> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Express24 Service Day Promise, Parcelforce Worldwide > % of Express24 consignments delivered next working day - the contracted Parcelforce premium-service promise (~98% SLA). How to read it, why it matters, and... **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Shipping & Courier](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > % of Express24 consignments delivered next working day - the contracted Parcelforce premium-service promise (\~98% SLA). ## At a glance > Share of Parcelforce Express24 consignments delivered by end-of-day on the next working day after collection. Express24 is Parcelforce's flagship UK premium-express service: collect today, deliver tomorrow, signature-on-glass POD. Parcelforce's published SLA is approximately 98%. Where customers paid the premium-tier carriage and consciously chose Express24 at checkout, this card is the contract. | | | | ------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(shipments WHERE service_code IN ('Express24','EX24') AND actual_delivery_date <= promised_next_working_day) / COUNT(shipments WHERE service_code IN ('Express24','EX24') AND status = 'DELIVERED')` over rolling 30 days. | | **Service code scope** | Express24 only. The `only_when` filter on this card excludes Express9, Express10, ExpressAM, Express48, Globaldirect; those have their own SLAs and dedicated cards (where curated). | | **Delivery success criterion** | Driver POD scan or signature-on-glass event captured at the doorstep, returned via Parcelforce's tracking webhook. Carded "Sorry we missed you" without subsequent same-day delivery is *not* on-time even if the customer was at fault. | | **On-time threshold** | Promised next working day, end-of-day. Parcelforce's working-day calendar excludes UK Bank Holidays and Sundays; Saturday is excluded by default unless Saturday-uplift is purchased (in which case the card folds Saturday-uplifted Express24 into the Saturday cohort). | | **Returns / RTO** | RTOs excluded. Failed-and-redelivered consignments score against the *first* successful delivery datetime; a re-attempt that delivers on day 2 is late. | | **Money-back-on-late** | Parcelforce's Express24 service guarantee offers a carriage-charge refund on Parcelforce-fault failures. Filing window is 30 days from failed POD; recovery sits on `par_open_claims`. The 98% headline SLA is the contract; below 98% on a heavy-Express24 merchant is a documented account-team conversation. | | **B2B vs B2C** | Express24 is overwhelmingly B2C / consumer DTC. B2B reseller traffic uses Express10 / ExpressAM. The card cohort is therefore consumer-facing; complaints map directly to customer-experience tickets. | | **Currency** | N/A (rate metric) | | **Time window** | `30D` | | **Alert trigger** | `<98%`, the gauge sentiment trips. Parcelforce's published Express24 SLA is the threshold; missing it is a contractual signal, not a "merely operational" signal. | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Parcelforce Worldwide 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 consumer-electronics merchant: £180 average-order-value, mostly Express24 DTC consignments with a small Express48 bulk cohort and a B2B reseller channel on Express10. The merchant's checkout copy promises "next working day delivery" against a £8.95 Express24 charge. Reading taken at 09:00 GMT on 22 Mar 26 for the trailing 30 days (20 Feb 26 to 21 Mar 26). | Express24 cohort | Consignments | Delivered next working day | OTD% | | ------------------------------------ | ------------ | -------------------------- | ----- | | Total Express24 | 4,820 | 4,672 | 96.9% | | Of which: Saturday-uplift purchased | 240 | 232 | 96.7% | | Of which: standard (Mon-Fri promise) | 4,580 | 4,440 | 96.9% | The card reads **96.9%**, **1.1 points below** the alert threshold. Five things to notice: 1. **The card is firmly tripped.** Customers paid the premium-tier carriage specifically for the next-working-day contract. 148 missed Express24 consignments translates into 148 customer-service contacts at minimum, plus social-media and review-site echo. Treat this as a contractual signal, not just an operational dip. 2. **Refund-eligible candidates: \~148 consignments.** At £8.95 carriage refund per Parcelforce service-failure, that is **£1,324 of recoverable carriage** if filed within the 30-day window. Most merchants under-file this; pair with `par_open_claims` to track filing rate. 3. **Saturday-uplift cohort runs at 96.7%, comparable to standard.** The Saturday-uplift premium converts most Friday-cohort consignments to Saturday delivery on contract. If the Saturday-uplift OTD was significantly worse than standard, the uplift would not be doing its job; track separately on `parcelforce_saturday_uplift_roi`. 4. **B2C consumer Express24 is the cohort that loses customer trust fastest.** Unlike B2B Express10 (where the customer is a procurement team with a contract), Express24 customers are individual consumers on a single-purchase relationship. A first-purchase Express24 miss often results in zero repeat business; LTV impact compounds. 5. **Compare against the Parcelforce-published \~98% SLA.** Parcelforce's network-average SLA for Express24 is approximately 98% across all merchants. A merchant at 96.9% is below network-average and the conversation with Parcelforce should focus on local-route performance (`par_route_otd`) before merchant-side dispatch issues. Pair with the route-OTD card to identify a single underperforming depot. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Express24 is the merchant's most-used premium service and dominates consumer-experience perception. Pair with these: | Card | Why pair it with Express24 OTD | What the combination tells you | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [On-Time Delivery Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/on-time-delivery-rate) | The all-services aggregate. If Express24 is 80% of volume, the aggregate moves with this card. | When the aggregate dips, check this card first. Most aggregate-OTD slips are Express24 slips. | | [Late Shipments](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/late-shipments) | The absolute-count companion. Express24 dominates the late count on consumer-DTC merchants. | A late count of 200 with 180 of them Express24 = customer-experience failure cluster. | | [OTD by Route](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/otd-by-route) | Splits Express24 performance by Parcelforce depot-and-route. | A single-depot underperformance is the most common cause of a merchant-level Express24 dip. | | [Saturday Delivery Uplift ROI](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/saturday-delivery-uplift-roi) | Saturday-uplift Express24 consignments are tracked here too; the dedicated card scores ROI of paying the uplift. | Saturday consignments delivering at 80% lift the standard cohort by recovering Friday-late parcels; if Saturday is at parity, the uplift is being wasted. | | [Open Claims](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/open-claims) | Each missed Express24 is a service-failure-refund candidate. | Filing rate vs miss rate = recovery efficiency. Industry benchmark is 50 to 70%. | | [Avg Shipping Cost](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/avg-shipping-cost) | Express24 sits at the £9 to £10 cost band; if cost rises while OTD falls, the spend-to-service ratio is degrading. | Negotiation lever. | | [Parcelforce OTD by Sales Channel](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/parcelforce/parcelforce-otd-by-sales-channel) | Cross-platform split. If Express24 misses are concentrated in a single sales channel, the issue may be cohort-specific (e.g. Friday-evening Shopify orders missing dispatch cutoff). | Channel-mix in the misses guides ops triage. | | Cross-connector: [`shopify.fulfillment_lead_time`](/nerve-centre/shopify/fulfillment_lead_time) | Upstream causation. Late Shopify fulfilment cannot make Parcelforce's same-day collection cutoff. | A creep in Shopify fulfilment lead time predicts an Express24 OTD dip 2 to 4 days later. | | Cross-connector: [`shopify.refund_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/refund-rate) | Downstream impact. Express24 misses drive refund and dispute rate. | A 2 to 3 percentage-point drop in Express24 OTD typically precedes a 0.5 to 1 percentage-point rise in Shopify refund rate at 7 to 14 days lag. | | Cross-connector: [`apc.apc_otd_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/apc/on-time-delivery-rate) | Peer UK premium overnight. APC Overnight is the closest direct competitor to Express24. | Multi-carrier merchants run both; benchmark week-by-week. | | Cross-connector: [`dpd.dpd_otd_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/dpd/on-time-delivery-rate) | Peer UK premium with predicted-window service. DPD's network is generally larger than Parcelforce's. | DPD's "delivered within predicted window" SLA is structurally easier than Express24's "by end of next working day"; calibrate the comparison. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Parcelforce's own dashboard:** [Parcelforce ParcelManager](https://parcelmanager.parcelforce.com/) → **Reports → Service Performance → Filter Service: Express24**. The closest like-for-like view is the **Express24 SLA tile** at the top of the service-performance page. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Parcelforce's portal:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ------------------------------- | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Time zone** | Boundary | UK local time on both sides. DST-transition Sundays cause minor noise. | | **Working-day calendar** | Either | Parcelforce excludes UK Bank Holidays from "next working day". The card uses the same calendar (DEFRA / GOV.UK published bank holiday schedule for England, Scotland, Wales, NI separately). Edge cases: Scottish-only or NI-only bank holidays may cause off-by-one consignments. | | **Saturday-uplift handling** | Either | Saturday-uplifted Express24 consignments are scored against their Saturday promise; the Parcelforce portal sometimes pools them with weekday Express24 (treating the consignment as Express24 first, Saturday-uplift second). The card folds Saturday-uplift consignments out of the standard-Express24 cohort. | | **Refund-eligible vs all-late** | Ours lower | Parcelforce's account-team often quote Express24 SLA performance excluding customer-fault. The card's count is all delivered Express24 regardless of fault; that is what the customer experienced. | | **In-transit Express24** | Ours rolling | Consignments without final POD are excluded from numerator and denominator until the scan lands. ParcelManager may include "in-transit, predicted on-time" as a separate slice. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------ | | [`shopify.fulfillment_lead_time`](/nerve-centre/shopify/fulfillment_lead_time) | Upstream causation. Express24 cannot meet next-working-day if Shopify fulfilment misses Parcelforce's collection cutoff. | App-install events, manual fulfilment overrides. | | [`apc.apc_otd_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/apc/on-time-delivery-rate) | APC Overnight is the closest peer service. | Different consignments. Benchmark, not reconciliation. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple UK premium-overnight services) UK premium-overnight services exist across multiple carriers; these are independent operations, not parallel measurements. Use cross-links for documentation only. * APC Overnight (peer) * DPD UK Next-Day (peer) * Royal Mail Tracked-24 (value-tier sister carrier, same parent group) * DHL Express UK (international-grade, less common for UK domestic)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why is the alert at \<98% specifically?** Parcelforce's published Express24 SLA is approximately 98% (network-wide average). The threshold matches the contract: below 98% means you are receiving below-average service for the premium-tier carriage you are paying. It is the conversation-trigger threshold, not the panic threshold. A merchant at 96% will not lose Parcelforce as a carrier; they will start a justified service-level conversation and may negotiate a small rate-card concession or service-recovery commitment. **The customer received the parcel "next day" but Parcelforce shows it as late; why?** Two usual reasons. (1) **End-of-day-of-next-working-day.** Express24's promise is "by end of next working day", not "by 17:00". A 19:30 delivery is on-time by the contract; the customer might perceive it as late. (2) **Working-day calendar.** Express24 excludes weekends and UK Bank Holidays. A Friday-collected consignment is promised by end of Monday (assuming Monday is not a bank holiday). The customer who received it Tuesday morning is technically late by \~12 hours. **Saturday delivery: how does the card handle it?** Saturday-uplifted Express24 consignments are scored against their Saturday-cutoff promise (still end-of-day on Saturday). The card lists them in a separate Saturday cohort but folds them into the headline if you do not filter. The dedicated `parcelforce_saturday_uplift_roi` card scores whether paying the Saturday uplift is recovering Friday-cohort Express24 misses cost-effectively. **Why is our Express24 OTD lower than DPD's published 99% benchmark?** Different SLA definitions. DPD's "predicted-window-delivery" SLA is structurally easier than Express24's end-of-next-working-day promise: DPD predicts a 1-hour window per consignment and credits success against that window, which absorbs network variability. Parcelforce's promise is a fixed end-of-day. Calibrate cross-carrier comparison via the dedicated peer cards rather than the marketing numbers. **B2B reseller orders accidentally booked as Express24 instead of Express10; do they show here?** Yes. The card filters strictly on `service_code IN ('Express24','EX24')`. If a B2B Express10 booking was mis-labelled as Express24 (a checkout flow bug, perhaps), it appears here against the Express24 SLA. Operations should fix the mis-labelling at source; the card cannot infer intended-but-mis-coded service. **Failed first attempt then re-delivered same day: on-time or late?** On-time if the same-day re-delivery POD is captured before end-of-day. Late if the re-attempt happens day 2. Parcelforce drivers will sometimes re-attempt later in the same day if the route allows; this is a recovery path the card honours. Pair with `par_failed_delivery_count` to see how many Express24 consignments needed a re-attempt; that count can be high without the OTD card moving. **The headline is at 98.4% but customer-service tickets feel heavier; is the card lying?** Two reasons. (1) **Complaints concentrate on premium-paid cohort.** A 1.6% miss rate at 4,000 weekly Express24 consignments is 64 misses per week, which might generate 100+ contacts when escalations and returns flow through. (2) **Recency bias**: customers who experienced misses last week dominate this week's complaint volume. Pair with `par_late_shipments_count` for the absolute count, not the rate. **Globaldirect international Express equivalents: are they here?** No. Globaldirect has its own SLA structure (country-specific transit times) and its own service codes. The card filters on Express24 / EX24 only. For Globaldirect performance use `par_otd_rate` aggregated and filter by international destinations on `par_shipments_by_destination`. **During Q4 peak, Express24 OTD typically dips 2 to 5 points; is that allowed?** Allowed in the sense that Parcelforce's network is universally strained; not allowed in the sense that customers paid the premium tier specifically to avoid Q4 chaos. The conversation with Parcelforce should focus on negotiated peak-capacity (some merchants pay a peak-period premium for guaranteed capacity); set checkout expectations accordingly. The card will tell you the truth; manage demand and customer-comms around it. **How do we use this card to renegotiate our Parcelforce rate card?** Bring three cards to the account-team review: this card (Express24 SLA performance), `par_avg_shipping_cost` (per-shipment economics), and `par_open_claims` (filing rate showing operational discipline). A merchant running >£5K monthly Parcelforce spend with documented sub-98% Express24 OTD across 60+ days has the strongest negotiation position; expect a 5 to 15% rate-card improvement in exchange for service-recovery commitments from Parcelforce. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Express24 Service Day Promise* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Parcelforce Worldwide and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.