Shipping and Murphys Law

[MacKay71]

We see mail strewn along the tarmac at the airport all the time!

[GMan]

Follow the bouncing Kilt.

[SoulFyre777]

Reminds me of an Eddie Izzard classic quote from "Dressed to Kilt".... I mean "Kill":

"...This is from Poland! And if you don’t know the geography, it goes Poland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Venezuela, Africa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon… and then Switzerland..."

[BroosterB1]

Don't you wish that that box could talk?

Is that what you would call Road Kilt? <ducking and running away>

[hospitaller]

You guessed it. It was the Kilt that was supposed to have arrived in TX three months before.

The customer in Texas had never contacted me to inquire about his Kilt and I thought the Kilt had be delivered.

Don't you wish that that box could talk?

Yeah, so, what was the end of your story?

Did you delivered again, what did the customer say of all this?

.

[gilmore]

And the USPS customer service people are the worst! Indifferent, rude, insulting, full of excuses for shortcomings. It seems that having government jobs that they can't be fired from, they just don't care, for the most part. I have yet to encounter even one who accepted responsibility for a problem and went out of his way to help.

Correction: USPS is no longer exactly a governmental entity.

[RockyR]

And the USPS customer service people are the worst! Indifferent, rude, insulting, full of excuses for shortcomings. It seems that having government jobs that they can't be fired from, they just don't care, for the most part. I have yet to encounter even one who accepted responsibility for a problem and went out of his way to help.

Agreed... their CS skills over the phone are virtually non-existant and GETTING to a live person is a challenge in itself!

The ONLY 2 things that I will say in DEFENSE of the Post Office is this:

1. 99.9% of the time, they have delivered our packages with no nproblems (which is more than I can say for DHL, FedEx, and UPS). One of my favorite sayings... 'if you don't make a mistake, you don't need good customer service to fix the problem'. The issue becomes that .1%

2. They're much less expensive than their competitors (from what I've been quoted from each company). When sending a couple dozen packages a day, that really adds up.


BTW... for what it's worth, I've found a good way to get results is to go to your local post office and speak (NICELY... realize it wasn't THEM that made the mistake) to the clerk or postmaster. Having them help you wade through the sea of red tape will sometimes yield FANTASTIC results. Generally, they're a little better at helping than the phone maze you have to go through to get information about a lost package you already know from their website... hahaha

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I had a customer call once to complain that a kilt had not been delivered. It was one that I knew had already been shipped (FedEx Home Delivery) so I went on line to track it. FedEx said it was delivered to the address 11 days prior. So I called the customer back to let him know and he said no, it was not delivered. So I got on the phone with our FedEx account representative to try to see what could be sorted out. Worse comes to worse I figure we'd have to file a claim on the lost package and remake the customer's kilt. First step is to get FedEx to do a search for the package.

FedEx is supposed to get back with me in approximately 24 hours. If they can't find it I'll file the claim and replace the customer's kilt.

Later that day, however, the customer calls again. "Oops, nevermind!" he says. He found the kilt. It was sitting on his porch by the front door. Had been for 11 days, it seems. Customer says he always goes in and out by his back door and never thought to check the front porch for the package.

You ship enough things to enough people and you get all kinds of stories like this.... there was the guy whose neighbor signed for a package for him... then neglected to ever tell him. The only way we figured that one out was when he called to say he had not received the package and we tracked it for him. "Seems like it was delevered last week, sir, and signed for by a Mrs. _____." "Oh!, that's my neighbor, she sometimes collects packages for me, I'l' go ask her." Turns out she just forgot to let him know it had arrived.

About the worst I saw was a Christmas present that a wife had ordered to be delivered to her husband's work address. We shipped it to his company, and the company mailroom delivered it -- to the wrong person. Turns out there was another man who worked on the same floor with a very similar name. It took a lot of investigation to figure out what happened in that case, but what floored me was that the guy who mistakenly recieved the package had it for about two weeks and never once thought to walk down the hall and give it to the right guy.

[KiltedPilot]

Man, I'll have to remember that living here in Japan.:

I'd like to SING the praises of one particular national postal service -- Japan Post.

I've frequently ordered items from Japan (chef's knives mainly). Shipping is US$7 by post. The packages always leave Japan within about 5 hours after posting, and arrive in Vancouver, Canada the next day. Of course, they then take 2 days to clear customs, and arrive at my house only 40 miles away.

Even so, a consistently reliable international 3 day trans-Pacific delivery for US$7, is amazing. On one occasion I ordered knives from Japan and Quebec at the same time -- they both arrived at the same time, but the domestic postage rate was 4x higher. Similar shipments sent via USPS to Canada take 1-2 weeks, even though the distance might only be a few hundred miles.

I recommend all the kilt companies relocate to Japan! With Stillwater's amazing shipping, Japan Post's efficiency, and the International Date Line, Jerry will be able to deliver his kilts before you even order them.

KP

[KiltedPilot]

USPS had (maybe still have) a partnership with FedEx for reselling FedEx's express courier services. USPS take the parcel and fee at their counters, and hand it to FedEx for delivery.

A supplier once used USPS to send a FedEx package to me using a guaranteed 2 day delivery. 2 days later -- no sign. I was able to obtain the tracking number, and it turned out that USPS had not gotten around to giving the package to FedEx yet. Only on the third (business) day did USPS give FedEx the guaranteed 2-day delivery parcel, which FedEx delivered next day.

KP