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UPS: Delays and Customer Service

I’m expecting a package that was due for delivery today. Here’s the UPS tracking info:

Let me get this straight: the package was here in California, 42 miles from my home yesterday at 8am.  Apparently the train was late, but who cares, it was here yesterday morning, will sure make to my place today?  Nope, a day later it’s still in San Pablo and it’s being rescheduled for delivery tomorrow.

Today it will make it all the way to the UPS center in San Ramon, a 30-mile trip, and just 12 miles from my house. Then tomorrow afternoon it will finally get here – 42 miles in 3 days.

Now, I can already hear the arguments about logistics optimization.  My package may just have missed the early morning pick-up and that was the last one for the day.  But isn’t timely delivery, and consequently customer satisfaction worth scheduling an additional pick-up in case a train is late?

It gets worse.  In this case UPS simply did not go the extra mile to make up for the train delay.  But I’ve seen cases when the package arrived to San Ramon a day earlier than scheduled, yet it did not make it on the truck the next morning.  UPS would rather store it an extra day at their facility than deliver a day early.   Forget customer satisfaction, this is all about market segmentation and protection.  They will have to make sure a 7-day delivery is indeed 7 days and not any faster, otherwise they might just reduce their customers’ inclination to pay for faster delivery methods.

Update (7/1): Oh, boy, when I wrote this, I had no clue just how bad UPS Customer Service can really get

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Comments

  1. Have you got a headache today Zoli – you seem a little angry!

    Take 10 deep breaths and call me in the morning

    🙂

  2. Ben, you have no idea .. just check the update.

  3. ouch…..

    what can i say? buy local maybe

    🙂

  4. Ummm – Zoli – I read that UPS report a little differently than you – not that that makes their crappy customer service better…

    but I think that says that a report out of San Pablo at 8AM on 6/29 is that the train is delayed due to weather and that the package ACTUALLY arrived there 6/30 at 6:41AM.

    I find UPS maddeningly inconsistent. I have had complete brush offs on the order of ‘who do you think you are to even call us up and question us about this?’ And I have also had an agent literally call the whole fleet of delivery trucks in my town, locate which one had my package, find out where it was going to be for the next half an hour, tell the driver to expect me to stop by the truck and tell me exactly where to go so that I could get the package off the truck myself in time to leave for the trip I was going on. Sadly experiences with FedEx and the UPS are similar – both good and bad.

  5. they SUCK

  6. I just wanted to weigh in on the ups saga (if you can call it that). I order a lot from Ebay, but as of today I have made a decision that if a seller is using UPS to ship their products, then I’m not buiying from them. This is the last time I will allow this company to get my blood pressure up. I’ve waited patiently for more than six days for a package to arrive that was scheduled to arive today by UPS. it’s 8:07 P.M. EST, and it’s still not here. Absolutely my last time dealing with them.

    Bill

  7. I sant to send a high value item to Canada from U.S. UPS requires a "value waiver". No problem, right? WRONG! Value waiver has been in process for over a week. Noone knows how long it will take. Noone will let me talk to anyone in charge of value waivers. My rep has no information other than it is "in process". Meantime my customer waits, and waits, and waits. Bless them, I would have canceled the sale already. I had to create an account in order to ship this item. As soon as it ships, I will be canceling my account and never ship with UPS ever again.

  8. This is the worst customer service center I have ever seen. They have delivered a few packages to my home and in a few cases I was not there to receive them. And in those few cases the courier never left a sticker on my door to let me know that my package even arrived. Not to mention that they are suppose to try a second time to deliver the package which never happened. Thank GOD for tracking information or I would know nothing. The UPS CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER in WIXOM, MI is a poor excuse for courier service or at lease the driver that delivers to this area. With all the unemployed people looking for a job and dying to fill his spot, this ups driver should really do his job better before he lose it.

  9. crtwining says

    I think you're on to something with UPS storing packages instead of getting them to recipients sooner when possible. I have been waiting for a package for several days now. It appears to have arrived within 15 miles of my apartment on Friday very early morning. It could easily have been delivered Friday. Its now Monday morning and it hasn't moved. So its still scheduled for delivery on Tuesday. This makes no sense. They could easily have delivered it Friday but instead are intentionally waiting until Tuesday? Its so infuriating knowing that its just 15 miles away sitting there. No wonder their trucks are painted a poop color!

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