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When a customer needed a windscreen repair, their lease company’s website directed them to call an Autoglass number. They spent fifteen minutes answering questions on the phone while an adviser completed a form. On Autoglass’s own website, they could enter the same information online in around ninety seconds.
The repair was booked and completed, so the service worked. But going through the lease company made the experience slower and more difficult than dealing with Autoglass directly.
This is the challenge with third-party customer experience. Each company may have a process that works for its own part of the customer journey, but the customer experiences all of those processes as one. Unless someone takes responsibility for designing how the two businesses connect, the customer is left with a poorly joined-up experience.
Who is responsible for third party customer experience?
The answer depends on the service the partner is providing. For parcel deliveries, the legal position is clear.
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the retailer remains responsible for the goods until they reach the buyer or a safe place the buyer has chosen. The House of Commons Library briefing on parcel deliveries explains the position in detail. MoneySavingExpert puts it more simply: “Your contract is with the retailer you ordered from, and not the delivery company.”
In practice, customers are often directed elsewhere. Which? surveyed 2,132 UK adults in October 2024 and found that one in three people who contacted a retailer about a delivery problem were told to contact the courier.
The customer is left chasing a company they did not buy from, even though responsibility still sits with the retailer.
Five questions for a stronger third party customer experience
When another organisation becomes part of the customer journey, the retailer still needs to decide how the experience will work across both businesses. These five questions turn partner management into joined-up customer journey design.
1. What is the customer promise?
Define what the customer should expect before translating it into operational requirements. This includes who will contact them, when something should happen and when the partner will become visible. The experience should match the retailer’s promise, regardless of which organisation delivers it.
2. What information must cross the handoff?
Identify the information and context the partner needs. That may include delivery instructions, accessibility requirements, previous conversations and commitments already made to the customer. The handoff is not joined up if the customer has to repeat information or fill in the gaps.
3. What happens when something goes wrong?
Design the recovery route alongside the normal journey. Agree who the customer contacts, who owns the resolution, who provides updates and who has the authority to make decisions. The customer should not have to coordinate the retailer and its partner.
4. How will the end-to-end experience be measured?
Supplier SLAs remain useful, but they only measure part of the journey. Add measures that reveal the customer’s experience across both organisations, including repeat contacts, transfers, repeated information and total time to resolution.
5. Who owns the whole journey?
Managing a supplier relationship and owning the customer experience are different responsibilities. Assign someone with the authority to review the combined journey, challenge processes, and coordinate improvements across both businesses.
Together, these questions shift the conversation from “Did the partner meet the contract?” to “Did the customer receive the experience we intended?”
Why third party customer experience falls between teams
Responsibility is usually clear within each part of the journey. Procurement manages the contract. Operations reviews the supplier’s performance. Digital manages the booking journey, while customer service handles complaints. The partner is responsible for its own systems and processes.
The problem is that no single function necessarily owns how those parts work together for the customer.
Measurement is often just as fragmented. The retailer tracks whether it dispatched an order on time. The courier records whether it was delivered. Customer service measures response times, and the partner reports against its SLA. Each measure shows whether one part of the journey worked. None of them shows how much effort the customer made to complete it.
This distinction matters. Ofcom’s December 2025 figures show that 78% of consumers were generally satisfied with parcel services, while 68% had experienced a delivery problem during the previous six months.
Those findings are not necessarily contradictory. A customer may receive the parcel eventually and remain broadly satisfied, while still having to chase updates, repeat information or contact several companies along the way.
A courier can meet its delivery target, an installer can complete the job, and a contact centre can answer within the agreed time. Each measure may look healthy, yet the customer still has a difficult journey.
What the failure route reveals
A late parcel or missed installation is an operational failure. The customer experience is shaped by what happens next: how easy it is to report the problem, who takes responsibility and how quickly it is resolved.
Citizens Advice found in its 2025 Parcels League Table that 37% of people had a problem with their most recent delivery. Of those, 47% encountered another problem while trying to resolve it, including slow responses, automated systems and repeated contact.
When this happens, the customer must coordinate the retailer and its partner. They chase updates, repeat information and try to establish which company can resolve the problem. A recovery process is not joined up if the customer needs to understand the division of responsibility between two businesses before anyone will help.
Marketplace returns show that retailers can choose how this works. Under the policies published in September 2026, Superdrug marketplace products must be returned directly to the seller rather than through the retailer’s standard returns process. The Range also uses a separate process, although its customer care team can provide support. B&Q supports some marketplace returns in store, where staff prepare the item to be sent back to the seller.
The operating model is similar, but the customer experience is different. A marketplace does not dictate the returns journey. The retailer still decides how much of the seller relationship the customer must manage.
A visible partner is not the problem
A third-party partner does not always need to be hidden. In some journeys, visibility is useful or necessary. A customer arranging an installation or repair may want to know which specialist will carry out the work. Anyone using finance needs to know which provider they are entering into an agreement with.
What matters is whether the handoff is clear and coordinated.
World of Books provides one example. A seller scans their books in the app, receives an offer and chooses between an InPost drop-off or DPD home collection. The InPost journey uses a QR code or PIN, so the seller does not need to print a label or enter an address. The courier is visible, but World of Books defines the overall process.
Screwfix takes a different approach. Its delivery partners remain largely behind the scenes, while customers receive an estimated one-hour delivery window and live tracking from Screwfix. Another company may move the parcel, but the retailer keeps the customer-facing communication.
Both approaches can work. The partner may be visible or operate behind the retailer. The important question is whether customers understand who is doing what and can complete the journey without coordinating the two companies themselves.
What this means for smaller retailers
Smaller retailers may not be able to ask a courier, payment provider or installation network to redesign its systems around them. They often buy a standard service with limited scope for negotiation. But limited control over the partner does not remove responsibility for the customer experience.
Owning that experience does not mean controlling every step. It means understanding where the handoffs occur, being clear about what the customer has been promised and testing what the partner journey is actually like. It also means deciding in advance what the retailer will do when the process fails.
Smaller retailers can have an advantage here. With fewer teams and layers, problems can reach someone with the authority to act more quickly. An owner, store manager or customer service lead may be able to improve communication, simplify a handoff or take responsibility for recovery without waiting for a large transformation programme.
The goal is not perfect integration. It is to ensure customers are not sent between companies, asked to repeat information, or left to work out who can solve the problem. Smaller retailers may have less influence over the partner, but they still control what they promise, how they communicate and how they respond when something goes wrong. That is where improvement should start.
Key takeaways for third party customer experience
- The customer promise still belongs to the retailer. A partner may deliver part of the service, but the retailer remains responsible for deciding what the customer should expect and whether the partner journey delivers it.
- A good handoff transfers context, not just data. Relevant instructions, accessibility requirements, previous conversations and commitments should move with the customer. They should not have to explain everything again.
- Design the failure route in advance. Customers need to know who to contact, who will keep them informed and who can resolve the problem. They should not have to chase two companies or carry messages between them.
- Supplier performance is not the same as customer experience. SLAs should be supported by measures such as transfers, repeat contacts, repeated information and total time to resolution.
- Someone must own the complete journey. Managing the partner contract is not the same as owning the experience delivered across both organisations. Responsibility for reviewing, testing and improving that journey must be clear.
Resources mentioned
Consumer Rights Act 2015 — the legal basis for retailer responsibility until goods reach the buyer.
Citizens Advice Parcels League Table 2025 — the full annual report ranking the five largest UK parcel operators.
Which? consumer rights: deliveries — practical reference on where responsibility sits when an order does not arrive.
If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What’s one insight you’re planning to put into practice or one learning you took from today’s episode?
Let’s connect – Find me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-williams-ccxp/)
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Links to other related episodes:
| Episode | Where it appears | URL |
|---|---|---|
| 38 — Reducing Customer Effort in Retail | Question 2, on the customer repeating information | wheresyourcustomer.com/reducing-customer-effort-retail |
| 16 — Customer Experience Leadership | Question 5, on ownership | https://wheresyourcustomer.com/customer-experience-leadership/ |
| 39 — Click and Collect Customer Experience | “Why third party customer experience falls between teams” | wheresyourcustomer.com/click-and-collect-customer-experience |
