Route ‑ Protection & Tracking

Do not recommend! They keep all the money and not great customer support.

We never had a claim denied during our time with Route, which was reassuring. Claims were processed quickly and customers received either a refund or replacement, though a handful of times customers were told only a refund was possible. While this worked fine for us, it created confusion because customers expected a choice between replacement or refund.

At the start, we also dealt with a frustrating issue where bots were placing fake orders that only included the Route protection product. This led to bogus email addresses being added to our email program and accounts being created in Shopify for months before we even went live. Eventually, Route put a fix in place to prevent checkout when the protection product was the only item in the cart, which solved the problem.

One concern I had before implementing Route was whether customers might file claims for seedlings damaged after delivery (e.g., from weather rather than transit). I believe this did occur occasionally, though claims were still approved. The reality is that we ship live plants, and shipping delays can cause damage. I think Route underestimated the unique challenges of working with perishable products before agreeing to partner with us.

Ultimately, our biggest disappointment was how the partnership ended. We woke up to an email that Route was offboarding us immediately due to profitability concerns. While they honored coverage for existing customers, there was no notice or transition period. This left us unable to update our website or notify customers before Route was removed as an option. After building policies and customer communications around Route, being cut off with no warning was extremely disruptive and damaging to customer trust.

If Route had offered a notice period and worked more collaboratively, we’d have nothing but good things to say. Unfortunately, the way the relationship ended left us frustrated and disappointed.

I worked with Route for over a year. At the start, their onboarding team was excellent and very welcoming. Unfortunately, everything after that went downhill. Customer service became rude, unhelpful, and extremely difficult to work with.

Throughout my time with them, I felt like I was simply giving the company money while my customers got nothing in return. The service provided no real value or protection to my shoppers.

When I decided to remove Route from my website, the experience was even worse. They offered minimal help to remove the code they had added and kept their code on my site, making the process unnecessarily frustrating.

I’m giving two stars only because the initial onboarding was smooth. If you’re looking for reliable order-protection for your customers, I recommend finding another provider. Route is not worth the cost or the hassle.

Horrible customer support and dishonest through the sales process. The concept is good and, when done right, this can be an excellent solution. But in our experience, Route was nowhere near the right partner to make this work. I've gone weeks without a response and they provide no other channels to get support. I would not recommend this app to other shops - consider some competitors.

Two stars because, early in the relationship, it was a decent solution and was a helpful tool (still with issues, but at least they were responsive). But they seemed to have some internal restructuring that changed all of that.

Very poor response time to emails. Its been 24hrs and no response at all

Update
After many chats with Route - finally they resolved our issue. This should not be the case - there should be a timely response from Route support no matter what. Now I have the Customer success managers asking if support via Chat is better or email and to update review accordingly. My review still hands - increased it 2 stars but the response for my ticket took over a week which is ridiculous and not acceptable.

It makes me really sad to write this because I do actually love the product, but we had to deinstall. It was spamming customers with notifications - sending them 3 emails for a single order: a confirmation, shipping of the "product" which isn't really a product, and an email about their insurance. Within a span of 2 minutes a single customer was just getting way too much. Note that this is with the notifications turned off. Hope you guys can fix this, but for now it's a definite deinstall!

Great idea and eventually will very likely be good. In the current version, it caused more problems than it solved. EDIT: I'm still using the app with the hope it works better in the future, it's a great idea.

The integration is done by adding a product to your inventory, which they don't tell you. This means that any dynamic product display could potentially show the the insurance product. We immediately saw it in our dynamic ads, recommended product widgets, also bought widgets, new products, trending products, and in our automated emails. There are some workarounds for parts of this, but not all.

The one claim we had failed because the customer contacted us first and needed immediate help.

The new widget is defaulted to "on" so it's automatically added to the customers bill unless they turn it off. After a few customer complaints about this, we had to disable the app. (There isn't actually a way to disable the app, I added css display: none and put the product out of stock) - EDIT: They fixed the widget so it no longer defaults to the on position.

Support is slow to respond and does not do much to actually solve problems. For an app that would ideally lead the way for our customer support, this was a bad sign. User experience and ultimately reviews mean everything to our business, so is just isn't worth the risk for us. EDIT: Communication has improved and we're working together to address all of my concerns.

A company that will pay for all your customers' lost, stolen and damaged packages at no cost to you? If it sounds too good to be true, it might be. Over six weeks, Route paid five claims for lost and stolen packages. But our first damage claim—and more importantly, the company's handling of it—caused us to deactivate the app.

We sell luxury baby gear, so the safety and integrity of our products is of the utmost importance. A customer contacted Route when her $1,400 product arrived with a 3-foot gash and numerous holes in the box, which resulted in scratches and dents. Route tersely informed her that she was not eligible for a replacement or refund because the damages were "only cosmetic," not functional. Route instead offered a $150 refund, which would not come close to covering the cost of replacement parts. The customer was outraged and is planning to file a chargeback against us, which would quickly erase the financial gains we made with Route.

Route's website makes no mention to customers or retailers that claims may be only partially covered. Prior to implementation, the sales rep assured us repeatedly that Route does not meddle in the details of claims—he said their goal is to make these claims easy for both us and the customer. In reality, they are asking customers to file police reports for any lost item over $100, and their team is arguing with customers about the value of damaged products. Plus, our account manager on multiple occasions threatened to raise our rate from 1% to 3% because we had five claims in six weeks. Route will work for you some of the time or hopefully, even most of the time. But for us, the benefits did not outweigh the risk to our customer satisfaction and company reputation.

We have used this app for about one month and maybe 800 customers have purchased it. The process for the customer to request a replacement and reorder is not easy like their sales team have suggested. A customer will almost always get frustrated and require support from the brand.

Maybe 20 customers have requested a claim and as of now only one has been approved. We have had to mitigate for these which is fine but really defeats the purpose of this app.

Lastly, the support is not quality as you need to submit email tickets and responses take long which frustrates a customer further.

I would recommend that someone should just consider adding a product themselves as insurance and test for a month to see if you even need a service like this. But, if you do need this consider another service as they dont follow through on their marketing claims.

This app has potential, but is seriously lacking after the latest update to policy. We have been utilizing Route throughout 2020 and initially had a great experience (timely communication in helping to get it installed on our site and also with our customers when there was an issue). HOWEVER, beginning this autumn 2020, Route changed its policies where when a claim is filed by a customer and approved by Route they do not immediately reimburse your account. Instead, if the claim is approved, they will immediately create a replacement order within your store and mark it as PAID and the claim as RESOLVED. Unfortunately, this order is NOT actually paid for at that time, nor is it fully resolved, as new policy dictates that they, theoretically, will now only reimburse claims on a WEEKLY basis (I say theoretically as I have not received reimbursement as of yet from the billing period ending 12/13/20, and there is no reimbursement scheduled on our invoice history w Route). This new policy, even when working as it should, easily leads to complications with the customer as they obviously want their new product shipped out ASAP, however, as a shop I need to explain to them that I will not ship out a replacement until payment *actually* clears from Route. Other issues that have also cropped up recently is poor communication (they take several days to respond to emails [if at all], and are curt in their messages, not answering fully and ignoring assistance requests). There is no phone number or live chat to speak with anyone in real time, so email is your only available method of communication with CS. Also, take note that their insurance does not cover the cost to ship the new item covered in the claim, so although a claim may be filed and approved, Route does not pay for reshipment of the replacement item, nor does the customer -- it will have to come directly out of the shop's pocket...not ideal for international packages or items that are pricey to ship.