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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