Playbook, online store
The claim belongs to the shop, not to the person with the empty porch
Two facts decide every one of these conversations and the customer knows neither. The carrier's contract is with the shop, so the person who is missing a parcel has nobody to complain to except the shop, however much they want to ring the depot. And the claim window is short and started at dispatch, so every day of polite waiting is spent out of a budget nobody told them about.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for lost or damaged goods holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The carriage contract runs between the shop and the carrier, so the customer standing in an empty porch cannot open a claim at all, and telling them to take it up with the courier sends them to a door that will not open.
- Claim windows are short and they run from dispatch or from the last scan rather than from the day the customer noticed, so the reflex of asking somebody to give it a few more days can quietly cost the shop the claim and then the goods.
- A parcel marked delivered arrives with a photograph, a location stamp or a signature attached to the carrier record, which turns the conversation into one about evidence rather than one about policy, and evidence is not something a chat window adjudicates.
- Damage in transit is provable for about as long as the outer packaging exists, so the instruction to photograph the box and the label before anything goes in the bin has to be in the first reply or it is worthless.
How it arrives
- my parcel says delivered but its not here
- it arrived smashed what do i do
- the box was open and something is missing
- how long before a parcel counts as lost
- do i need to keep the packaging
- should i contact the courier or you
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your claim windows, per carrier and per service | How many days you have to raise a loss and how many to raise damage, and what each is counted from. This is internal knowledge that almost never reaches a page, and it is the number that decides whether the customer is told to wait or told to write today. |
|---|---|
| What you need from a customer to raise a damage claim | Photographs of the item, the outer box, the label and the packing inside it, plus how soon after delivery you need them. Also state plainly that the packaging has to be kept, because the sentence is useless once it has gone out with the recycling. |
| The delivery instructions you give the carrier | Whether parcels can be left in a safe place, left with a neighbour, or need a signature, and whether the customer can change that after dispatch. Half of the missing parcels in this category are not missing, they are somewhere the customer never agreed to. |
| Your published position while a claim is open | Whether you replace, refund or wait for the carrier, and how long an investigation usually takes. A customer who knows a replacement follows the investigation waits calmly. A customer told nothing assumes they are being stalled and goes to their bank. |
The reply
That needs reporting to us today rather than in a few days, and here is why: the claim with the carrier is ours to raise, not yours, and the window for raising it is short and counted from dispatch [1]. Before anything else, keep the outer box, the label and the packing, and photograph the item and the box together, because a damage claim without pictures of the packaging generally fails [2]. If the tracking shows it delivered, it is worth checking the carrier record for a photograph or a safe place note, and worth asking next door, but please do that alongside contacting us rather than instead of it. Send your order number and the checkout email to our contact address with the photographs attached and the team will open it.
It opens with the urgency and immediately gives the reason for it, because a customer who understands the window stops apologising for chasing. The packaging instruction comes second because it is the only thing that becomes impossible if it waits. Checking with a neighbour is kept in, since it genuinely resolves some of these, but it is explicitly framed as an addition rather than a substitute, which is the framing that stops a week disappearing.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any description of one particular parcel that is missing, late beyond the published window, damaged, opened, part-empty or marked delivered.
I cannot see parcels or tracking, and this one needs opening properly. Leave your name, the email on the order and your order number, say what the tracking currently shows, and attach photographs if there is damage. It goes to the team as an enquiry and they will take it from there.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never tell a customer to check with a neighbour and come back in a few days, because the carrier claim window is running whether or not anybody is counting.
- Never promise a replacement, a refund or a reship for a parcel that is missing, since that is a decision made against a carrier record the assistant cannot see.
- Never say the carrier lost it or blame a named delivery company, because the claim and its evidence belong to the shop and a chat transcript is part of the file.
- Never say a parcel marked delivered has been delivered, which is the single sentence a customer will quote back at everybody they escalate to afterwards.
Questions
- Can it look at the tracking if we give it the tracking page?
- No. Tracking is a live record against one consignment, not a document, and there is nothing for it to read. It can explain what a status means, what a safe place note is and what evidence a claim needs, which is the part customers get wrong anyway.
- What is the one document to write first here?
- The claim windows, in days, from dispatch. Nothing else changes behaviour as much. It converts every one of these replies from a soothing note into an instruction with a reason attached, and it stops the shop losing claims through politeness.
- Should it ask for photographs before a person is involved?
- Yes, and in the first reply. The photographs are the only part of a damage claim with a shelf life, and the gap between the customer writing and a person answering is exactly when the box goes out for recycling.
Keep reading
- Everything for a online storeDelivery cut-offs, the returns window and restock questions get asked before purchase. The one thing an assistant cannot do is find an order.
- Handling lost or damaged goods in generalThe claim window, the photographs needed, the carrier's role, and why this reaches a person sooner than almost anything else in support.
- Never quote a figure the catalogue can change while you typeA catalogue price changes without notice, so an indexed copy of it goes stale within hours. Quote the rules around it instead.
- The receipt they were sent is not the document their accountant needsA confirmation email is not a tax invoice. The company details an accountant needs had to be captured at checkout and usually were not.
- Three lines on the statement and one order that never existedA failed attempt can still leave a pending line on a statement. It clears on the issuer's schedule and nobody at the shop can release it.
Try it on your own material
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