As a current DHL employee, and a near 20 year DHL employee, I can tell you that the DHL@home service will be discontinued on Sept. 1, 2008 because it is not a money maker for us. On my route I have a Post Office, a large one, in a main city, and for all of the post offices that our station handles we have material coming in every day and we deliver it to the post offices every day. Lately for me it is approx. 60 - 240 pieces a day. Christmas time is another story, lots more. On Mon., Wed., and Fri. we pick up from the post offices the rejected or sent back packages that customers want to return. I cannot say what happens at other stations or independent contractors stations in the middle of nowhere (obviously it’s somewhere for the people that live there) but you know what I mean. We do have additional day(s) transit times for outlying areas of course in which it is only sensible to have the post offices do the delivering to. Residential stops are very time consuming, DHL wanted to keep us mostly on main roads to do businesses. We do still p/u and deliver to residences of course. I’m not totally trying to defend my employer, seeing as I’ve been screwed plenty in the past and present ( I may be looking forward to a layoff soon... ) but there are DHL employees that are dedicated, and really care about the image they portray and the service they provide. But, if the whole operation is not on the same page, it just falls apart...
Thanks for the information. It’s very much appreciated.
I knew two DHL people....great guys, I was pulling for them myself. What I personally don’t like is a sneaky company. According to the shippers, DHL knew well in advance the packages they were picking up would not be delivered in the four days they quoted them and it would be a good two weeks. All tacking lost as well. But rather than let everyone know, they take the packages and smile.....screw the customer....make the sale.
It might be good business in the short term, but as you can see, things are changing. This type of behavior can not happen in the dark anymore. I can say this with certanity. When I am ordering things on line in the future, I will be paying much more attention to how and by who my order is being shipped. There is no substitute for being honest and up front with people, and that applies to businesses. Once the trust is gone.....good luck staying in business.