UPS and timely shipping

[Nekojin]

I work as a shipping clerk. My job is to take packages that the stock clerks collected, box them, and ship them via USPS/FedEx/UPS (plus others), as requested by our customers. Most of the time, this works just fine.

However, sometimes UPS loses Ground packages in their warehouses. They either get shoved in a corner to be dealt with later, or get tossed on a truck to the wrong distro hub (such as one entire bag of packages that got sent to New York once).

And once in a while, as a result of this, we get a customer who is VERY ANGRY that their Ground shipment isn't showing up in UPS Tracking the very next business day. The most recent being a sterling example of the sort of behavior I'm pissed about.

The customer won an eBay auction on Thursday evening. His widget was dutifully collected from the stock shelves by one of our stock guys, and brought with its packing slips to shipping. I boxed it, shipped it, and sent it out the door with the rest of the day's shipments. It was, in every way, a completely normal transaction.

So Monday comes, and we get an email from the customer. A very angry, aggressive email about how there's no tracking information - it just shows that a shipping label was printed - and that the UPS customer service people told him that means that it was never picked up here, and that it must still be here. Which is flat out wrong, and probably a blatant lie (either by the customer in claiming to have talked to UPS, or by the UPS CSR in claiming that it ONLY means that it hasn't been picked up).

Why am I assuming that it's a lie? Well, any CSR that has worked for UPS for any significant period of time should know that most Ground packages don't actually get scanned at the time of pick-up, only once they've been processed at the local hub. Since they're Ground, they're a lower priority, and sometimes do get left until the next day to be dealt with, if there's a high volume of higher-priority package traffic.

Back on point. At this point, the customer - who is having his package delivered to a hotel he's staying at - starts declaring that it MUST be delivered by Wednesday, or there's going to be trouble. And since we didn't ship it Friday, it obviously won't be there in time, so we should compensate him for that.

Excuse me? You're the one who chose Ground shipping, instead of something guaranteed, like, say, UPS Orange (Three-Day). The first order of blame lies with you, the customer, for your choice of shipping method for what you claim is an urgent delivery. Why did you pick the least urgent shipping method possible (UPS soft-guarantees Ground delivery "within 10 days to anywhere in the Continental US," which also includes packages traveling 2 miles, but they don't actually backstop that "guarantee" with any reimbursement or compensation if something fails to meet that deadline). If you needed it in 3 business days, that was obviously the wrong shipping option. (Answer: He wanted to be cheap).

So Tuesday comes and goes, and the package's shipping status remains unchanged. No new emails from the customer, thankfully, but we're already pretty sure that he's going to Neg us out of spite over this. Now it's Wednesday, and lo and behold, the package appears in the system! And it says that it was picked up on Tuesday. =O_o=

Never mind that we can prove that it left our possession on Friday. We have a Daily Summary Report that the UPS software spits out, and the UPS driver signs. That removes pretty much all culpability from us right there, since that package went out with the rest of them on Friday, and was signed for by the driver.

So, obviously, there's several levels of suck here. There's the customer, who picked a poor choice for shipping speed. There's UPS, who has lied about the status through both their CSRs AND through their website.

And now the shipment is showing that it'll be delivered by the end of the day... tomorrow. Not within his made-up deadline. So I'm sure that we'll hear from him again.

- - - - -

We had another customer that this happened to several months back. This guy is a regular customer whose business is local - it's only about 20 miles from us, and he ships Ground as a matter of course, because most packages arrive the next day, even with Ground shipping. But one shipment in particular happened to be both urgent, AND didn't show up the next day.

He called and yelled at us. He called and yelled at UPS. He called and yelled at us again, because UPS said it was our fault. We calmly explained the situation. And we all waited. Three days later, the package showed up halfway across the country, and the customer - being a generally reasonable individual - set his sights on shouting his way up the UPS chain of command.

And to this day, he now comes to our facility to pick up any shipments that are urgent, rather than rely on UPS.

[TheHuckster]

I've had the same problems as the first story as the customer, although I never resorted to yelling at the vendor, since I always give it a couple more days for ground shipping to update. It's still kind of unsettling to me that a package that I'm ordering is seemingly just sitting there not travelling for a day or two.

There was only one time where something never came because of the seller's failure, and even then, being a non-SC, I just inform them of the problem, they fix it, and for my trouble and because I was so patient and polite, they refunded the shipping charges.

Then there was the time a package did arrive... at another building in the condo complex I was in. Fortunately the website did say it "arrived" so I just needed to search for it by taking a walk.

[crashhelmet]

I used to work on the HelpDesk for UPS and handled all events from the moment the package was picked up until the time it was delivered. I supported everything from their DIADs (The brown tablet thing they use) to software that ran the sorting machines in their hubs around the country.

UPS has a distinct policy about promoting from within. If you work your way up the ladder to a manager position, you are now qualified to be a manager in EVERY department. So if you work your way up the customer service ladder, you could apply for and be hired as the IT manager, even without having a single minute of experience. I believe that this is where your problem lies.

See... UPS suffers from a monthly visit we would often liken to what females experience. At UPS though, they're called "Monthly Updates."

Around the middle of every month, UPS rolls out complete company wide updates to their workstations. These include the OS updates, office updates, drivers, etc. They always require a reboot and those reboots always take forever because they're still running Pentium II 350MHz based computers, running Win2k.

Now, getting back to my concern with their promotion process, instead of doing this on a Sunday, when no one works, they choose to do it after midnight in the middle of the week. Their main sort happens between midnight and 5am. If systems are rebooted, sorting gets jacked up and packages get lost. The fact that this has not been changed can only mean the person running the show has no idea what maintenance windows are and how important it is to wait until normal scheduled downtime to roll out updates.

TL;DR?

Don't ship anything through UPS in the middle of the month. EVER

[Andara Bledin]

[background]
Nekojin works in the shipping department of the place I've been employed in for the last 16 years, only I'm in the office, right outside the owner/CFO/my boss' door.
[/background]

It's worth noting that we ship out hundreds of packages through UPS every single week and it's rather rare that we run into this issue (maybe a few times a year), and most of the time, our customers just don't care as long as their stuff shows up within a week or so.

This particular customer, however, is quite the piece of work. He's already on our blocked bidder list due to his issues, and he doesn't even have the item, yet.

Since he's been pissy from the get-go (aka, as of Monday, when his package didn't show up like he expected), we tried to get him on the phone to talk to him. He wasn't there, and we spoke to his wife, who didn't know what was going on, but was quite pleasant. He sent a message through eBay bitching at us for "harassing" his wife who didn't have anything to do with his eBay stuff. If this asshole really didn't want people calling his house, then he should update his contact info with eBay. Douchebag.

So, after that, if we tried to call, he'd hang up on us or not answer. We had UPS call to explain the situation and he hung up on them. What a dick.

So now, as mentioned, the package was found in the UPS distro center late yesterday, scanned in as "received" >_< yesterday, and was in his region last night, scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

We'll see how he reacts once his rage at having his instant gratification delayed has subsided and he has his widget in his grubby paws.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I can understand thinking that, since UPS has a site for tracking ground packages, they would scan them at each step like anything else so the site would actually work... and doubly can understand not wanting to pay more for faster shipping when it takes just as long to get there anyway. (The last several times I used "overnight" shipping, it was not the next day, but a day or two after that, when the thing showed up; why pay for what you're not getting?)

Blaming *you* or assuming the package was really lost when it hadn't been an unusually long time yet is, of course, entirely different

(The "we only scan those when we feel like it" information does help, though; the last thing I got showed a "location scan," I think it was, somewhere in California for two days, then a "departure" from there and an arrival in Georgia within a couple hours of each other, too close together even for air going that direction.)

[Canarr]

This might be a stupid question, but: why is this story here on Fratching, not on CS? Doesn't seem to controversial to me.

[Nekojin]

*shrug* I'm an active member here; I don't read CS these days.

[jackfaire]

I stopped checking tracking information because they will report that my package was picked up and is on it's way to me after it's been delivered then a few days later they will go "Oh btw we delivered your package"

[Lachrymose]

I order a crap-ton from Amazon.com. I've always had timely delivery.
BUT..it seems the driver always like to toss/slide/throw the packages on my porch.

I have a camera on my porch that picks up and records motion. But it never catches the driver because they never actually come up on the porch.

It only catches stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnV0iwZsZlY

You may have to reset it as soon as it plays, because although you can hear the sound, it's hard to see the flying package.

(Actually, this particularly delivery cracks me up. Luckily, it was only some tupperware type stuff. But still...)

[Rageaholic]

Perhaps I don't understand this, but it sounds like the majority of the suck was on the customer. I think he wanted an excuse to chew someone out.

[Nekojin]

Perhaps I don't understand this, but it sounds like the majority of the suck was on the customer. I think he wanted an excuse to chew someone out.

Yes, it was. No argument there. But UPS Customer Service exacerbated the problem by telling the customer that the package had never been picked up, and then made it worse by effectively falsifying the tracking info, showing it as having been "picked up" four days later than it was ACTUALLY picked up.

But yes, you're right, the majority of the suck comes from the customer.

[telecom_goddess]

I haven't had issues with UPS luckily. We have the same driver most of the time and she's really good.

BUT I did have an issue with USPS recently. I ordered some wireless adapters off Ebay, and an KVM switch. The switch arrived no problem. But the wireless adapters hadn't...I checked tracking around the 2nd or 3rd of July and it said it had been delivered on June 30th

So I contacted the local post office and talked with the carrier outside to try and figure out who was working on that day and what happened to it. I also checked with the apartment office people, and it wasn't anywhere to be found. Everyone claimed to know nothing about no package. So I give up and try to figure out if I can get a replacement...and on the next business day (July 5th) It shows up! gee for something that "no one knew anything about" it sure seemed to make it's way to me finally. Because I made a stink someone actually went looking for it I bet and probably found it on the truck or something.

Sigh....I'm lucky though that I generally don't have issues with deliveries.

[HYHYBT]

Some years ago, Mom had something or other that never showed up. The tracking site recorded it as having been left on her porch. Problem: she didn't HAVE a porch. Not even a little bit of one. Fortunately (or otherwise) a lot of people on that route that day complained of missing items.

[Canarr]

*shrug* I'm an active member here; I don't read CS these days.

Ah, okay; was just wondering.

[insertNameHere]

I hate shipping in general, we used to get mail order prescriptions through my dads work, it was fucking hilarious that a signature was REQUIRED to release the item, they just tossed $1000 street value of my brothers medication that was a controlled substance on the porch for anyone that walked up onto it to take home. Another time they put a package in the bush to hide it, worked really well because it wasn't found till AFTER the rain.