We live in a Meridith built home. My wife tells me that Meridith is a very good home builder. In my opinion, it IS in some regards but NOT in others. I believe many home builders intentionally cut costs in a number of ways especially items that will take you some time to figure out. Our very large house has one door bell and it is located in the family room, north east corner, ground floor. The door bell can NOT be heard upstairs where the bedrooms are. The assumption, I guess is that all occupants hang out in the family room, dusk to dawn. As a result, of this knuckle dragging design, we miss package deliveries. The wiring for the existing door bell runs in an air space between floors. To tap into that wiring so we can install an upstairs door bell sounder, probably means opening a ceiling and finding a way to feed wiring up to the top floor from the bottom floor.

New expensive homes have hub rooms and I would hope that door bell wiring is broken out in that room.

If a shipper were to knock on the front door loudly, any person in the master bedroom would probably hear and come rushing to the front door but the other three bedrooms might not.

With energy costs sky high the gas costs for shippers is eating into profits. I just wonder how many times a delivery is made to a private residence, the person is home but the door bell and knock on the door is not heard. If one stops to realize, some if not most home builders might have set the shippers up to loose a lot of money. The shippers should do a study to find out how much profits they loose with this type of building deficiency, how many shipments should have been made if the house occupants could hear the door sounder. Individuals work in back yards, people watch TV with the sound up loud, portable audio listening devices are used and can result in diminishing door bell sounding devices.

One option, for the customer to use if a delivery is missed, is is to travel to the shipping store/depot and after a set hour, typically 6PM, you can pick up your package. The trouble here is the customer is inconvenienced and charged by paying money for gas to get to and from the shipping point. I recently filled out a customer survey from a well known manufacturer who has Internet sales and store sales. One of the last questions on the survey was this: would I purchase again on line. My answer was no. I was asked if I would recommend to others to buy on line. My answer was no. I have found out that, from my experience, the vendors can not seem to consitantly ship expidited orders. I never get merchandise when I need it. This is NOT the fault of the shippers but the Internet sales businesses. This problem trickles down for the shippers and the customers. The shippers are loosing money by not being able to make fast and accurate home deliveries. This is because the vendors some times screw up the ordering process making the customer base angry at the shippers and not willing to use Internet purchases again. Next, the homes with inadequate front door signaling means that the shipment might not be completed on time and might make the customer spend time and money to retrieve a package making even more customer less likely to use Internet sales. The shippers are being set up to fail and they do not currently have any way to fix this problem.

Solutions:

#1. I recommend that the shippers bring a class action lawsuit against any home builder who has in the past and is currently not offering a meaningful method for providing a signal system that someone is waiting at the front door. As part of that class action I would require the home builders to come up with a solution and pay for total cost for each and every home that needs this added.

#2. I think the shippers need to come up with a creative solution by developing an automated system where the customer is notified just prior to the delivery, requiring a signature, being made. With GPS technology the shipping truck location is known. The shipping routes are typically generated by computer to save fuel for the shipping company. It is not much of a stretch to offer a service where the customer can be notified to home phone or cell phone that the delivery is pending in a short time and that lead time prior to delivery to be specified by the customer. Furthermore, it should not be a stretch to go on line with a computer and view the truck route and see the best guess estimated time that the driver will arrive at your door.