Yodel has defended its decision to threaten social media network Twitter with legal actionunless it removes “defamatory” posts criticising the UK parcels firm.
Lawyers representing Yodel, which has a 25% share of the UK home-delivery market, wrote toTwitter in May threatening legal action unless dozens of critical ‘tweets’ that “constitute aserious libel” were taken down, and two offending Twitter accounts closed down that were “aplatform for such defamatory statements”.
The letter from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, seen by CEP-Research, said the “malicious” materialon Twitter included “incorrect statements” about the company’s delivery services, “namely that itfails to fulfil its contractual duties, it is incompetent and negligent”. It added: “The statementsare entirely false and the publication on a website which is readily and openly accessible tomillions of users constitutes an obvious communication.”
The letter continued: “Our client requires that, as a matter of urgency, Twitter removes all ofthe defamatory postings which make reference to our client, together with an undertaking that thecomments will not be posted again on the website.”
Two of the Twitter accounts in question are understood to have since had all of their postingsdeleted. However, a number of new postings have subsequently appeared on Twitter from peopleclaiming to be Yodel customers, criticising Yodel for trying to gag criticism of itsperformance.
Responding to criticism about its actions, Yodel told CEP-Research: “As a company we encouragefeedback from customers, clients and other stakeholders and have a dedicated Twitter presence tohelp with customer queries @YodelOnline.
“We sent a letter to Twitter on 9th May 2012. The letter was sent in good faith and was seekingto address genuine concerns we had with what we considered to be potentially defamatory content onthe site and the hijacking of customer conversations. Twitter and other social media provide anopen and honest channel for discussion, which we are fully supportive of and we will continue touse as a method of communication.”
A spokeswoman said the company was not in a position to respond to specific queries fromCEP-Research about its delivery performance or customer-satisfaction ratings this year, or recentinitiatives to address performance deficits “as a number of your questions cover areas that wewould deem to be commercially confidential”. She also declined to say whether the recentrestructuring of its network had contributed to some reported performance issues, but offered thefollowing general response:
“Yodel recently completed the restructuring of the business, following the acquisition of DHLDomestic by Home Delivery Network in 2010. We successfully deliver approximately 170 millionparcels a year on behalf of many of the UK’s top retailers. The overwhelming majority of thesedeliveries run smoothly for retailers and their shoppers.
“We acknowledge that occasionally we face challenges, some of which are beyond our control, andin most cases we overcome them. However where we cannot, or when our service fails to meet the highstandards that we set ourselves, we apologise.”
She insisted that good customer service was “a priority’ for Yodel and the company was alwaysseeking ways to expand its services to meet consumers’ needs.
“The online shopping industry is growing rapidly and we are striving to improve, innovate andlead the way in parcel delivery to help facilitate this,” she added. “We offer a wide range ofservices that retailers can choose for their shoppers and have recently announced a number ofchanges which we will be introducing this autumn including pre-delivery SMS and email advice tocustomers as standard, improved user-friendly online tracking and freephone numbers in our customerservice centres. We will also move to a standard six-day week and remove surcharges fordeliveries to the highlands and islands.”
