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Helping UPS

I think UPS needs help finding my place, so I’ve printed a map for them:

ups map

They obviously don’t have a map and are trying to deliver my package from Amazon by way of Sacramento, or perhaps a nice coastal trip up to Seattle and back.  That’s the only logical explanation for them to schedule delivery for June 22nd, when the package arrived in San Pablo on June 17th.

Now, with my map they know I’m only 41 miles away.  And I feel good, having saved them all that extra gas.  🙂

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Does UPS Have Deep Systematic Problems?

(Updated… a lot)
Recently I’ve seen signs that may suggest the occasional UPS glitches are not-so-occasional, and there may be deeper systematic problems with our favorite delivery service.   The brown truck driver is as friendly as he ever was – it’s the systems that appear to s***w customers left and right.

First there was the unreasonable delay within California, then the case of the “lost” packages, a systems failure compounded by rude customer service:

  • Four out of five packages I dropped off at the same UPS store disappeared – i.e. they were never entered in UPS’s tracking system.
  • Since the system is always right, customer service accused me of never having shipped them in the first place, then of not applying the labels properly.
  • When the recipient, Shoebuy.com, a major UPS customer initiated a trace, the previously non-existent packages miraculously all showed up at the destination UPS center, without any indication how they got there.

The above example may not be rare, as demonstrated by this commenter:

Texas-to-Texas package disappeared (was never scanned in) and 30 hours later showed up in Alabama.  UPS has no clue how it got there.

Finally, my third shipping experience within a month:  I’m expecting a Sony Reader sent from NY to CA.  It was originally due to arrive on 7/28 but now I see it’d rescheduled for 7/29.  A one-day delay is not the end of the world, until you look at the details:

-The package arrived at Vernon, CA Thursday, 7/24.

-Next arrival scan is in Los Angeles, Friday 7/25 evening. (Great progress!)

Now, I don’t know why it sat a full day virtually in the same place, but even with this delay, if it’s in Los Angeles on Friday, why on Earth can I not receive it on Monday in the San Francisco Bay Area?   Why the Tuesday delivery?  That’s 5 days within California!

Admittedly my statistical sample is rather small, but 3 failures out of 3 deliveries within a months suggests these may not have been accidents, UPS may just have more serious logistic / system problems than they care to admit.

Update: Rob’s story below is so shocking, anything I’ve experienced pails in comparison.  You just HAVE to read it in full.

Update #2: On second thought, it’s a story worth bringing it up to here in full:

I’ve got one for you….

My sister-in-law has MS and receives very expensive injections delivered once a month, packed in dry ice because it has to stay refrigerated.

My sister-in-law lives with her mother. Well, her mother had decided to cancel her Dish Network subscription. Dish told her to put all of the hardware in a box and they would pay to ship it back to them via UPS. Only problem was, there was no hardware to return since she had already done that through the retail store. Dish claims that they notified UPS to cancel the pick-up…given the rest of this debacle, I’m inclined to agree with them.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law gets her medication delivered via FedEx (because there’s no way UPS could get it there in time before the ice pack failed). FedEx leaves the package containing the medication on the front porch.

Now, UPS shows up a little bit later and TAKES THE WRONG PACKAGE. Apparently, the instruction to cancel the pickup never made it to the driver. The package they took was clearly in a FedEx box, with FedEx shipping labels, etc. There were no UPS shipping labels anywhere. UPS essentially stole her medications right off of their porch.

You would think, given their commercials about “delivery intercept”…you know, “there’s a problem with the gizmos” that it would be a simple matter to stop the package and turn it around….NOPE. Their advice was to call FedEx (what the *&!@^ does FedEx have to do with it and to call the pharmacy to get a replacement). They said that it was en route to Dish Network and they couldn’t stop it, but that Dish could send it back (which Dish would have to pay for…how is it Dish’s problem?). The problem, which was explained to them, is that by the time all that happens, the medications will have reached ambient temperatures and will be useless and that my sister’s insurance wont pay for the $1500 meds twice in one month.

They eventually rectified the situation by reimbursing my sister the money, but only after she paid out of pocket to get the replacements and after spending countless hours on the phone with UPS customer service.

What can Brown do for you? I don’t know, but I know what I’d like to do to brown….

Update (7/29): Today is the rescheduled delivery date.  The latest scan info shows yesterday my package was in Sacramento, 90 miles NE of me (remember, it was coming from LA, South!).  I smell another re-schedule 🙁

Update (7/29 evening): UPS just confirmed they really have no clue where the package is and recommended I contact the sender, as only they can initiate a trace.  Deja vu 🙁

Update (7/30): The sender initiated a trace and the expected delivery date field completely disappeared.  A few hours later new scan information showed up:  Out for delivery.   This means I should get it today. Hooray!  Except… the package is in Vancouver, WA, and I am in California.   If UPS keeps on randomly driving around the West Coast, they might just accidentally find me one day 🙁

Update (7/30):  I called UPS with my concern that it cannot possibly be “out for delivery” from Vancouver, WA.  They confirmed I should ignore the status, the package indeed will find my way to CA today.  Yeah, right.   A few hours later someone woke up.  Now delivery is rescheduled for the third time, adding two more days, with this status message:

VANCOUVER,
WA,  US
07/30/2008 10:43 A.M. INCORRECT ROUTING AT UPS FACILITY / THE PACKAGE WAS MISSORTED AT THE HUB. IT HAS BEEN REROUTED TO THE CORRECT DESTINATION SITE
07/30/2008 7:25 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY

This is beyond pathetic…

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UPS: Tracking and Customer Service Failure

Photo by William J.Image via Wikipedia

Recently I ranted about UPS’s delays and customer service level – oh, boy, little did I know then just how bad UPS Customer Service can really get.

Four out of five packages I dropped off at the same UPS store a 2 weeks ago still showed “Billing Information Received” status a week later.   In UPS lingo this means the shipping label was created, but the package was never received by the company.  There’s nothing to track, as far as UPS is concerned, the package really doesn’t exist.  This was what the Customer Service agent repeatedly told me anyway, further explaining that the only way  this could have happened if I either did not send the packages at all, or did not properly attach the labels.

Of course she did not have an explanation on how the fifth package safely arrived in the meantime – after all, I did not dropped them off at UPS according to her theory.  If it’s not in the system, it doesn’t exist. Only when I asked her if she was accusing me of lying did she change tone, and recommended we put a tracer on the lost packages. Since these were returns to ShoeBuy  using their return labels, they were considered the shipper, not me, so they had to initiate the trace.

ShoeBuy is a company with amazingly good Customer Service – since Zappos is often referred to as to epitome of Customer Service, let’s just say ShoeBuy is like Zappos, often with lower prices.smile_regular They picked up my email immediately, and they probably carry some weight with UPS, since the non-existent packages were found in no time.  The tracking information below tells the whole story:

The packages never entered UPS’s tracking system, there’s no sign whatsoever that I ever sent them from California, yet they miraculously showed up at the destination, ready for delivery upon ShoeBuy’s inquiry.  So much for the rock-solid tracking system…I understand the first step, i.e  a UPS store clerk forgetting to scan the received packages, which then got loaded on the truck anyway, but how were  4 packages then able to bypass all further stages of scanning?

But let’s finish this post on a positive note: it’s a story of good Customer Service, after all – just not by UPS.  ShoeBuy, upon finding what happened, immediately refunded my money, before they even received the packages from UPS.  Wow!  They know something about keeping customers happy.smile_regular

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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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UPS Delivers (?)

UPS delivery captured by a security camera. Ouch 🙁