subject: When Deliveries Are Already In Transit, Can They Still Be Stopped? [print this page] Fifty years ago, trying to get a delivery stopped while it was already in transit would be something that would be extremely awkward, and even not an option in many cases. These days though, a Chicago courier service will almost always have some kind of option for being able to cancel deliveries while they are already headed towards their destination. This is something that has been enabled mostly by all of the improved communication methods that we have in place that connect the customer to the courier company, and the courier company to the individual drivers in the field.
If you think that you may at some point need to stop a shipment while it is en route, you need to ask your courier what method they prefer for communicating this request to them. Which method they use is going to depend largely on what kind of software they have installed with their company for their customers to work with.
If a courier company has software which has the functionality for customers to affect package status after the shipment has already gone out, then it becomes very easy for the customer to stop the shipment after it's already left. All they have to do is log into that system and find the feature that allows them to put a stop delivery order on that package. The courier driver's system will automatically get updated with the new information. Even if they happened to miss the initial alert, upon scanning the bar code of the package they would get the red flag telling them to not deliver the package.
There are lots of courier companies that might not have this type of technology in place yet. In these cases, they may prefer to either email or call them in order to inform them of the stop order. In many cases, the telephone is going to be the best method for this. While email is a very handy way for communicating with a courier company, it is easy for email to get overlooked, which is something that you simply don't have time for when dealing with a shipment in transit. When you speak to someone on the telephone you know that your request has been received and is being acted upon. It is then a matter of minutes before the dispatch office has called the driver on their cell phone and ensured that the shipment will no longer be delivered.
