On Hasbro Pulse, and Courier Frustrations (with Addenda)

I learned yesterday - to my immense pleasure - that Hasbro have finally extended their Pulse webstore to the UK... just a little over two years after it launched in its current form.

 

Naturally, I wasted no time in putting through an order - Kingdom Airazor - and was somewhat concerned to note that Hasbro's courier of choice is Yodel.

 

There isn't a single courier out there that does not have its detractors, but my recent experiences of Yodel have been particularly noteworthy. I quite like that they identify their drivers by name, because it means I can be sure that I've had the same driver deliver to me three times in the space of about six months. Here's a brief summary of those experiences:

 

#1: Driver pressed every single doorbell on the entryphone meaning that, by the time I picked up mine, I couldn't hear or speak through it because one of my neighbours had got there first. The doorbell rang again, I picked up, and heard what seemed to be a woman having a conversation on her phone. She certainly wasn't responding to me, so I hung up. Shortly after, I heard someone outside shouting and, looking out the window, saw a woman standing by a Yodel van, calling up at one of my neighbours at their window, asking if they were me. I opened my window, caught her attention, told her I'd be right down. By the time I got downstairs, she was on the phone again. She pushed the parcel into my hands, and walked straight back to her van. Delivery achieved, I guess.

 

#2: Received an email notification on the day, saying "We have attempted to deliver your order... however we were unable to access your delivery address. We will try to deliver your order again tomorrow". Bearing in mind that the tracking page on the website said it was only due for delivery the following day, I wasn't too worried... But then the driver arrived that evening. She only pressed the correct doorbell and, this time, was not on her phone when I picked up the entryphone. She told me she had a package for me, and asked me to come downstairs to collect it. I did so, but arrived at the door a few steps behind one of my neighbours, heading out for a smoke. She tried to hand the package to him, but I caught her attention and told her it was for me. Still, I'd say that basically qualifies as a successful delivery.

#3: I received notification of successful delivery, despite being in all day and not hearing the doorbell once. I ran downstairs, checked the entrance hall, checked outside the main door, and found nothing - not even a 'Sorry we missed you' card. About an hour later - in case the driver decided to mark the delivery as complete ahead of arrival - I contacted Yodel Customer Support, confirmed that I'd checked around for the parcel even though there's no way into the residential part of the building except by use of the entryphone. I was told they'd investigate and get back to me within 24 hours.

That evening, I received an email stating: "Driver has confirmed that the parcel was delivered and handed over to a gentleman at your address and satellite navigation also supports this delivery. I would request you to check with the house hold members", so I got straight back onto Customer Support and confirmed that this was not the case.

They were able to clarify that the driver had told the depot team: "the goods were delivered to an Asian male at the address he works there he always takes the parcel". That made it sound as though she'd delivered to one of the businesses on the ground floor, so I agreed to check with them the following morning.

Only three are currently open, due to the pandemic, and none had received any deliveries from Yodel. Passing this on to Yodel, I was told that the driver was insisting "the parcel was delivered to the correct address" and, no matter how much I insisted this was not the case, they could do nothing more. They advised me to inform the sender.

Smyths Toys very kindly arranged a replacement which was delivered the next day... by a different courier.

Cut to two weeks later, and the Postman handed me a note along with my regular mail, saying that he'd just been to the Import/Export business on the second floor of a separate part of our block (accessible only via a different ground floor entrance door and several flights of stairs) and seen a package with my name and address on it. He apologised, saying that he's not allowed to deliver packages from other couriers, otherwise he would have brought it round himself. The note was the name and phone number of the business owner.

I phoned him, asked if he had a Yodel parcel with my name on it, and we arranged to meet outside the building for a handover. He explained that he'd received a stack of Yodel parcels that day and, because his company receives many such deliveries every day, he simply hadn't checked the names and addresses on all of them. He added that that, on a subsequent delivery run, the same driver queried whether or not he had received his parcel, citing a non-delivery complaint. He had told the driver that his only complaint had been of a damaged delivery, and that all parcels had been received as far as he was aware. At this point, however, he was still not aware that he was in possession of a parcel addressed to me. In fact, he only became aware of my parcel when, by sheer chance, the postman noticed my name and address on the label when making his regular round.

The driver had insisted throughout that she had delivered to the correct address, doubled down by asking the wrong person, at the wrong address, to confirm delivery (then told the depot that she'd spoken to me) rather than accept and admit that any error had been made, and Yodel had simply accepted everything she said, without querying any of the details... Since photographic proof of delivery is not required, there was no evidence either way.
One can only hope that the depot will now be able to ascertain if their driver misinformed them wilfully or accidentally, but the fact remains she delivered the parcel to the wrong address. I'd call that an absolute failure.

 

Just for added laughs, when I contacted Smyths to enquire about returning the 'extra', they arranged for collection... by a different courier, DPD, who have generally been excellent. In fact, they have one driver who regularly phones me ahead of arrival to confirm that I'll be in, because the entryphone wasn't working on one occasion when he tried to deliver a year or two back. Sadly, while I was following this other courier on his way to me, I received a text notification - just a few minutes after I'd seen he was about 15 minutes away - saying "Sorry we missed you, your DPD driver [name] won't be back today".

 

Moments later, the doorbell rang... it was the Postman, but I found a DPD 'Sorry we missed you' note had been shoved through under the entrance door. It hadn't even been filled in, and I've had to rearrange collection for Monday.

 

Also, as an aside, I am very much in favour of the idea that all couriers should be required to present photographic evidence of delivery. This has been invaluable to me, as packages are frequently left outside the door of my downstairs neighbour, and the location is easily identifiable in a photo. These days, I tend to meet every courier at the top of the stairs, just in case.

I'm thrilled that Hasbro Pulse - and its exclusives - will be available to me from here on, however, much of the stock available in the US is not (yet) available via the UK arm, and comparing the US and UK sites brings it sharply into focus that everything is (depending on the exchange rate) almost one and a half times the cost of the same toy on the US site. I'm disappointed that I've missed out on the Generations Selects/War for Cybertron Trilogy Centurion Drone set, but that came out about a year ago. While Pulse is still no substitute for the old Collectors' Club, it's great to have (theoretically) reliable access to future TransFormers toys without having to keep a constant eye on stock levels at retailers like The Entertainer (who are often not too good at keeping up-to-date with TransFormers toylines) or Smyths.

 

But the fact that they've chosen Yodel as their courier is a source of concern for me, particularly if Yodel continue to use this terrible driver to deliver their parcels in my area. I'm also not especially happy that they charge for delivery... but orders in excess of £40 are free, so it's not all bad.

 

So, here's me with a preorder at Smyths and a new order at Hasbro Pulse. I've received notification of despatch via Yodel for the latter, and I'm sitting around with baited breath to find out how this one goes.

 

Perhaps I should just go an sit on my doorstep for the whole day, once I know when it's arriving...

Addendum 15/3/21: While the Yodel website told me that the parcel from Hasbro Pulse was due for delivery today, it wasn't till almost 1:30pm that I got a notification that it was out for delivery. The good news was that I was quite early on the delivery schedule... The bad news is that the driver somehow got lost after the preceding delivery, and my next update said that I'd have to contact them for further details. Yodel's phone system is wholly automated and next to useless for this sort of enquiry, so I had to use their web chat... and explain exactly where my home is, even though they've delivered to me before. I guess this means they're using a different driver for this route, but the tracking page no longer lists the driver's name so, for all I know, the usual driver has reached a new level of incompetence. Delivery is now rescheduled for tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes...

Addendum 16/3/21: Today's driver approached via a different - and vastly more sensible - route, and managed to find the building without any apparent problems. I wonder if this means the additional instructions and landmarks I gave Customer Support yesterday are now going to be attached to subsequent deliveries.

Addendum 28/3/21: Slightly better experience on Friday, with my preorder for Kingdom Dinobot arriving pretty much without incident. Weird thing was, the Yodel app (which I'd downloaded since the last delivery) and the website both showed the name of the 'problem' driver, and neither displayed the GPS map it'd seen on 15/3 and 16/3. I had notification that it was 'Out for delivery' around 10am, followed by an in-app notification that "Your parcel is arriving in the next 2 days!", while the website estimated delivery on 27/3, so it was all very confusing. The guy who arrived rang the correct doorbell, politely waited for me to get downstairs to collect the parcel, confirmed my identity before leaving... and was most definitely not the named driver unless Yodel has two drivers (one female, one male) of the same name, covering the same route.

Addendum 2/4/21: I figure it's worth mentioning that Hasbro ran a promotion - which, in retrospect, perhaps I should have linked to when I found out about it - whereby the cost of Hasbro Pulse Premium 'membership' was cut by 50% until the end of March. I only learned this a few days ahead of the deadline because, while it was announced in an email I received on the 18th, I didn't read it immediately because I tend to ignore these mailshots, particularly if there's no mention of an offer in the subject line. I took advantage of the offer, just on the off-chance that they might produce an exclusive I'd be interested in (toy colours Kingdom Blackarachnia? A Fractyl repaint of their upcoming Terrorsaur?) and because there's always a chance it'll be easier to get something from them direct. Plus, who knows, perhaps they'll announce something interesting at the April 9th event, and open orders for Pulse Premium members ahead of everyone else...