UPS USPS Tracking…What Are They Thinking?

Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 10:22 pm

HI - Nice to see you again. Have you sent any greeting cards recently?

I recently ordered a package to be sent to me via UPS. The estimated delivery date was 1/5/2010. Now, because it’s UPS, I guess they want to be known for being ON TIME, NOT EARLY.

Elizabethtown KY is about a half hour south of Louisville. Generally UPS packages come directly from the Louisville hub to here. This particular package arrived early to the Louisville UPS hub so they decided that instead of delivering it a day early, they would take it for a ride. As you can see, the package arrived in Louisville on 1/1/2010 at 5:16 am. Therefore, the package could have been delivered to me on 1/2/2010, but the sender did not pay for Saturday delivery, so the couldn’t do that. I figured it would arrive on 1/4/2010. NOPE. It didn’t show up. I went back to check the tracking. UPS didn’t want to deliver it to me on the 2nd, so they took it for a ride to LEXINGTON KY. Lexington is around 100 miles WEST of Louisville. Elizabethtown is around 45 miles SOUTH of Louisville. So, instead of delivering the package to me on Saturday or even on Monday 1/4/2010, they took it for a ride to Lexington. The package spent two days in Lexington (sightseeing maybe???) and then they brought it BACK TO LOUISVILLE to be delivered to me on 1/5/2010. In what world does this make any sense???

UPSscreen

Next, I order a package from Best Buy to be delivered to my daughter in NY. The package was ordered on 1/4/2010. Now, Best Buy ships packages via UPS Mail Innovations. Don’t ask me how this could possibly be an innovation. Looks like BS to me. Best Buy mailed the package out the very next day after the order was placed. GREAT!! I’m thinking. Now that’s service. NOT!! UPS gets the package and they hand it off to USPS on 1/6/2010 at 11:18 PM EST in Warrendale, PA. Since then, the package has been “visiting” in Warrendale. NO MOVEMENT WHATSOEVER on this package in three whole days. Well…other than they scanned it twice yesterday just to let us know where it was and that it was safe.

UPSuspsTrack

Why are these companies so afraid to under promise and over deliver??

They seem to think that the way to do business is “barely deliver what we are paid to”. This is not what doing business in a competitive marketplace is all about. There is no logical reason why the first package visited Lexington for two days before coming to me. There is also no logical reason why the second package is visiting Warrendale PA for three days. Neither UPS nor USPS can come up with a logical reason for either one. “This is not the norm” they say. “We can’t explain what happened” they say. This can not be coincidence. The only service I’ve never had a problem with is FedEx. Some people say FedEx is more expensive than UPS or USPS. Well…if that is the case, that’s OK. I (and I believe most people) am more than happy to pay an extra buck to get a package delivered in a timely manner without the “sightseeing tours”.

What do you do to under promise and over deliver? How do you make sure you are providing the BEST customer service possible? Do you want to provide the BEST customer service possible? Or are you happy providing “just barely enough” like UPS and USPS?

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Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
What will you do with it?

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