I needed to get some documents to my wife urgently last week. She was in Paris for the week and was leaving Friday at noon.
So I called into an Australia Post shop in the centre of Brisbane to find out the quickest way to get her the documents.
“Send it via Express Courier International – it will get there in 2 days,” they said.
“This is very important – she leaves her Paris hotel on Friday at noon. Will it get there?” asked I.
“Oh yes, Express Courier International parcels takes 2-4 days. No problem!”
I forked over $43 to send the letter and off I went, happy in the knowledge my wife would get the documents she needed.
Of course the letter didn’t arrive in time.
According to the useless tracking provided by Australia Post, delivery was attempted at 2.38 pm on Friday 27 March, 2009.
Now that letter will sit in a Parisian post office for 10 days before it gets returned to me.
In a call to Australia Post today the woman on the line said “Oh, 2-4 days is only a rough guide.”
Well that’s just great.
UPS To The Rescue
Okay, my wife headed to Switzerland for the weekend and then Munich for this week (she leaves Munich Thursday).
So I figured I could resend replica documents to her in Munich.
I checked the UPS web site and I was in luck! (Or so I thought)
They guaranteed delivery from Brisbane to Munich by 10.30 am Wednesday 1 April, 2009. Perfect!
My wife will be checking out of the hotel in Munich on Thursday 2 April, so no problem.
I didn’t trust the web site entirely, so I called UPS.
“Yes, guaranteed delivery to Munich. The only thing is we have to have the parcel dropped off at our Murarrie depot by 1.30 pm today,” said the UPS lady.
I wasn’t taking any chances, so jumped in the car and drove the 1.5 hours to Murarrie. I filled in the forms, ticked the right boxes and sent the parcel.
So there we have it, guaranteed delivery to Munich on Wednesday before 9.30 am.
Woooohoooo!
Checked UPS Tracking & It’s Turned To Crap Already
Just now I’ve jumped online to check the tracking provided by UPS.
It’s 8.5 hours after I dropped the parcel off and the delivery has already been rescheduled.
Just*%$#%^#* great!
The documents now get delivered anytime before close of business on Thursday 2 April 2009.
Yep, the day my wife leaves Munich. She checks out of the hotel at about 11 am.
A Worthless Guarantee
The UPS guarantee is obviously worthless if you actually want your parcel to get to where it’s going when they say they’ll deliver it.
I assume I’ll get all/a portion of the $93 back. But it’s not about the money. It’s about doing what you say you will.
If you can’t get the parcel to its destination on time, then don’t guarantee it.
Because all you’ll do is annoy people (like me) and damage your brand (that’s me badmouthing UPS on this web site).
What Business Is About
Business is about providing solutions for customers problems.
Customers will pay top dollar (i.e. $93 for an envelope to be delivered) if you can deliver the solution.
It ain’t that hard.
(And yep, I know that the tracking is an indication only and that the parcel can still be delivered when they originally said. But that’s not my point.)
Cheers
Brendon
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Um, don’t they have FedEx in Australia?
Brendon,
This is why tracking & gps has not been installed in our trucks as yet.
Just trying to control freight for South East Queensland is hard enough. There are ridiculous hold ups due to infrastructure that we are unable to work around efficiently, so if it can’t be done locally, how the hell do they think they can do it globally? Then, if you think I would give that info to my customers – you have got to be kidding!!!
We can guarantee the temperature, but, there is no way we can specify a time!
Good Luck – What about a fax? Email? Carrier Pigeon?
Howdy peter
Good to hear from you.
Yep, Fedex is here and I checked them out. Their guaranteed delivery was to be the Thursday which was 2 late.
Honesty/competency might not make you a sale, but at least it doesn’t screw your brand.
Cheers!
Brendon
Hi Brendon,
I don’t trust any of them! I have a standard discouraging email explaining the bad form that Fedex will put film makers through when they use them to get a parcel tracked to us!
Hey, why not set up a new system that a traveler from say Aust to France who is getting on a plane the day you need stuff delivered takes your important documents directly to France for you? a bit like a personal courier…. it could be a challenge to fine tune but could also be a brilliant solution.
I think the real problem is that the business ethos of these couriers is get the sale and get paid and then it is “all care, NO responsibility!”. Ultimately you WANT a delivery that is on time, as promised and NO crap.
They should offer a double your money back guarantee to back up their claims, If they under promise and over deliver, they would have far more happy customers.
I think I’m with you Philip
They just want the sale then that’s the end of it for them.
No-one cares as long as they make their numbers.
They need a need position there: “Person to provide solutions to problems and has the authority to get it done”.
A client of ours in Sydney sent documents to our HO in New Zealand via Aus Post International Express. Never arrived and they don’t know where they are.