At a glance
Live count of Interlink Express service-failure and damage claims that the merchant has filed and Interlink has not yet resolved. Each open claim is real-time money: carriage refund (typically £8 to £18 per Pre10:30 / Pre12 / Next-Day consignment) plus contents-value compensation up to standard cover or higher with Enhanced Compensation Cover. The card surfaces filing-and-resolution velocity.
| What it counts | COUNT(claims WHERE status IN ('OPEN','UNDER_REVIEW','PENDING_DOCUMENTATION','AWAITING_INTERLINK_RESPONSE')) at the moment of read. Real-time, not period-windowed. |
| Claim categories | Service-failure (carrier-fault late delivery on Pre10:30 / Pre12 / Next-Day), damage in transit, lost in transit, Enhanced Compensation Cover claims for high-value contents. Customer-fault and address-fault claims are not eligible. |
| Filing window | Interlink’s published filing window is 14 days from failed POD for service-failure claims; 14 days from delivery (or expected delivery) for damage / loss claims. Tighter than Parcelforce (30 days), match APC. |
| Resolution SLA | Interlink typically settles service-failure claims within 7 working days and damage claims within 14 to 21 working days. Anything sitting open past 21 working days is unusual and should be chased. |
| Currency | GBP. UK-domestic only; Interlink does not run a meaningful international tier. |
| Money-back-on-late mechanic | Service-failure refund returns the carriage charge only (not the goods value). Damage / loss claim returns goods value (subject to Enhanced Compensation Cover limit if applicable). A late-and-damaged consignment can yield both refunds. |
| Standard compensation cap | Interlink standard liability is typically £100 per consignment; Enhanced Compensation Cover lifts to £2,500 (£5,000 on some account-level negotiated terms) for an additional fee. Buy ECC on consignments above £100 contents value where the cover fee is under 5% of contents. |
| B2B vs B2C | Pooled. B2B claim values usually higher (corporate contents are higher-value); B2B filing rate typically higher (ops team is procurement-disciplined). |
| Time window | RT (real-time) |
| Alert trigger | >0 unresolved >7d. Any claim sitting open more than 7 days trips the gauge. |
| Roles | owner, operations, finance |
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-leaning industrial-supplies merchant: corporate workshops, factories, contractors. Pre10:30 contracted on healthcare supply lines; Next-Day for general industrial. Reading taken at 14:00 GMT on 22 Mar 26.| Claim category | Count open | Avg open age | Total claim value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service-failure (Pre10:30 late) | 14 | 3 days | £252 (carriage refund) |
| Service-failure (Next-Day late) | 22 | 5 days | £198 (carriage refund) |
| Damage in transit (industrial parts) | 6 | 11 days | £980 (contents) |
| Lost in transit | 1 | 9 days | £340 (contents) |
| Enhanced Comp Cover (high-value tooling) | 2 | 16 days | £1,420 (contents) |
| Total open | 45 | £3,190 |
- The 7-day threshold has 9 hits, all damage / lost / ECC. Service-failure claims (the 36 newer claims) typically clear in 7 working days under Interlink’s tight SLA; damage / lost / ECC stretch to 14 to 21. The 9 older claims are Interlink-side awaiting and should be chased via the account team.
- £3,190 of working capital is parked. For a B2B-mid-market merchant on £15K monthly Interlink spend, this is meaningful cash. Interlink’s tight 14-day filing window forces faster filing; the trade-off is faster resolution. Net working-capital exposure is lower than equivalent Parcelforce footprint.
- The 14 Pre10:30 claims correlate with healthcare-account medication misses. Pre10:30 misses on healthcare carry contractual penalties (£25 to £100 per missed delivery). Carriage-refund recovery at £252 is the visible recovery; B2B contract penalty exposure is not surfaced here and runs ~£700 in addition. Track on a finance-team spreadsheet.
- Damage-in-transit at 6 claims for industrial parts is unusual. Industrial parts are typically robust; cluster of 6 in a period suggests packaging review (heavier-grade carton, additional foam wrapping) or potentially a single-depot handling issue. Pair with
int_route_otdto see if any depot stands out. - Filing rate vs eligible-rate matters more than the open count. If
int_late_shipments_countshowed 60 carrier-fault eligible misses this period, only 36 are filed (60% filing rate, industry-benchmark). Healthy discipline; some accounts run 80%+ on Interlink because of the tight 14-day window forcing the cadence.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Open claims is the real-time financial-recovery KPI. Pair with these:| Card | Why pair it with Open Claims | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Late Shipments | Eligibility-source for service-failure claims. Filing rate calculation. | Filing rate gap = unrecovered carriage. Industry benchmark 60 to 80% on Interlink (14-day window forces discipline). |
| Exception Rate | Damage / loss exceptions feed claim filings. | Predictive of next week’s filing volume. |
| Claim Value | The financial twin. | Count vs value diverges with high-value ECC claims. |
| Pre-10:30 Service Promise | The most-claimed cohort (B2B contract). | Pre10:30 SLA dip = predictable claim volume rise. |
| On-Time Delivery Rate | Customer-experience root cause. | OTD drop + claims flat = ops filing-disciplined; issue is upstream. |
Cross-connector: shopify.refund_rate | Downstream impact. Damage = refund + claim recovery (separate streams). | Combined view = net financial exposure. |
Cross-connector: apc.apc_open_claims | Peer UK premium. Same 14-day filing window. | Compare resolution velocity. |
Cross-connector: parcelforce.par_open_claims | Peer, 30-day window. | Different filing cadence; longer working-capital cycle. |
Cross-connector: dpd.dpd_open_claims | Sister-brand. | Same parent group claims process. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Interlink Express’s own dashboard: Interlink Express MyDPD Business → Claims → Open Claims. Lists each open claim by reference, filing date, status, and amount. Why our number may legitimately differ from Interlink’s portal:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Status mapping | Either | Interlink’s status labels (OPEN, UNDER_REVIEW, PENDING_DOCUMENTATION, SETTLED, REJECTED, WITHDRAWN); the card pools all non-final statuses. |
| Sync lag | Ours <2 min behind | Card polls Interlink claims API every 30 to 90 seconds. |
| Account-level vs invoice-level | Either | Multiple Interlink accounts can be filtered in the portal; the card pools by connected credentials. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
shopify.refund_rate | Refunds and claims are two sides of the same damage event. | Refund rate moves with delivery experience generally; claims move only when filed. |
apc.apc_open_claims | Peer UK premium. | Different consignments. |
parcelforce.par_open_claims | Peer, different network. | Different consignments, different filing windows. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is Interlink’s filing window 14 days? DPD-group ops cadence. Interlink trades a tighter merchant-side filing window for faster claim resolution (7 working days for service-failure, 14 to 21 for damage). Most merchants transitioning from Parcelforce (30 days) under-file because the muscle memory is wrong. Set up a weekly review tied toint_late_shipments_count and file within 7 days of the event.
What documentation does Interlink require for a damage claim?
Photos of damage and packaging (showing Interlink label and damage to outer box), consignment number, original purchase receipt or stock-transfer note, and customer declaration confirming damage on receipt. For Enhanced Compensation Cover claims add cover-purchase confirmation. Missing any and Interlink holds at PENDING_DOCUMENTATION.
Can we file claims at scale via API?
MyDPD Business has bulk-CSV upload for accounts above ~£3K monthly Interlink spend (account-team feature). API-based claim filing is in pilot for select large merchants. Most mid-size merchants file via portal manually; the 14-day window forces a weekly cadence that fits a 30-min review slot.
Service-failure refund vs damage claim: how do we decide?
File both if both apply. A late-and-damaged consignment yields service-failure refund (carriage charge back) plus damage claim (contents compensation). Interlink treats them as separate claims under one consignment number.
Why does a claim sit at “PENDING_DOCUMENTATION” for weeks?
Almost always because Interlink has requested additional information and the merchant has not responded. Check MyDPD Business Claims → Action Required. Common asks: clearer damage photos, customer signature on damage declaration, original purchase receipt for high-value contents. Resolution clock pauses while waiting.
B2B contract-penalty claims: are these surfaced here?
No. The card surfaces Interlink-side claims only. B2B contract penalties (merchant owes the B2B customer for missed Pre10:30 on a corporate account) sit in CRM / accounting. Pair this card with interlink_xc_otd_by_channel to see B2B-channel OTD as the leading indicator of contract-penalty exposure.
Can we appeal a rejected claim?
Yes. MyDPD Business has an Appeal button on rejected claims. Most appeals succeed when rejection was for missing documentation that has since been provided. Appeals against fault-attribution are slower; provide third-party evidence (driver-camera if recorded, neighbour-witness statement).
Enhanced Compensation Cover: when is it worth buying on Interlink?
Standard cap is £100; ECC lifts to £2,500 for an additional fee of £2 to £8 per consignment depending on cover level. Worth it for any consignment where contents value is above £100 and cover fee is under 5% of contents. For a £500 industrial part, £4 is rational; for a £150 commodity item, £4 may not be.
Compared to Parcelforce, where is Interlink’s claim process better or worse?
Better: faster resolution (7 vs 10 working days for service-failure), tighter filing window forces ops discipline. Worse: tighter filing window means lost recovery if a weekly review slips; less generous appeal flexibility on customer-fault edge cases. Net: Interlink rewards disciplined ops teams, penalises lax ones.
During Q4 peak, claim volume triples; will Interlink keep up?
Resolution SLA stretches by 5 to 10 days during Q4. Anything sitting open past 21 days during peak is normal, not an Interlink failure. Pre-negotiate a Q4 claims-cadence with the account manager. The card will look worse than non-peak; reset weekly-review expectations accordingly.