Office Depot Delivery Drivers are Incompetent?
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MIT is fairly progressive in that it’s negotiated with a number of national businesses to extend MIT-pricing for its staff and faculty. One of those businesses is Office Depot.
I placed an order for a toner cartridge on September 4, with expected delivery on September 9. Ok, that’s a long time, but the Labor Day Holiday is in between. And they must know they’re not capable of pulling the items for delivery the day after a holiday. Ok, whatever.
So, it’s now Thursday evening, September 10. Guess what, no package.
After 15 minutes on the phone with Office Depot, and after speaking with the national accounts representative (which is at a phone number that is not on the email confirmation that I received*), we may have provided sufficient information for the delivery. I’m the first to admit my mailing address is a bit odd, but you know–the USPS, FedEx and UPS all know how to deliver to this address. And if the driver was having problems, ok–for the love of pete, call. There’s a phone number on file. The same phone I used to call customer service.
I got some indication from the national accounts representative that they attempted to call. Bullsh*t. I know I never picked up my phone and answered a call from Office Depot. And I know that I didn’t receive any voicemail messages from Office Depot. To be fair, there was a call at approximately 6:12am on Thursday morning and a dead air message. That could have been them. Ok, uh, leave a message? I’m not psychic. Or better yet, call back later in the day. Really.
We’ll see what happens. I have a feeling that I’ll just end up ordering the toner from Amazon and posting that yes, Office Depot delivery drivers are incompetent.
For a similar story, check out the Consumerist on Office Depot Executive E-Mail Carpet Bomb Scores Direct Hit (though for some reason it’s not displaying properly in Firefox 3.5.3).
This is partially an experiment to see if Office Depot is web-aware and checking their reputation online.
* A completely separate rant is how bad the web experience with the Business Systems Division continues to be. I mean back when I was purchasing with them in 2002-2004 at UC Berkeley they didn’t get the web thing. Their order interface and experience was from the dumb terminal days. Today, let’s recognize computers are good at matching data. If I’m ordering from MIT, and you know I have a national account, then put the customer service number for national accounts and/or for me in particular in the email. Don’t make me call one number, wait on hold for 4-5 minutes and then tell me they have to transfer me. It’s called customer SERVICE for a reason. Ok, end rant.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Hey you are the incompetent one, Office Depot does not have its own delivery drivers, they use ups or usps. I know this because I work there. Next time get off your sorry — and go get the toner yourself and still use the MIT discount. ——
Well, let’s see if I can start a flame war.
Hrm, let’s see. Learn to read?
And, let’s see…learn some manners? Do you usually use thinly veiled swear words with strangers? I’ve edited them out, there’s really no need for you to use that language. It detracts from your message. You clearly were busy surfing the Internet at 12:09am in the morning.
And, how about having a bit of a backbone and use your name, even your first name? Unless you’re somewhat skilled, I believe your comment came from 69.141.170.166/c-69-141-170-166.hsd1.de.comcast.net which is a Delaware-based cable Internet connection on Comcast’s network.
you Incompetent foo! my alarm clock didnt go off this morning… Wait that has nothing to do with yo does it? oh well.
first i want to apologize for my earkier rant i got a little off subject. i hope you have resolved the problem by now since your post is nearly two years old. If you would like to know what the problem was or is i know the exact reason other than telling you to switch to staples (unless under contract) I can probably help.
exoddsr john h
It’s amazing the “popularity” of this post. And what it brings out in people across the Internet.
Thanks for your followup comment.
I apologize for the language, but it’s true that they don’t have their own delivery drivers. I commented thinking this was an obsolete page and never expected a response. Again, sorry for the language and all. Hope all is OK. Thanks
As a driver, so you know most times if your package is not deliverled it is because dispatch has screwed up the order. The drivers deliver based on their orders for the day. If the order is not in the pile then you don’t get a delivery. If the order is not correct on the paper, you don’t get the delivery. If you get bad customer service by interacting with the driver then that is a result of the driver.
So you know
@Soyouknow
I suppose I could have titled this “Office Depot Deliveries are Incompetent”…
…or I could say, “it’s always better to blame someone else…” If you’re a driver it’s the dispatcher’s fault, if you a dispatcher it’ the driver’s fault. If your a customer, it’s all of the above’s fault–same end result, no delivery. I’d like to receive the product, and don’t particularly care who’s fault it is.
LOL. I agree with completely with you on that last comment Brandon.
LOL. I agree with you completely on that last comment Brandon. (LOL at how I originally typed this too)
I worked for office depot for over 19 years most of those years in one of there distribution centers. i did it all and more knowledge about the product than the vendors themselves.
I1999 Transferred out of the warehouse and became a delivery driver.for our are there where approx. 150 drivers almost all of them with 5 or more years experience. A handful of my customers where intelligent enough to understand that if there was a problem with there order all they had to do is contact the rep. and i would return the following business day to make a exchange or pick up or whatever the case may be, now in the event we had a more serious problem i had direct contact with my dispatcher (all of witch having worked in the warehouse had excellent product knowledge) who had the ability to generate new orders issue credit or arrange right now delivery if needed. not every customer got this service, allot of them where rude and often angry some would make us wait untill the finished there conversation about who did what over the weekend or want to check the order item by item stoping at every other item to say”whats this?” or “I dont like this color,” as they hand it to you expecting you to go get a different one or as i walk into a office i get greeted by some pissed off coffee fetcher who after making me wait and a few dirty looks and comments like “I dont know whats wrong with you people” or worse pulls out something like a desk pad stating i keep ordering clear and you keep sending blue as the stand there and watch as i remove the blu protective film from the clear plastic desk pad. toners are fun also i dont know how many times i had to wait for the customer to make sure the toner was going to work this time as they attempt to install it with the tab that says “remove before inserting. The look on peoples fases is i say let me see thay and pull out the tab. I could go on and on about the Incompetence we had to endure on a daily bases. in 2006 office depot let us go and began using third party owner operators, all that means is O.D. found some homeless guy and leased him one of those stupid vans witch where not set up for this pype of delivering and they will soon learn that its almost impossible to make any money so they have no incentive to deal with ******** all day. intead of gripping about it on some website order your **** from staples.chances are you are the problem regardles if tou have a bad attitude you will get bad service..
Hi Brandon. First, let me tell ANON that Office Depot did have it’s own delivery drivers at select locations at the time of his rather rude post. So it actually is ANON who is mistaken.(His or her degree of competency is unknown to me, not being gifted with the shrewd powers of snap judgement that ANON imagines to possess.) They had over 200 local delivery vans just like the one in the picture in 2010. In fact they only discontinued local store deliveries as of the date of this post. I know this because I have been a delivery driver out of our local store for 11 years. Tomorrow is the last day of store based deliveries, so all future orders will originate in the closest warehouse and ship to the customer through third party carriers such as UPS. In that degree at least, Brandon, your delivery problems should be cleared up if you haven’t sold your soul to Amazon yet.
The problem with OD deliveries lie mainly in the BSD (Business Services Division) and in an antiquated ordering system that really has not changed much in the past decade. Say you place your BSD order with your rep. While keying the order, the Satanically inspired rep notices that your regional crossdock or warehouse is out of stock on your toner. Rather than contacting you or placing your item on back order, the rep will then light 13 black candles, ( I assume this happens, God or man alone could not inspire the self serving scheming that is about to transpire) and check the local stores for inventory. If you are lucky the local store will have the item and if you have a good rep (one who has been less than two days on the job is your best bet as it takes time to corrupt souls) they will blow out the candles and simply redirect the delivery through the local store, both the store and the rep will share the sale and your delivery driver will get the toner to you next day, maybe even the same day if they are like me and actually care.
But here is likely what happened in your case. The rep saw the out of stock item, checked local stores who were also out of stock. So naturally the rep called you and informed you that the item was temporarily unavailable so you could explore alternatives in a timely manner. Ha! Just kidding. The rep actually overrode the inventory and invoiced your order, securing his commission and boosting his numbers. He then called a local delivery store and told then that they had to do everything they could to dig up a toner because this is an emergency! The store will then transfer a toner from a distant store (or send the driver to a distant store to pick one up) if the can find one. This often adds at least two days to the delivery. If the store can’t find one, they inform the rep, who waits to hear from you and then blames it on the delivery driver. And that is how it works. It has always been this way. The driver didn’t call you because the rep said he already had.
Brandon, I would like to add as the sun sets on my time with Office Depot, that it has been a great place overall to work. I have worked with some great people and I have watched the company make really positive changes in a difficult time, both to lower costs and to greatly improve customer service at all levels. The accountability issues you encountered a few years ago have been addressed to a great degree and with the phasing out of store sourced deliveries, situations where an unscrupulous salesman games the system should be a thing of the past.
The company is trying very hard to streamline it’s operations with great emphasis on providing customer service and a great instore as well as online experience.
I hope they succeed.
Aside from a BSD rep or two making my job a little too challenging at times, I have enjoyed the company and count many of my customers and coworkers among my personal friends.
I would recommend it as a place to work with a great management training program and decent benefits. And I would also encourage anyone who has had a negative experience in the past to give Office Depot another chance. The vibe in the stores is much more positive than in the past and the employees should be much more helpful.
I will miss working there. I wish they had an opening that offered the same pay and hours as I have now, I would stay. As it is, they were very generous in matters of severance. Take it from me, it is a good company with good people who care.