At a glance
Count of Interlink Express consignments that missed their service-day delivery promise in the period. Interlink (DPD-group premium tier) sells time-definite SLAs (Pre10:30, Pre12, Next-Day, 2-Day, Saturday). “Late” is judged against each service’s specific cutoff time on the promised day. Each shipment that overruns scores 1.
| What it counts | COUNT(shipments WHERE actual_delivery_datetime > promised_delivery_datetime AND status IN ('DELIVERED','FAILED')) over rolling 7 days. Still-in-transit consignments not counted yet; flip into the count only when a final scan lands. |
| Delivery success criterion | Driver POD scan or signature-on-glass captured at the doorstep, returned via Interlink’s tracking webhook (Delivered, Delivered to neighbour, Delivered to safe place). |
| On-time threshold | Service-tier-specific. Pre10:30 = 10:30, Pre12 = 12:00, Next-Day = end-of-day next working day, 2-Day = end-of-day day-2. Interlink’s published predicted-delivery-window (the DPD-group 1-hour-window) is a customer-perception layer; the contracted SLA is the cutoff used here. |
| Returns / RTO | RTOs excluded (tracked on int_returned_to_sender). Failed-and-redelivered consignments score against the first successful POD; a Pre10:30 re-attempted at 14:00 is late, even if it ultimately delivers. |
| Service level scope | All services pooled. Pre10:30 / Pre12 dedicated cards split out the contracted premium tiers. |
| Money-back-on-late eligibility | Pre10:30 / Pre12 / Next-Day Parcelforce-fault misses qualify for carriage-charge refund. Filing window is 14 days from failed POD (tighter than Parcelforce’s 30 days). The card surfaces candidates; pair with int_open_claims. |
| B2B vs B2C | Pooled. Pre10:30 / Pre12 are heavily B2B (clinics, corporate IT, healthcare). Next-Day skews B2C consumer DTC. The same five-minute slip is critical for a B2B audience and immaterial for a Saturday consumer; the count treats them identically. |
| Failure-cause attribution | Interlink publishes a failure_reason per failed event: most common are recipient absent, no safe place / no neighbour, access denied, out for delivery, not delivered. Customer-fault and carrier-fault sit in the same headline; int_exception_rate splits. |
| DPD-group relationship | Interlink shares the DPD-group network and tracking infrastructure. A merchant running Interlink Express alongside DPD UK should treat them as separate accounts with overlapping infrastructure. |
| Time zone | UK local time (GMT or BST). |
| Time window | 7D (rolling 7 days, period-over-period vs prior 7 days) |
| Alert trigger | >5% of total, the gauge sentiment trips when late count exceeds 5% of weekly volume. On a heavy-Pre10:30 merchant this is a tight threshold. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Interlink Express data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK B2B medical-supply merchant: clinics, pharmacies, care-homes are the primary customer base. Interlink Pre10:30 is the contract carrier (medication must be on shelf before staff start morning rounds); Next-Day is the secondary tier for non-time-critical accessories. Reading taken at 09:00 GMT on 16 Mar 26 for the trailing 7 days (09 Mar 26 to 15 Mar 26).| Service | Shipments (7D) | Late (POD after promised cutoff) | Late % | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre10:30 (B2B clinics) | 280 | 8 | 2.9% | All eight delivered between 10:31 and 11:15; service-failure refund candidates. |
| Pre12 (B2B mixed) | 95 | 3 | 3.2% | Delivered 12:30 to 13:15; eligible. |
| Next-Day (mixed cohort) | 720 | 32 | 4.4% | 24 same-day after 17:30; 8 day-2 deliveries. |
| 2-Day (bulk DTC) | 60 | 2 | 3.3% | Both day-3 deliveries due to inbound consolidation delay. |
| Total (this card) | 1,155 | 45 | 3.9% |
- Money-back-on-late candidates: 45 domestic premium shipments. Interlink’s Pre10:30, Pre12, Next-Day, and 2-Day Parcelforce-fault failures all qualify for carriage refund. At an estimated £10 average refund, that is £450 of recoverable carriage if filed within Interlink’s 14-day window. (£15+ on Pre10:30 specifically; lower on Next-Day.)
- B2B clinic Pre10:30 misses are the most expensive misses. Clinics may invoice contract penalties of £25 to £100 per missed pre-shift delivery. Eight Pre10:30 misses × £50 average penalty = £400 of B2B-customer financial exposure on top of carriage refund. Track Pre10:30 with extra scrutiny via
interlink_pre10_30_sla. - 8 day-2 Next-Day misses are the worst customer-experience cohort. Next-Day consumer DTC at 4.4% is borderline; receiving the parcel on day 2 is a clean broken promise. Likely £20 to £40 goodwill credits on the order itself.
- Filing window discipline matters more on Interlink than Parcelforce. Interlink’s 14-day window means these 45 misses must be filed by 23 to 29 Mar 26. A weekly review cadence is the only way to consistently file inside the window.
- 3.9% headline does not fail the 5% alert, but is uncomfortable on B2B medical accounts where clinic-customer NPS hinges on delivery reliability. If headline is at 3.9% week-on-week, look at dispatch-cutoff slippage on the merchant side (see
int_route_otd), and at Pre10:30 specifically (seeinterlink_pre10_30_sla).
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Late count is a count, not a rate. To act, pair it with these:| Card | Why pair it with Interlink Late Shipments | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| On-Time Delivery Rate | The percent companion. Late count rising while OTD% stays flat means volume up, not service. | If both move, real degradation. |
| Pre-10:30 Service Promise | The most-stringent contracted tier. Pre10:30 misses are the most expensive misses (B2B contract penalties). | Even one Pre10:30 miss may be a contract-penalty event. |
| Pre-12 Service Promise | Mid-tier B2B contract. Less severe than Pre10:30 but still time-definite. | Watch alongside Pre10:30. |
| OTD by Route | Splits the count by Interlink depot-and-route. | One-route drops are an account-team conversation. |
| Open Claims | Each carrier-fault late is a service-failure-refund candidate. 14-day filing window. | If late count is 50 and open-claims is 5, the merchant is leaving £400+ of carriage refunds per week unclaimed. |
| Failed Deliveries | Some late shipments are also failed-first-attempt; some failed parcels are still on-time after rescheduling. | Late minus Failed roughly equals “would-be-on-time-if-rescheduled-faster” parcels. |
| Interlink OTD by Sales Channel | Cross-channel split. A late spike concentrated in one channel = single-cohort fix. | Channel mix in the late count matches the channel mix of customer-service tickets. |
Cross-connector: shopify.unfulfilled_orders | Upstream. Shopify orders booked too late cannot make Interlink’s collection cutoff. | A creep in late-day Shopify orders predicts a 1 to 3 day late-shipment rise on this card. |
Cross-connector: apc.apc_late_shipments_count | Peer UK premium. APC’s 14-day filing window matches Interlink’s. | If both spike at the same time, cause is upstream (warehouse, dispatch); if only one, carrier-specific. |
Cross-connector: parcelforce.par_late_shipments_count | Peer UK premium (Royal Mail group). Different network. | Used for carrier-mix decisions. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Interlink Express’s own dashboard: Interlink Express MyDPD Business → Reports → Failed / Late Deliveries. Filter by All services / All depots / Last 7 days. Per-consignment audit at Track and Trace → Failed Deliveries. Why our number may legitimately differ from Interlink’s portal:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Predicted-window vs end-of-day | Either | Interlink/DPD portals sometimes default to “delivered within predicted 1-hour window” SLA. The card uses the contracted service-tier cutoff. |
| Refund-eligible vs all-late | Ours higher | Interlink’s account team often quotes service-failure count excluding customer-fault. The card’s count is all consignments delivered after promised cutoff. |
| In-transit consignments | Ours rolling | Consignments without final POD not counted yet. |
| Time zone | Boundary | UK local time on both sides. DST-transition Sundays cause minor noise. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.fulfillment_lead_time | Upstream. Late fulfilment misses Interlink collection cutoff. | App-install events, manual overrides. |
apc.apc_late_shipments_count | Peer UK premium. | Different consignments. |
parcelforce.par_late_shipments_count | Peer UK premium, different network. | Different consignments, different SLA cutoffs. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why does Interlink have a 14-day filing window when Parcelforce has 30? Different parent groups, different ops cadence. Interlink (DPD-group) operates a tighter claim-resolution loop: faster decisions in exchange for tighter merchant filing discipline. Most merchants transitioning from Parcelforce or running both alongside under-file Interlink because the Parcelforce 30-day muscle memory is wrong. Set up a weekly review tied to this card andint_open_claims to file inside the window.
Pre10:30 misses cost more than Next-Day misses; how do we surface that?
The card is a count, not a value. Use interlink_pre10_30_sla for the dedicated Pre10:30 view, int_open_claims for the financial-recovery view (B2B contract penalties dominate), and interlink_xc_otd_by_channel for the channel split. A 5-shipment B2B Pre10:30 miss may carry more business risk than a 50-shipment Next-Day consumer miss.
Why does Interlink show “delivered on time” but the customer says it was late?
Three usual reasons. (1) End-of-day vs customer-expectation: Next-Day’s promise is “by end of working day”; a 19:30 delivery is contractual on-time and customer-late. (2) Predicted-window vs actual-cutoff confusion: customers receive a 1-hour-window SMS but Interlink’s contractual SLA is the cutoff (10:30, 12:00, end-of-day). (3) Out-for-delivery scan loops: drivers may scan “out for delivery” multiple times if the route is long; the actual handoff datetime is what scores.
During Q4 peak, the count triples; do we widen the alert?
No. Widen the seasonal context in your weekly review instead. The alert is a fixed threshold so the system does not “learn to ignore” Q4 degradation. Pre-position dispatch capacity in October and update checkout copy. The count card is intentionally honest during peak.
Saturday-uplift consignments: how are they counted?
Saturday-uplifted Next-Day consignments are scored against the Saturday-cutoff promise (still end-of-day Saturday). They are pooled into the headline; if Saturday-uplift is a meaningful share, watch interlink_pre10_30_sla and int_route_otd separately for Saturday-cohort drift.
Multi-account merchants (Interlink + DPD on the same network): how does the count work?
Each account has its own credentials. The card surfaces consignments under the connected Interlink credentials only. DPD-account consignments live on the DPD connector. A merchant running both needs both connectors connected and reads two cards in parallel.
B2B clinic contract penalties: how do we calculate exposure?
Per-clinic contract terms vary. A reasonable rough estimate is £25 to £100 per missed pre-shift delivery on care-home and clinic accounts; lower (£0 to £30) on B2B reseller accounts. Multiply Pre10:30 miss count by your average penalty rate; track on a finance-team spreadsheet alongside this card. If the merchant’s exposure trends above £500 weekly, the issue is structural and an account-team conversation is overdue.
The headline 4% is below alert but our customer-service queue is buried; why?
Weekly load. 4% on 1,000 weekly consignments is 40 misses; that drives ~80 customer-service contacts (initial complaint plus follow-up plus refund processing). The CS-team workload scales with absolute count, not rate. Use this card for capacity-planning the response.
How does this card reconcile against int_otd_rate?
Mathematical mirrors. If late count is 45 and total shipments is 1,155, OTD rate = (1,155-45)/1,155 = 96.1%. The two cards differ in time window (this card 7D, OTD card 30D) and response. Counts trigger CS-team capacity decisions; rates trigger account-team conversations.
Compared to APC and Parcelforce, where does Interlink land?
Roughly: Pre10:30 SLA Interlink = APC = Parcelforce ExpressAM at 97 to 98% target. Next-Day Interlink benefits from DPD-group automation (tighter customer-experience predicted-window comms); Parcelforce wins on rural coverage; APC wins on regional B2B in pockets. Multi-carrier merchants pick by destination cohort, not headline performance.