frank theriault wrote: > UPS won't dump the residential deliveries, because they want > to be "Your One Stop Courier Company". They want > secretaries, rececptions and mail room guys to have one > courier company on their speed dial, for all their needs.
Whichever company delivers 'whatever to wherever', should be in the business of aiming for 100% success, not by nature of being at the top of the list of agents to call. > If such businesses have to think, "Hmmm... Is this an in > town or out of town delivery? Do I call UPS or the local > guys? Is this overnight, or one hour service?", then that > confuses them. Much easier to have one number to call. You > start calling other companies and you get sales people > dropping by, telling you that they can provide services > similar to UPS for much much less. UPS loses a customer, or > their business is much diminished. I have no doubt you're right, but I would expect mailroom staff to know the best and most efficient way (cost & time) of getting something delivered. No doubt many companies simply negotiate a contract for all deliveries - but surely someone monitors performance of this for negotiating the next contract period? > I'm always amazed when I go into an office and see the UPS > pile for out of town overnights. I'll say, "you know, we do > overnights out of town, too, and way cheaper than UPS (or > Fedex, or whoever)". They had no idea. They should. No excuse there. > And, to be honest with you (as someone who works in the > business), I can tell you that the average receptionist or > mailroom staffer really doesn't care if the package gets > delivered. They care if the package gets off their desk. > Right now. So that when the boss comes, they can say, "Yup, > it's gone. Went out an hour ago." Then it's not their > problem any more. Not delivered? UPS screwed up, not me. > Call tracking, they'll fix it. This is a culture that needs to be changed. It's not good enough to say it's gone - it needs to be delivered and the customer will think of both the supplier and the deliverer. Of course it depends on the value of the items being sent - think of the threads here about choices of delivery from camera stores on high value items - but if you are sending something to someone, it has a value. Why should any delivery company change it's performance figures if the senders don't much care. The real irony here, is they aren't even paying for it. It's the recipient who picks up the bill for the item & the delivery!! Malcolm
