will arrive on a day that I can be in to receive it, rather than wasting time driving around trying to collect it. Unfortunately DPD won’t even allow me to reschedule the delivery for a Saturday, even when they have the package in their depot.
Well said Tom. I had over £1k worth of furniture delivered by a courier last week. The supplier specified that they were to call ahead of arrival and that it required a signature upon delivery. Instead, it was left in plain view on my driveway in the rain. The service sounded great in theory, as you say, but delivery instructions certainly weren’t followed.
I know this may not be possible (or desirable) but could you double or triple your monthly order and then reduce the frequency of how often you need a delivery?
If say you normally order 4 bags a month, how about ordering 12 bags and reducing your ordering frequency to every three months?
I realise there are implications there in terms of:
a) initial financial outlay
b) storing 12 rather than 4 bags
but it would cut down on the number of potential interactions with DPD.
this is the most frustrating thing. I use couriers all the time; you give specific instructions and sometimes they aren’t passed on to the drivers…so it isn’t even their fault.
I did parcel delivery for 24 years and glad I got out of it in 2009 with voluntary redundancy. Been working for a large internet shop for the last 6 years and deal regularly with all the major couriers on a daily basis and have noticed a extremely high turnover in DPD drivers compaired to the rest of the operators.
I had a lot of problems when I first subscribed due to Huel & DPD but it seems to have settled down now. I generally find UPS and the Royal Mail/ Parcel force to be the best to deal with and DPD/ UK mail the worst. Sometimes the problem is the unrealistic targets that drivers are sometimes set. Parcel delivery is definitely a race to the bottom industry more than ever since everything went online
I find Royal Mail / Parcelforce to be the best in my area too, UPS isn’t particularly common around here, so I can’t really comment. I’ve noticed Yodel have improved greatly in my area over the years. I used to dread seeing their name appear as it usually meant lots of delays, excuses and trips to the depot… Much like my DPD experiences come to think of it.
Tim, here’s another recent example of the quality of DPD’s service in my area. I recently preordered the new Galaxy S10+ phone, which was to be delivered my DPD last weekend. The status on Samsung’s website suddenly changed from ‘Preparing for Delivery’ to ‘Delivered’ 2-3 days before I expected it to arrive. Great I thought, but who was it delivered to?!
DPD’s tracking number wouldn’t work on their website at all. Thankfully I have a security camera at the front door, and only after reviewing the footage did I see that the DPD driver had chucked the brand new phone into a rubbish bin, which I thankfully was able to retrieve soon thereafter. Nightmare!
