Who doesn’t love getting goodies in the post? Opening parcels and packages, whether it’s a gift for someone or a treat for yourself, is like a personal Christmas morning. From new outfits to DIY supplies and much more, millions of parcels are delivered across the UK every single day.
The excitement of getting your mail delivered can make the wait totally worth it. But sometimes it feels like a waste of time. Missed doorbell rings, parcels left in less-than-helpful places, and sometimes total no-shows are frustrating, all-too-familiar occurrences, especially if your parcel is time-sensitive.
From horror stories of lost parcels and boxes left out in the rain to knowing your postman’s birthday – the internet is filled with stories of delivery companies either dropping the ball or exceeding expectations. We decided to take to Twitter to look into which delivery providers are the favourite and least-favourite of users across the UK.
Methodology
In order to find out which delivery providers were most loved and which were the most criticised, we scraped Tweets containing keywords related to delivery companies from the 1st of January 2021 to the present.
The delivery companies included in our search were:
- Evri/Hermes
- Yodel
- Royal Mail
- DPD
- DHL
- FedEx
- Parcelforce
- Amazon Delivery
After the data was collected, a sentiment analysis was performed to determine which company had the most positive and negative Tweets. Tweets were also given a positive, negative, and neutral score based on the sentiment analysis.
Best perceived companies in the UK
We first looked into which of the seven delivery companies were most well-received by Twitter users by looking at the overall sentiment behind the tweets as well as the severity of the sentiment.
DHL was ranked as the UK’s favourite delivery provider with a 7.10% positive sentiment to the average tweet. Considering they started delivering parcels and other delivery logistics in 1969, and deliver 1.6 billion parcels every year, it’s good to see that they know what they’re doing. Plenty of people were praising DHL’s delivery services and saying things such as “I wish all delivery companies delivered like DHL” – high praise in a world where some delivery companies just can’t seem to get it right.
In a close second place, with a 7.01% average positive sentiment, we find delivery experts DPD. Founded in 1970 as Courier Express, they have been bought out a number of times by various parent businesses and changed names a few times, finally settling on the DPD we know and love today. Their name is short for Dynamic Parcel Distribution and, as one of the most reliable delivery companies on our list, the name certainly fits. Many of the Tweets we looked at praise DPD for their top-tier services and parcels delivered on time.
Interestingly, despite DHL having the highest positive sentiment rating, DPD had the highest number of positive Tweets overall. 52.96% of all tweets about DPD’s delivery service are branded as positive. Additionally, when DPD customers have something nice to say about their service, they really mean it. DPD had the most severely positive tweets out of the seven delivery companies. This means that when something positive was Tweeted about DPD, it was viewed by our AI as very positive. The average positive Tweet had a positivity score of 10.52%.
Worst perceived companies in the UK
When people had frustrations with the delivery (or not in some cases) of their parcels, they took to Twitter to vent about it. Here are our findings for the UK’s least-favoured delivery companies.
The delivery company that received the most negative comments was Yodel. 50.4% of all tweets about the Yodel Delivery Service were branded as negative by our AI tool. Yodel is a delivery company whose employees are self-employed and paid per successful delivery, rather than earning a salary or being paid for their time. This may be a contributing factor to reports of parcels being thrown or left in unusual places as drivers try to save time and squeeze more deliveries into their shift.
Evri (previously known as Hermes) came second on our list of least-liked delivery companies. Evri is another provider who takes on self-employed delivery drivers so the experience with them can be a bit of a mixed bag. The average Tweet about Evri had a 9.2% negative sentiment indicating that customers were less-than-happy with their delivery experience with some Twitter users expressing that they find the company to be “lazy” or “useless”.
Despite Yodel being the least popular of the delivery companies, Evri customers were the most vocal about their distaste. Evri has the most severely negative tweets from customers. This means that when something negative was Tweeted about Evri, it was viewed as very negative by the AI tool. The average negative tweet had a negativity score of 16.60%.
Other interesting findings
After looking at the data, we discovered some other interesting findings.
First, we spotted that the average negativity score of a negative Tweet was much higher than the average positivity score of a positive Tweet. This means that people who are displeased with their delivery service were much more forceful and opinionated about it than those who had a positive experience.
Similarly, when people Tweet negatively, they tend to be more emotional or intense than when they have something positive to say.
On a happier note, we spotted that most of the delivery providers, apart from Yodel and Parcelforce, had a much higher ratio of positive Tweets versus negative Tweets. This means that although there are plenty of people expressing their frustrations about their deliveries, many more are expressing gratitude or happiness!