Customer Announcement – Delivery Update on Shipping Times: Read More
The Lengths We Go To When Assisting With Deliveries
When you order from BasketsGalore you are just purchasing a gift, but a gift delivery service. This means that as well as buying the physical gift basket you receive a tracked delivery service, assistance with any delivery problems and email updates & support from our Customer Service Team.
Although the vast majority of deliveries take place without a hitch, there are also occasional issues that call for us to step in & assist. As we are dealing with gifts sometimes our customers have an old address for a friend or an incorrect phone number or postcode. We check the postcodes and telephone numbers on every order and will email our customers if we find any issues. The only thing we can't predict in advance is if the intended recipient has moved address. However, as we track all deliveries on a daily basis we would see this flag as "recipient moved" and so be able to advise our customer.Other potential problems can be when the recipient is not at home when delivery is attempted. In this case the courier driver will leave a calling card at the address to advise the recipient. However, sometimes calling cards are missed or letterboxes cannot be accessed and so our team will follow up by telephoning the recipient to ensure they received the card. We also offer to rearrange the delivery for the recipient if they would prefer we did it for them, or to redirect it to an alternative address such as a work one.There is one type of address that is particularly problematic for a variety of reasons and that is Hospital addresses. We deliver hundreds of gift baskets to hospitals every year, however each hospital has different policies regarding deliveries for patients. Because of this we advise customers to contact the hospital in advance to check their policies & also to check the patient is due to be there for the next 2 days at least. We also try to give as much information about hospital deliveries on our website so as you are fully informed before ordering.
Some hospitals don't allow gifts at all, and some do but the deliveries can only go to their stores/loading bays and so it can take a day or 2 for the gift to reach the ward. The majority of hospitals, however, have a post room for deliveries and the gift swiftly makes it up to the patient on the same day as delivery thanks to the hard working porters. We ask our customers to provide a few main details when ordering to a hospital - the patients full name, their ward name or number and a mobile number for them or a partner/family member.There have been instances when our couriers have delivered the parcel to the hospital on the requested date, but unfortunately the patient hasn't received the gift with a day or 2. In this case it tends to be that the patient has been discharged or the parcel went to their loading bay. We do our very best to assist our customers in locating the parcel by phoning the hospital & getting information from the delivery driver, but it can be very difficult to locate a single parcel in vast hospitals that receive hundreds of deliveries a day. We understand it is disappointing when there is a delay in the gift reaching the patient, but ask our customers to appreciate that unfortunately we have no control over how quickly the hospital staff pass the gift on. All we can do at this stage is to try and reach someone in the hospital who knows what parcel we are talking about and who is willing to help. This is why we recommend checking their policies in advance, as we understand how difficult & disappointing it is when something does go wrong.There was one hospital in particular that we had to put on the "banned" list after a few of our parcels ended up in the loading bay. After dozens of phone calls to the Hospital switchboard, and being passed from pillar to post, we eventually spoke to a staff member in their "stores". He remembered our parcel being delivered as our gifts are in distinctive boxes, but was unable to locate it for us due to the volume of parcels sitting there. This particular gift was actually going to a member of staff as a thank you gift rather than a patient and we still assisted in trying to locate it for her. She eventually offered to go down to the stores herself and speak with someone and they still couldn't manage to locate it. You can imagine how difficult it us for us trying to assist by phone if someone in the same building can't find it.Thankfully this is a rare occurrence or we would simply not be able to offer deliveries to hospitals. That would be a real shame as then all those ill & injured people wouldn't get to enjoy the fabulous get well gift baskets we send on your behalf.
Although the vast majority of deliveries take place without a hitch, there are also occasional issues that call for us to step in & assist. As we are dealing with gifts sometimes our customers have an old address for a friend or an incorrect phone number or postcode. We check the postcodes and telephone numbers on every order and will email our customers if we find any issues. The only thing we can't predict in advance is if the intended recipient has moved address. However, as we track all deliveries on a daily basis we would see this flag as "recipient moved" and so be able to advise our customer.Other potential problems can be when the recipient is not at home when delivery is attempted. In this case the courier driver will leave a calling card at the address to advise the recipient. However, sometimes calling cards are missed or letterboxes cannot be accessed and so our team will follow up by telephoning the recipient to ensure they received the card. We also offer to rearrange the delivery for the recipient if they would prefer we did it for them, or to redirect it to an alternative address such as a work one.There is one type of address that is particularly problematic for a variety of reasons and that is Hospital addresses. We deliver hundreds of gift baskets to hospitals every year, however each hospital has different policies regarding deliveries for patients. Because of this we advise customers to contact the hospital in advance to check their policies & also to check the patient is due to be there for the next 2 days at least. We also try to give as much information about hospital deliveries on our website so as you are fully informed before ordering.Some hospitals don't allow gifts at all, and some do but the deliveries can only go to their stores/loading bays and so it can take a day or 2 for the gift to reach the ward. The majority of hospitals, however, have a post room for deliveries and the gift swiftly makes it up to the patient on the same day as delivery thanks to the hard working porters. We ask our customers to provide a few main details when ordering to a hospital - the patients full name, their ward name or number and a mobile number for them or a partner/family member.There have been instances when our couriers have delivered the parcel to the hospital on the requested date, but unfortunately the patient hasn't received the gift with a day or 2. In this case it tends to be that the patient has been discharged or the parcel went to their loading bay. We do our very best to assist our customers in locating the parcel by phoning the hospital & getting information from the delivery driver, but it can be very difficult to locate a single parcel in vast hospitals that receive hundreds of deliveries a day. We understand it is disappointing when there is a delay in the gift reaching the patient, but ask our customers to appreciate that unfortunately we have no control over how quickly the hospital staff pass the gift on. All we can do at this stage is to try and reach someone in the hospital who knows what parcel we are talking about and who is willing to help. This is why we recommend checking their policies in advance, as we understand how difficult & disappointing it is when something does go wrong.There was one hospital in particular that we had to put on the "banned" list after a few of our parcels ended up in the loading bay. After dozens of phone calls to the Hospital switchboard, and being passed from pillar to post, we eventually spoke to a staff member in their "stores". He remembered our parcel being delivered as our gifts are in distinctive boxes, but was unable to locate it for us due to the volume of parcels sitting there. This particular gift was actually going to a member of staff as a thank you gift rather than a patient and we still assisted in trying to locate it for her. She eventually offered to go down to the stores herself and speak with someone and they still couldn't manage to locate it. You can imagine how difficult it us for us trying to assist by phone if someone in the same building can't find it.Thankfully this is a rare occurrence or we would simply not be able to offer deliveries to hospitals. That would be a real shame as then all those ill & injured people wouldn't get to enjoy the fabulous get well gift baskets we send on your behalf.