I just can’t understand the sharp drop in service by delivery companies. These are corporations that have one business: delivering things. On time. Or so I thought.
Airborne Express, as I detailed here last week, just lost my laptop. Gone. And they didn’t even call to apologize, I had to call Apple Computer to let them know and go after Airborne on my behalf.
FedEx, which in past years used the slogan “when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight”, has a lot of dodges that enable it to never deliver when you need it. I once waited for a priority overnight package that arrived a day late. When I called FedEx to complain that my package had not arrived, the customer “service” rep told me that it was raining in Kentucky, and FedEx does not guarantee overnight delivery when it rains. A couple of weeks ago, I sent an overnight letter to my aunt in Front Royal, Virginia – about a 1 hour drive from here. The online shipping software told me that standard overnight – delivery by 4pm – was not available to that ZIP code. So, I ponied up 30% more to send it priority overnight, delivery by 10:30am. Guess when it was delivered? 4:30pm. Today I’m waiting, yet again, for a priority overnight delivery. It’s now 2:45pm, and no sign of it.
UPS seems to have the opposite problem – they’re too early. We have a little UPS shipping computer here in my office. Well, the UPS guy sometimes shows up quietly at 1pm and picks up the packages. People who ship a package at 1:30pm unknowingly won’t have their next-day package picked up (or the billing information transmitted) until the next day, making their overnight package automatically become a 2-day package for the next-day price.
As production manager of several magazines and the like, I get large shipments of printed material via truck every month. Today, Watkins Motor Lines intepreted “inside delivery” as dumping a wrapped, strapped, wooden palette of boxes just inside our office door.
I was going to make a comment here that the U.S. Postal Service seems to be the best bet these days, but as I’m still waiting here for a priority mail package sent on Friday, I think I’ll reserve judgment on that, too.
Do you think that the amazing era of next-day delivery is coming rapidly to a close? Did these companies promise more than they could deliver (pun intended) in the long term?
Fed Ex was even capable of loosing Tom Hanks on a desert island for a few years, even if it did garnish him another Oscar nomination.
I’m also reminded of Saturday Nite Live’s “Einstien Express” when it absolutley, positivly has to be there four days ago.
“I need to get these birth control pills to my girlfriend last Friday Night”