Expectations vs. Reality
I had an unfortunate experience recently. Bought a product online, paid for postage via Australia Post. Waited over the weekend for shipment to occur. Another couple of days for the parcel to make its way to my local dispatch. Then received the “coming today” notification. Beauty, was a rather expensive purchase so require signature on delivery and I’m home today so I won’t have to drive down to the local PO to retrieve my posted item.
Australia Post recently started promoting 2hr confirmation windows with their tracking, and this was working a treat. Says I need to be ready between 11am-1pm. Sweet. At about 11:35 I happen to notice the Aust Post van reverse out of a neighbours driveway and drive off.
Weird I thought, do they have 2 runs today? And what a coincident that they both made it to my street within the same delivery window.
Ping, I receive a notification, “Your Parcel Has Been Delivered”.
Oh, without the required signature, fair enough, it has been a bit like that since Covid. I go and check outside the front door, nothing, up to the letterbox (it too big for that but maybe), nothing.
I go back to the notification and there is a butting that says “see where we left it”.
I open up the photo to discover …
That’s not my legs in the photo accepting the package.
That’s not my door mat
That’s not my door!
Three-Step Failure: Postie, Neighbor, Process
So my package has been delivered to the wrong address.
I remember seeing the van and interrogate the picture. They both seem to align to the same neighbor.
So it’s maybe 5-10 mins since the delivery was made at this point so I trot on over to next door and knock on the door.
No answer, but they just accepted a delivery. I knock a little louder, still nothing.
I repeat this a couple more times over the course of the afternoon with no response.
Until, I get ‘greeted’ by a voice from an unseen source, presumably a well disguised home security camera.
Voice: “What’s up” it says.
Me: “Umm, I believe you have a package for me” I respond.
Voice: “No I don’t” comes the reply
Me: “I believe my parcel was delivered to your house earlier today”
Voice: “Can’t have, I’ve been at work all day” spits back the camera
Me: “I have photo evidence of the package being received at your front door”
Voice: “…” silence
I waited for a minute, no further correspondence was offered.
So I said “I’ll try again later, hopefully someone will be home by then”
And returned back to my day.
Later, I go down the street to the shops and when I returned, lo and behold, there was the package sitting at my door.
Resolved. Problem solved. Water under the bridge. Residual frustration. Ongoing annoyance. New found mistrust, in both the postie and the neighbour.
You Had One Job!
So what happened. The viral phrase “you had one job” comes to mind.
The core responsibility of the postie is to deliver to the correct address. Mistakes happen. But then the neighbour accepted the parcel AND SIGNED FOR IT.
In case you are wondering, I confirmed my name and my address was in fact correct on the package. So does this mean the postie didn’t follow the second part of the process, “I have a parcel for first and last name”? And where was the individual accepting and signing for the package validating that it was theirs to receive.
That’s at least 3 failures in process across two presumably intelligent adults.
Australia Post’s Auto-Reply: Flat Comfort or Corporate Deflection?
So what does Australia Post do to resolve such errors. There was a button, with the confirmation of delivery notification, where I was easily able to raise that “I haven’t received my parcel. Great, so I filled this out. Automated response is received.
Sometimes enquiries can be resolved before we've completed our investigation. If that happens, click on the link below to close your case: LINK
If receiving a response takes longer than usual, please know we haven’t forgotten about you, it is just taking us a little longer as we are continuing to manage higher than normal enquiry volumes.
We want to help you as quickly as we can! To help us do that, please try to avoid sending us more than one enquiry about the same issue. We promise we’re on it, we handle every enquiry in the order it comes in. Thanks for your understanding.
We are people just like you, we will treat you with kindness and respect and ask that you do the same. All Australia Post employees have the right not to be subjected to any behaviour or abuse that includes threats of physical harm or violence, religious, cultural or racial insults, homophobic, sexist or other derogatory remarks.
We thank you for your cooperation. We'll be in touch as soon as we can.
Lets pick this apart a little:
- Resolved before investigation is complete: so on their error they defer to the universe to resolve the situation. To be fair, on this occasion yes I was able to resolve it myself. I shouldn’t have had to, it was uncomfortable, confrontational and ultimately not my error to solve, but it did expedite the solution. I just don’t fell like this comment takes ownership of the problem.
- Avoid sending more than one enquiry: so why would I do this, because my problem was not resolved in a timely manner. This suggests that quickly, and I quote “we want to help you as quickly as possible”, is on most occasions not within the customers expectations. I am yet to hear from any Australia Post representative (well, more on that in a minute). I would expect that the processes in place mean that this type of error is few and far between, and as a critical service error would be high on the priority list for speedy resolution. Or maybe it’s not. Should this concern is as consumers?
- Don’t take it out on us: first up. Can’t fault the intent, no employee, or anyone for that matter, should be subjected to abuse or poor behaviors from another person. But to put it in the email means there must be a big problem. Are we as Australians that terrible or is this a minor few. I’m going to presume it’s the exception not the rule and so thought that adding this comment to the auto response would change the behaviours of those people with this predisposition. Instead, it’s just a wasted statement to the rest of us who may be frustrated with the failed promises but maintain our composure when trying to achieve restitution. Deal with the poorly behaved customers when these insiders occur and have mechanisms in place to safeguard your employees, don’t disrespect the majority by presuming our default stance will be uncouth.
- We’ll be in touch: well, I’m still waiting. To note, just over 24hrs post incident, the postie arrived on my door stating he had received a complaint and wanted to check if I had received the parcel. I think his next step may have been to knock on my neighbours door and try and get it for me. I’m pretty sure this is not protocol, but a genuinely sorry postie trying to rectify the problem. Imagine if a notification had been instant when I submitted it and he could have come straight back after the error, not over a day later. But where is the correspondence from the corporation?
Who can I Trust?
What about my neighbour? Should I have a trust issue or was it a genuine mistake?
I could make up a story either way, but let’s go with most people are fundamentally good.
- The person at home won’t open the door to a ‘stranger’, with the exception being someone with a high vis shirt.
- The mysterious voice was genuinely at work and misunderstood the context and then had cellular issues, hence the abrupt end to the conversation.
- They then contacted the person who was at home and together worked out what was going on.
- The person at home, realising their mistake, brought it over.
- Since I was not home, they left it on the doorstep.
Lessons Learned & Consumer Takeaways
So, where does this leave me?
My trust in my neighbor is shaky. Did they knowingly accept my package? Or was it a simple misunderstanding?
Australia Post's process left me to resolve the error myself!
Their corporate response fell flat, while the postie actually tried to fix things.
How to Protect Yourself:
✔️ Check tracking photos immediately - if wrong, act fast.
✔️ Document the error - screenshots, timestamps, everything.
✔️ Approach the neighbor calmly - give them a chance to resolve.
✔️ Follow up but expect delays - corporate responses won’t be instant.
✔️ Don't stress about it - ultimately, of the many packages I have received over time this is an isolated incident
Have you experienced a similar situation? Was the outcome for you much worse? Share your scenario in the comments below!
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