Question handling
When a parcel arrives broken or never arrives at all
This is the intent with the shortest fuse. There is usually a deadline for claiming against a carrier, the evidence needed is often thrown away within hours, and the customer is already unhappy before they type anything. The assistant's job is narrow and valuable: preserve the evidence, state the window, and get it to a person fast.
What they are really asking
Am I going to be left out of pocket for something that was not my fault, and how quickly can somebody sort it.
- my parcel arrived damaged
- it says delivered but i never got it
- the box was crushed
- part of my order is missing
- my parcel has been lost
- do i need to take photos
- who claims from the courier, me or you
- how long do i have to report damage
- will you send a replacement or refund me
- the driver left it somewhere unsafe
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| The reporting window, stated in hours or days | How long a customer has to tell you about damage, about a missing item, and about a parcel that never came. These are often three different periods and they are frequently shorter than people assume. State each one and state when it starts. |
|---|---|
| Exactly what evidence you need | Photographs of the item, photographs of the outer packaging, the label, the packing slip, and instructions to keep everything until told otherwise. This is the single most important paragraph in the intent because the evidence disappears into a bin within a day. |
| Who claims against the carrier | In most arrangements the contract with the carrier is yours rather than the customer's, so the customer claims from you and you claim onward. Saying that removes an argument and stops somebody wasting a day on a courier helpline that will not talk to them. |
| What happens for a parcel marked delivered | Your process: checking with neighbours, the safe place instruction, the delivery photograph the carrier took, and how long you wait before treating it as lost. Written down, this is a sequence rather than a negotiation. |
| Your remedy and its timing | Replacement or refund, who chooses, and how long the investigation takes before either happens. The waiting period is the thing customers are least prepared for, so publishing it is worth more than promising speed. |
How to handle it
Ask for the evidence in the very first reply
Before any explanation of process, before any reassurance: photograph the item, photograph the packaging inside and out, and keep the packaging. Say it early because the packaging is usually the first thing to go.
Nothing else in this intent matters as much. A claim with photographs of the outer box is straightforward; the same claim without it can be unwinnable against a carrier, and then the cost sits with somebody.
State the window, and treat it as urgent
Give the reporting deadline and say what it is measured from. Where the window is short, the assistant should say plainly that this needs reporting now rather than describing a process at leisure.
This is one of the few places where a support reply is genuinely time critical, and the wording should carry that without being alarming.
Explain who is claiming from whom
Customers routinely try to chase the courier themselves and get nowhere, because the carrier's contract is with the sender. Telling them that in the first reply saves them a wasted afternoon and moves the problem to where it can actually be solved.
It also reframes the conversation usefully. The customer stops feeling like they are being passed around and starts seeing one route.
Hand over immediately, with everything captured
The assistant cannot open a claim, contact a carrier or authorise a replacement. What it can do is take a name, an email and a message that already contains the order reference, the date, what is wrong and confirmation that photographs exist.
Say who will pick it up and roughly when. A customer who has just described a broken item and been given a form with no timescale reads it as being brushed off.
When it stops being an answer
Anything damaged, without exception
There is no version of this the assistant should try to resolve. It gathers evidence and hands over. The only thing it should decide is how fast, and the answer is immediately.
Marked delivered and not received
This carries both a deadline and a possible security issue, and occasionally it is a dispute about a driver's record rather than a lost parcel. It needs somebody who can pull the carrier's proof of delivery, which is not something an assistant can approach.
Repeat incidents to the same address
A second or third failure to the same customer is a pattern rather than an incident, and it usually needs a change to how you send to them. Worth flagging to a person rather than handling as a fresh case, because the customer is close to leaving.
How this one goes wrong
The evidence that went in the bin
The customer reports damage, the assistant replies with a friendly description of the returns process, and nobody mentions photographs. By the time a person reads the message the packaging is gone, and with it the ability to claim against the carrier.
Now the cost is yours, and the customer is asked to prove something they were never told to keep. It is a small omission with a direct financial consequence, and it is entirely avoidable: put the evidence instruction at the front of the material so it appears in the first reply rather than the third.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a insurance brokerA customer reporting theft or damage needs the claims route in one reply, plus what not to do in the first hour. Nothing about cover.
- For a online storeThe carrier contract is with the seller, so the buyer cannot claim at all. The window is short and it started at dispatch.
- For a fashion retailerA security tag left on, a pulled thread, a dropped hem. Transit damage and a garment fault look identical and take different routes.
- For a furniture retailerTransit damage, a manufacturing fault and a missing fixings pack are three claims with three routes. The assistant sorts, and starts none.
- For a electronics retailerSomebody signed for it, so this is a question about evidence. Damage has to be reported before the unit is powered on and registered.
- For a garden centreLiving goods arrive stressed or spoiled and the difference decides everything. Photograph on the day, before anything is planted.
- For a bike shopTwo jobs arrive in one message. A theft needs a frame number and the police. Transit damage needs photographs and a claim the shop raises.
- For a hotelHousekeeping logs what it finds against a room and a date, the store holds it for a stated period, and a damage charge is the manager's call.
- For a holiday rentalA charger on the bedside table, a child's toy in the wash, a chipped basin. What the assistant may say about posting things on and about deductions.
- For a removals companyMost missing items are in the wrong room. The rest are a claim with a reporting deadline, and the deadline is the useful thing to say.
Questions
- Can the assistant start a claim with the courier?
- No. It does not write into any system or contact anybody. It collects the details and the confirmation that evidence exists, then sends that to the address you nominate as a message from the customer.
- Why does this need a person faster than other questions?
- Because there are deadlines on it that a customer cannot see. Carrier claim windows are set by the carrier, and evidence has a shorter life than that. Speed here is worth more than a polished answer.
- Should we publish our reporting deadline?
- Yes, and prominently. A deadline nobody was told about is difficult to enforce and reads as a technicality when you use it. Published, it does the opposite: it makes people report quickly, which is what you want.
Keep reading
- Handling order statusThe most asked question in retail support and the one a document-based assistant cannot answer. What it can do instead, and where handover sits.
- Handling shipping and deliveryCut-off times, zones, timescales, public holidays and duties on international orders. The material exists on most sites, it is just buried.
- Handling returns and exchangesWindow, condition, who pays postage, exclusions. Faulty and unwanted are two different processes with two different sets of rights.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.