UPS: Tracking and Customer Service Failure

Rate this post
Photo by William J.

Recently I ranted about UPS’s delays and customer service level – oh, boy, little did I know then just how bad UPS Customer Service can really get.

Four out of five packages I dropped off at the same UPS store a 2 weeks ago still showed “Billing Information Received” status a week later. In UPS lingo this means the shipping label was created, but the package was never received by the company. There’s nothing to track, as far as UPS is concerned, the package really doesn’t exist. This was what the Customer Service agent repeatedly told me anyway, further explaining that the only way this could have happened if I either did not send the packages at all, or did not properly attach the labels.

Of course she did not have an explanation on how the fifth package safely arrived in the meantime – after all, I did not dropped them off at UPS according to her theory. If it’s not in the system, it doesn’t exist. Only when I asked her if she was accusing me of lying did she change tone, and recommended we put a tracer on the lost packages. Since these were returns to ShoeBuy using their return labels, they were considered the shipper, not me, so they had to initiate the trace.

ShoeBuy is a company with amazingly good Customer Service – since Zappos is often referred to as to epitome of Customer Service, let’s just say ShoeBuy is like Zappos, often with lower prices. They picked up my email immediately, and they probably carry some weight with UPS, since the non-existent packages were found in no time. The tracking information below tells the whole story:

The packages never entered UPS’s tracking system, there’s no sign whatsoever that I ever sent them from California, yet they miraculously showed up at the destination, ready for delivery upon ShoeBuy’s inquiry. So much for the rock-solid tracking system…I understand the first step, i.e a UPS store clerk forgetting to scan the received packages, which then got loaded on the truck anyway, but how were 4 packages then able to bypass all further stages of scanning?

But let’s finish this post on a positive note: it’s a story of good Customer Service, after all – just not by UPS. ShoeBuy, upon finding what happened, immediately refunded my money, before they even received the packages from UPS. Wow! They know something about keeping customers happy.

You are viewing this post: UPS: Tracking and Customer Service Failure. Information curated and compiled by Kayaknv.com along with other related topics.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here