It’s kind of funny for a courier company that it seems unable to execute its main reason for existence – delivering parcels.

Now, I get it that logistically it’s a huge task to deliver huge volumes of parcels around the country every day without some inevitable problems…but why do almost all my Startrack deliveries end up in some sort of drama?

I’ve been getting fairly regular deliveries from Startrack for a couple of years now. These are fairly large shipments, not just the odd parcel or two. I had a regular driver, and there was never any problem. I live in a small unit block, and the driver would ring the bell, I’d come down and sign for the delivery. There’s always someone available, so missing a delivery isn’t really a problem.

However, something changed in the last six months, and suddenly the drivers were different, and strangely they seemed unable to make their deliveries. We’ve had excuses ranging from “couldn’t find parking” to today’s excuse of “the premises was closed”. That’s really strange as there have been two people here all day and nobody rang the bell or bothered to leave a card.

So clearly, the drivers are just lying and can’t be bothered to attempt a delivery, or they’re running late or whatever. At the end of the day, they just seem incapable of actually performing the task that I’m paying them for.

No here’s where it gets really frustrating. If you ring up to complain, the call centre person will say they can arrange for the shipment to be re-delivered the next day, but when you ask if there’ll be a re-delivery fee, you get the standard response that you need to contact the sender.

Now, let me get this straight. Startrack have failed to perform the task that they were paid to do. Their drivers lie about the reasons for failing to deliver shipments. They then want to charge you again for having to try another delivery! And to make it even more complex, they will charge the sender’s account, and it’s up to you to convince the sender to dispute the charge with their account manager. This is beyond belief.

Hey Startrack, let’s pretend that you know how to surpass your customers’ expectations and that you have a policy that if it’s your fault, you wear the cost of the re-delivery and not make your customers frustrated and angry because of your intransigent bureaucracy  and performance failures.

Or is this just a fantasy?