I hate liars. I hate Blue Dart.

Published by Karthik S on December 26, 2009 | 9 Responses

Update (Dec. 28, 2009): Got at least 3 calls from various people at Blue Dart, Bangalore. I was told that the delivery guy came to my apartment gate, asked for me at the security – the security supposedly called me on my intercom (as is the norm) but it seems nobody picked it up. Fair explanation…possible too.

But what I fail to understand is this – a smaller courier company like First Flight is able to contact me *before* landing up at my doorstep, on my mobile – confirm my availability and then drop in to deliver my package. Why can’t a much more established courier brand like Blue Dart follow this simple procedure?

I asked the same to everyone who called – the response: Sorry sir! Strange…before expending time, effort and fuel, they should have simply checked with me – after all, why else do we give our contact numbers for courier booking?

Another side-note: I got a couple of tweets (in response to mine, about this blog post) that I have failed to adhere to my own advice I delivered on another post of mine in this blog, titled ‘Whine Flu‘. The point there was to try other, one-to-one modes of whining/ complaining, before taking it public. In this case, I did – mailed Blue Dart in the contact box in their site. Tried calling as many as 4 numbers listed in their website – all that on a Saturday night. I was politely told by a recorded voice that customer service is not available after 9pm and on Sundays. So there…

The most interesting thing here is the parallel push by a person (no names here, in the interest of privacy) who happened to see my tweet on Saturday night. This person is employed in a company that is a sister concern of Blue Dart and has been in touch with me right through – on Saturday night, a text message on Sunday and also today morning! This is the kind of monitoring that brands should prepare themselves for – it is commendable that this person was able to communicate with me on twitter and continued to help me when the organization’s official communication channel was not available.

Original post:

Its rather strange actually. My ire should have been directed towards Standard Chartered Bank, but they’ve actually delivered on their promise – I submitted the papers for a salary account last Saturday and I got the debit card this noon, thanks to First Flight courier. But I do wonder why they chose to send another pack via another courier…Blue Dart!

And boy, do I hate Blue Dart!

I get a text message from Blue Dart at 9:30 pm today that they ‘tried’ delivering my package today and that I should send them timing options for Monday via a text message. I refuse to.

I was home all day today. Checked with my apartment’s security folks…nope, no Blue Dart. Only First Flight. The First Flight guy called me, confirmed I’m home and delivered. Its a funny, unnecessary subplot, but I should add here that he requested me to come down to my apartment’s front gate and collect the courier – seems his bike’s battery was stolen the last time he parked it outside for delivery. I was having lunch at that time, but I completely understand his point of view and got my courier from the main gate.

If Blue Dart had just called and asked me if delivering on Monday is ok, I’d be more than willing to agree – I completely see the holiday’ish reason/ mood – no problemo!

But, they chose to lie. And that gets on my nerves. Big time. I tweeted this a few minutes back and surprisingly got a response from someone who works in a company who’s sister concern happens to be Blue Dart! Not bad, twitter works…even at odd hours!

I’m happy that someone remotely associated with Blue Dart even bothered to take note, but I’m equally appalled that an organization of Blue Dart’s stature can blatantly lie like this. That too, after 9 pm on Saturday, since their customer service is operational only from 9am-9pm, Monday-Saturday. How convenient!

Article written by Karthik S

  • http://www.foxymoron.org/ Harshil Karia

    Hey thanks for putting me on your Blogroll! I just noticed while going through your blog :)

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  • Amith Chandhran

    Are you sure the security guy is reliable enough?

  • http://www.beastoftraal.com Karthik

    Good question – I was considering that too. But its pointless to go into this anymore. The basic problem is that (a) they goofed and did not even attempt to deliver on Saturday or (b) they tried, came up to the gate without checking with me and went back. I give them the benefit of doubt based on (b). The silly lapse in process of calling me before landing up still remains!

    But, I don’t completely despise them yet – just because of that one person who cared enough on a Saturday night to respond to me tweet. That says a lot of the kind of people they’ve (even if its just one) and the kind of service they inspire within their organization (even if it was a sister concern).

    The point – individual people can make a difference to large companies too and this is not restricted to visible, spokesperson-material seniors alone.

  • Gopal Srinivasan

    Mountain out of a molehill? Given the amount of SMS-spam and Telemarketing calls that we all get the last thing I want is to be bothered by every courier guy calling me up to check if he can deliver.

  • http://www.beastoftraal.com/ Karthik

    But Gopal, this is one of the few things that I’d like to notified about – imagine the silly waste of time for them if they find me unavailable or for me, to call them and demand my courier again! Plus, how many couriers do you get in a month – on an average? I get about say, 5-7. I’m completely ok with they calling for my availability – its my courier and its my time :-)

  • Kalpik Nigam

    They have been lying to my face too! “Delivery Attempted-Consignee Premises Closed” when I’m at home all day! And it happens ALWAYS with bluedart, and no other courier company. Could you please share any contact you have with Bluedart or the sister company, I want to give em a piece of my mind..

  • http://www.facebook.com/ankursharma88 Ankur Sharma

    and they are still the same!!

  • Hari K T

    You are right . I too had bad and good experience with Bluedart . I feel its some of the people who are trying to make the service worst. Its a game play inside their company itself . For eg : none of the person called me too and they do send it saying its not deliverable. #WTF ? Don’t they know how to call a mobile and check whether the person is there or not ? Its not one , but more for people who are getting goods online.

  • Parth

    Really Noone is came to my Home and even not a single call to me. and they changed the status to Consignee Premises Closed. very poor service and No Customer service is helpful when I am trying to contact their customer care center they told me “wrong number”