Route Protection and Tracking

It’s an easy, inexpensive, effective solution to package protection! We enjoy the feature of package tracking, in addition to the actual protection for packages. I would have given it 5-stars if there were an easier way for customers to opt-in and opt-out in the shopping cart instead of just on the product page.

We have been using Route for a few months now and have found it very useful. Almost no hassle on our end, and solves some headaches when packages go missing/are broken. In most cases the claims are approved without ever needing any action from our end other than referring the customer to the claims link.

Initial review (please read updates):

I used this app, and told my clients to buy the product to protect their shipment. When a long-standing client bought from me and her parcel was delivered to the wrong address (apparently, it was scanned delivered, but she never received it), Route forced her to submit a police report. I ended up having to submit the claim on her behalf. I don't know if it will be approved or not, but the fact that they require police reports for mis-delivered packages is ridiculous. Be aware that this is the policy.

UPDATE: after 24 hours, they still have not replied to my complaint and have contacted my customer saying they cannot cover the lost package unless she files a police report. This is absolutely insane! PLEASE do not use this app in your store. Your customers will be completely angry and you will end up paying for the lost order yourself.

FINAL UPDATE: After posting this review and contacting support again, I received a prompt reply that the company understood the problem and that they would take care of the issue. They refunded my client who re-purchased her hats. Furthermore, they agreed to exempt our store from the requirement for police reports. Customer service goes a LOOOOOONG way and I am especially thankful for their help and willingness to meet my clients' needs. Kellee was especially helpful and wrote me several very kind emails and even offered to jump on a call to discuss the issues further.

I am leaving Route in place on my store, and will continue to encourage clients to use the service, now knowing that there's no automatic requirement for a police report. I have encouraged Route to consider lifting that requirement and addressing fraud in other ways-- which is why they said the requirement is in place for all orders over $100.

Thank you, Route, for standing behind your product and for promptly and kindly addressing my concerns. It's very much appreciated.

The app works well and the service is good and hastle free. The only gripe I have that prevents this being a 5 star review is that there doesn't seem to be any option to automatically insure every order (i.e. I don't want the customer to opt it and I want every order I ship to be protected by route, even if I as the store owner need to pay for that). If the feature to automatically insure every order (with no customer interaction needed) can be added then this would be a 5-star product for me.

The only thing lacking from this app is communication to the seller when someone field a claim. For instance, they’ll tell the customer a replacement is being made when the seller has no idea this has even happened. For me, can’t remake certain orders due to limited supplies so this causes a problem. However, when you email route about it, they switch it to a refund so it’s a simple fix.

Overall a very helpful app and the customer service is great for help installing.

Update: Changing our review from two stars to four. Route reached out with an apology and assured us that they have hired more customer service reps to help process the high number of claims they are receiving due to the pandemic. The errors from our previous claims have been corrected and new claims have been processed in a timely manner. It seems they have addressed their issues and are back to functioning normally.

--------------------------------------------------

Before Covid this insurance was a dream come true for us, they took care of customer claims quickly and efficiently, saving us both time and lost revenue. However, since Covid customer claims are being processed incorrectly resulting in us having to cover the losses ourselves. We are disabling the app for now and hope Route is able to fix their issues and get back to running smoothly again!

5/12/2020

Update: I am updating our review to 4 stars based on Routes follow-up on the issues in our first review.

Part of our issue is that we didn't spend enough time getting to understand the claims process. Customers can file their own claim using the link in the Route confirmation email. Our customer encountered an error in this process. The screen on his mobile device froze and he could not process the claim. We were unaware that we can also process a claim on their behalf using the Route dashboard in Shopify Apps. As is the case with most unhappy customer experiences our anxiety about getting them taken care of quickly created a tense situation. If we had been more aware of our ability to assist in filing the claim we may not have been as frustrated with Routes initial slow response to the issue. Route did respond within a couple business days which I felt was unacceptable and is one of two things they need to fix. The second being the customer experience with filing a claim on their mobile device. I did ask to be made aware of what created this issue and that it has been resolved. I have not heard back.

Overall the Route App is solid. I don't agree with other reviews about the difficulty installing the code. It was easy for us and Route helped to get it completed in a timely basis.

The service itself is very popular. We sell high ticket goods and nearly all customers opt in to Route.

Route quickly paid the claim and initiated an order through Shopify on the customers behalf. They used a credit card on the system so FGI and the customer were made whole.

I would also like to know more about what is required in making a claim. And what Route does with the carrier in return. What happens to the damaged goods? Who pays to ship them back? How does a carrier receive feedback about damaged shipments so they can improve their ship service? But these are not high priority questions.

If Route continues to improve and the service continues to be popular we'll be along term happy customer.

Kevin Sullivan
CEO
Forever Green Indoors

5/2/2020

UPDATE: After escalating the claim to a number of people I received communication from a Route Executive and another individual who were both helpful and apologetic about the delayed responses to our customer. He offered the customer an option for a refund, or a replacement. The customer elected for a replacement and Route purchased the product on his behalf to settle the claim. This was our first experience with a claim, and although not ideal, it seems to have satisfied our customer so we are satisfied as well at this time. I moved the review up to 3 stars. And I will move it up again if we continue to experience positive improvement with the Route team. I now recommend Route again, with the caveat that it would be a good idea to discuss expectations of claim communication. I'm unsure if the issue our customer faced with the mobile app for making claims has been fixed. We'll do what we can to look in to that. It would have likely avoided much of this review.

###

5/1/2020

Very disappointed with Route. I had high hopes with the service. Our customers were nearly unanimously selecting to pay for the extra coverage. Our first claim involved an unhappy customer who received a badly damaged product shipped by UPS. The customer was unable to file a claim with route. Repeated attempts to contact sales failed. Unsure if the people who sold us this are even working there now. Had some success with technical support connecting us with a product support person who sent a curt email that Route was experiencing "high volumes of claims due to Covid 19". I am really disappointed in Route and we've disabled it in our cart. If the matter is resolved I'll change this review. At this point I'd give it fewer than one star for the money they collected versus the service they have provided. Avoid this app.

There have been more customers buy this than I expected. Seems like customers (and us) see a lot of value in the insurance since it is so cheap to get. Excited to keep using this for our business!

Their customer service is horrible. They approved a claim, but are dragging their feet when it comes to payment. Ongoing for 3 weeks now. Update: It took a while, but they finally assigned an account rep who helped with the refund as promised. Hopefully I won't have another issue but it I do, she has said I can contact her directly.

We appreciate the service that Route offers. There are some features that we feel need to be improved for the future however this app allows us to offer our customers top notch customer service.