So I worked from home today to receive my Christmas gift for my sister, which FedEx was supposed to deliver (I’d missed them yesterday). When by 3:30 the package still hadn’t arrived, I checked the online tracking. Sure enough, the shitbucket left a door tag without even trying to buzz up. I mean, the button is right there! It’s all of six inches from where he left the tag! I haven’t left the apartment all day and my buzzer didn’t go off once (and I know it works, because the lunch delivery guy had no problems with it).
I called FedEx and filed a formal complaint, but that’s gonna accomplish fuck-all. It’ll be a footnote in a file and that’s it. Yet again, FedEx gets away with shit customer service, scott free. Meanwhile I’m completely fucked because I can’t work from home tomorrow (which means I’ll miss the delivery yet again) and their sorting facility is a monstrous pain in the ass to get to.
The worst part is, as always, FedEx won’t feel a thing. They don’t refund shipping costs, they don’t give out vouchers, they don’t do squat. And even if I stop using them, businesses won’t. And no amount of complaining to the businesses will get them to change, because it’s a two-horse town and the other horse (UPS) is just as useless as the first.
Is there anything that can be done to incentivize companies like FedEx and UPS to actually do their damn jobs? Companies only listen to the bottom line and I really can’t see how I as a receiver (and not a shipper) have any influence on it.
The FedEx delivery guy will actually feel it. Maybe not instantly, but he will. They’re contractors, at least around here, so they’re easy to let go. Unlike the Union Parcel Service. :)
What you do is move from your multi-unit apartment that is a hassle for delivery workers into a house or a duplex. After that, you get all your packages.
Or, you have your packages shipped to the office where your receptionist is always available to sign for you.
I always have this problem too. I leave a big note at the mail box telling them that I’m home. It seems to work. Otherwise they don’t even bother checking usually.
How do you figure? It’s not like the guy brings the package up to my apartment. I still have to go downstairs to sign for it. The only difference between delivering to an apartment and a house is that he rings a buzzers instead of a doorbell.
Or, you have your packages shipped to the office where your receptionist is always available to sign for you.
Normally I do. I have all my shipments sent to work. But Amazon projected a 12/24-12/29 delivery estimate, and I’m off work from 12/24 through 1/3. Trust me, if I had any option open to me besides shipping to my apartment, I’d have taken it.
That said, none of this really addresses my question in the OP: how do we get delivery services to actually do their jobs if we have no influence on their bottom line?
Even if the one delivery guy feels it, though, it won’t affect any real change in the company. This is a behavior shared by parcel services everywhere. And one I don’t even understand, to be honest. How is filling out a delivery tag easier than pushing a button? It honestly boggles the mind why they can’t even be bothered to just push the damn doorbell/buzzer. What do they stand to gain from this?
You complain to the shipper. If they get enough complaints about one delivery service, they’ll switch to another one. If, as you say, they’re all equally bad, well, then there’s nothing to be done, is there?
If it’s a Mom and Pop, maybe. But do you really think Amazon would stop using FedEx just because a few hundred people complained?
If, as you say, they’re all equally bad, well, then there’s nothing to be done, is there?
That’s what I’m asking, though. I mean. There has to be something that can be done, right? Isn’t this the land of voting with your dollar and checks and balances and all that jazz? There’s gotta be some kind of way to make do their damn job.
When Amazon is negotiating with their vendors, you can be very certain that customer complaints are going to be a factor. “UPS has 99% customer satisfaction, USPS has 98%, but you guys have only 94% – why should we continue doing business with you?”
And of course it’s not the ONLY factor, and things like cost will play heavily into it. But it’s definitely going to be a factor.
As for the competition thing, well, personally I don’t think they’re all the same – UPS is lightyears better than Fedex for residential delivery in my experience – but if you think they’re all terrible, then pray for a new competitor, I guess.
Interesting. Out of curiosity, where do you live? Is it urban, suburban, or rural? I’ve generally found UPS to be worse than FedEx in the SF Bay Area and NYC markets.
UPS guys will drive up and run to place your package on the porch, then run back to the truck and drive off.
Fedex guys will knock or ring the doorbell before going back to the truck, where they sit for ten or twenty seconds waiting for someone to come out of the house. Then they’ll wave and take off.
I imagine unscrupulous people can score quite a few packages following the UPS guy around.
I knew a UPS driver once some years ago, he said they had a specific schedule they had to keep. So, back then at least, it wasn’t really about the customer it was about the schedule.
When DHL still made consumer deliveries here, they were the worst for me. I live in an apartment complex, but it’s more like a 4-plex–each unit has an outside door. UPS…no problem. FedEx…few problems (but it’s getting worse). But DHL? Yikes. It was exactly like your experience.
My big problem with UPS is the Kansas wind which likes to blow away door notices. We no longer have a leasing office on site, and I can only deliver to work during the school year, so I try to go with USPS whenever I can make the choice.
For the most part I love UPS and Fedex, especially as compared to the USPS. I will say that I recently had a problem with UPS where my sister had sent a shipment of wine to me that required an adult to be present to sign for the shipment. After a failed delivery attempt I called to try and schedule it for when an adult would be home and they wanted to charge me $6 for that.
I suspect it is this. Delivery guy probably figures that waiting for you to make your way down is going to be a fairly big loss of time. Especially if the complex is a big one.
I just hate that none of these places will let you cancel a delivery before the first attempt. I work less than a block from both and it would pretty much always be most convenient for me to just swing by their office and pick it up at my convenience, but they won’t let me until they try to deliver at least once. Stuff I can just have shipped to my work is fine, but some online vendors require that you ship to the same address as your credit card billing address. Any time I have shipping issues I contact the vendor that did the shipping and request a credit. Places like Amazon and Newegg are awesome about this, generally refunding full shipping cost. Recently I ordered a hard disk and a solid state drive from Newegg with two day shipping. They shipped out separately and one got sent to the wrong city twice, and ended up being two days late. Newegg refunded shipping for both, which made me happy since I’d paid for two-day.
You’d be surprised how willing they are to let Mr. F. Rontdoor sign for my packages since I’m in the burbs and they can just leave things on my stoop. It is a rare occurrence that I actually have to sign for something.
