Everyone has a delivery horror story – terrible drivers, poor communication, parcels being completely misplaced, deliveries on the wrong day… the list goes on.
Fortunately, my horror story has a happy ending.
During the Click Frenzy sales, I was somehow lucky enough to score a TV and it was arranged to be delivered to the office by Allied Express. On the expected delivery date, I received an SMS in the early morning notifying me that it was on board with the driver.
Shortly after, the driver called and asked whether or not we had a loading bay here at the office that his truck could get into.
While there is a loading bay, I didn’t know the size of the truck so to spare the hassle, I figured it would be best to reroute the delivery and ensure that I could get it. Knowing I wasn’t going to be home when it arrived, I decided to delay delivery until Monday.
I spoke to a representative on the phone on Thursday who confirmed with me that the delivery would take place on a Monday. Cool, I thought, I’ll work from home to make sure I can get it.
The next day – Friday – I receive an SMS in the early morning to say that the TV was on board with a driver. Knowing full well that I wasn’t going to be home that day, I called Allied Express and asked what was going on. I had requested a Monday delivery.
They informed me that the TV was on a truck, but it would come back to the depot to be delivered Monday. No harm, no foul, I guess, though I spent 10 minutes on hold to ensure that the delivery would be scheduled for Monday.
Seasoned veterans of receiving parcels can probably tell what happens next.
Monday morning rolled around and I receive no correspondence from Allied Express. I figure that the TV mustn’t have been put on a truck by 9am, considering all previous SMS alerts came in before 8am. I phone again – the third time I’ve had to chase what’s going on with the delivery – and find out that the TV hasn’t been put on a truck.
Ugh.
I let the anger seep out a little, changing tone over the phone and asking about what could be done to get the TV that day or reschedule for a Saturday when I would be home again. Sadly, the Allied Express call centre and the depot operate in two different places so all the call centre can do is send an email to the depot and await a response about whether or not same-day delivery was possible.
For Allied’s same-day delivery service, I was looking at $120. If I wanted to reschedule to Saturday, an additional $80 fee would need to be paid.
Figuring that there’s no way they will get the TV to me without paying extra, I all but gave up hope of receiving it.
Enter Zoom2U.
Fed up with the incompetent and wholly unsatisfying service I had received with Allied Express, it was time to take matters into my own hands.
I organised a driver with Zoom2U to head to the depot, collect my TV and bring it to me. All they needed was the pickup address and my delivery address. I gave them the parcel weight and dimensions too.
When booking online, you have six parcel size choices from documents to large freight. This partly determines the cost of sending the parcel and getting a quote is as simple as putting in the necessary information and an email address.
Before Zoom2U confirmed pickup, I received a call asking what the consignment number at the depot was so they could locate it and pick it up. I hadn’t even thought about the fact they’d need that, but fortunately they were on top of things.
My initial booking was placed around 11:30am and within half an hour, it was confirmed. At 12:08am, I received an SMS that they had begun the job and were on their way to pick up my new TV. The SMS also contained a link to live track the driver online.
Knowing that I had a Skype call coming, I needed to shower and not look like I just crawled out of bed.
I was live tracking the delivery of my TV from the shower.
I’m tracking my 55″ 4K TV delivery from the shower. How’s your Monday? pic.twitter.com/wNhjuJiKf9
— jack ryan 🙏 (@dctrjack) December 11, 2017
According to Zoom2U, they use ‘route optimisation technology that uses algorithms to intelligently map the driver’s delivery route to minimise driving time.’
As I watched the live tracker, this certainly seemed to be the case. The driver took backstreets that Google Maps did not suggest taking on his way to my house. Whether this shaved time off the trip or not, it was hard to say – I was using the service in the middle of the day when traffic congestion would have been minimal.
Within two hours, the TV had been delivered to my door and placed in my hallway. The delivery driver was friendly and happy, chatting to me about how he’d recently quit his job as manager at Hungry Jack’s to go full-time with Zoom2U. We shook hands, I said thanks and I was relieved to finally have the TV in my home.
The few faults I found were the SMS service was a little janky. I received four SMS over the two hours and three of the links were broken or had to be deciphered because they were typed incorrectly. Once the TV was delivered I received an SMS to rate the service. This link was not broken.
Of course, this is a same-day courier service. If this kind of convenience is what you need, you will be looking at some high prices. Fortunately, the pricing wasn’t as bad as Allied Express’ $120. For a TV delivery before 5pm, covering the distance that they needed to cover for my specific purpose, I would have had to pay around $45. That price increases with a longer journey or a quicker delivery time with ASAP delivery hovering around $80.
Ultimately, Zoom2U just provided me with a real peace of mind about my delivery. From the initial booking to the final delivery, I was able to get a feeling for exactly where my parcel was and the timeframe I would be looking at. That sort of transparency is highly commendable and a great point of difference between other companies. If it sits within your budget, Zoom2U will get you what you need as soon as you need it.
Zoom2U provided the courier service free-of-charge for review purposes.
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