“Sorry” isn’t customer service
Today I went to the local UPS Store near my house. I needed to ship a check payment overnight to a vendor in Southern California using their UPS account (per the vendor’s instructions). The man behind the counter asked “How can I help you”.
“I need to ship this check and letter to this address overnight on this account” I accentuated the “thises” by pointing at the appropriate spots on paperwork in front of me.
“Sorry, we don’t have any waybills here so we can’t ship on the other persons account”
“Ummm…thanks.”
I know I’ve shipped on someone else’s UPS account before at the UPS store, but the guy behind the counter didn’t offer any other explanation and just moved on to the next customer.
Were they just out of the forms? Is this a new policy? Can a store down the street do it? What are my other options to get it shipped?
Sure, those are questions I could have asked. They are also answers that the employee (he actually looked like the manager/owner) could have proactively offered in an effort to offer outstanding service instead of just meh.
After picking up my daughter from school, I drove to the next closest UPS Store, determined to get the item shipped.
“How can I help you?” asked the newish looking employee behind the counter.
“I need to ship this check and letter to this address overnight on this account” Again, I accentuated the “thises” by pointing at the appropriate spots on paperwork in front of me :)
“We no longer carry the waybills in the store that allow us to ship on 3rd party accounts. UPS doesn’t allow us at UPS Stores to ship on 3rd party accounts anymore. As an alternative, you could login to the UPS.com website and ship under their account. We have a computer you can use right there to login if you have their info. If not, you could print it at home and bring it back. Our Next Day Air delivery pickup time is about 4:30, so if you can bring it back by 4:00, you should be good to go”
“Thanks!” this time I meant it.
Now that’s customer service.
Granted,he seemed to be a new employee who was just getting trained…but here’s hoping that he remembers that level of interaction after he’s been doing the job for awhile.
I ended up shipping the check and letter out via USPS Priority Mail for $4.75 from my own home using Endicia and slipping it in the mailbox for my mail carrier to pick it up :)
