If you are in the book business chances are your depend on courier services. This time of year a lot of people do, but let me tell you that if you deal with
and didn’t get your package, they really don’t give a damn and would rather you not bother them about it. If they just chose to toss your parcel on the
“abandoned” package pile….oh well!I had a package which I was monitoring closely. When the tracker showed they had tried to deliver the package but could not, I called immediately. For the record, UPS never did show up at my door so they did not try to deliver the package.
The first challenge was trying to speak to someone in support. The UPS voicemail jail will walk you through numerous prompts, not one of which will give you an option to speak to a real live person. If you are stubborn enough and let the voicemail prompts repeat often enough, a real person will eventually come on the line.
I had a good experience with this first customer support representative. They identified the problem, said they fixed it and I would be receiving my parcel in 2 days. I was satisfied.
UPS never delivered my parcel….
I called back, waited for the voicemail jail to repeat over and over, and finally got another real person. I gave them my tracking number as which point they informed me that my package had been marked as “abandoned” on the same day I spoke with the first person in customer support. I took a deep breath and asked them to review the call log on my file because I had a conversation with their department and it was supposed to be delivered. With a little persistence the support person “found” the case file, recognized they had not done what they said they would do, and committed to chasing down the error and having my package delivered in 5 days. It was over Christmas so I begrudgingly accepted this and waited.
UPS never delivered my parcel….again….
Once again I went through the voicemail jail challenge and got a live person. Once more I was told I abandoned my parcel except this time they said there was nothing they could do about it. Once again I had to push for them to actually read my case file, but they were insistent that it was my fault and there was nothing they could do about it.
Now I have some knowledge of call center protocols, and I am aware that all the first line workers want to do is get you off the phone so their call handling time is minimal. I wasn’t going to let this happen and insisted my call be escalated, which it was. The person it was escalated to gave me the same first response as the others, I had abandoned my package and their was nothing they could do, and only with insisting she take a moment to review the full case file, and I walked through each call with her. She acknowledged there was an error made on their end, and promised to follow up with a call or email within 24 hours to let me know when I would receive my package and why it had been marked as abandoned.
UPS never delivered my parcel…again…and they never called back
Once more I broke through voice mail jail, got a real person, explained that I never received the call back, email, or parcel, which he insisted I abandoned. His response “So what do you want me to do about it?” admittedly pissed me off a little, but I tried to calmly walk through all of the calls I made and insist he review the case file. He just repeatedly interrupted me and insisted there was nothing he could do. I told him straight out he was too busy interrupting and obviously not looking at the case file at all so I needed the call escalated immediately.
I was sent to call waiting jail….for a long time.
Eventually he came back on the line and said his supervisors must be in a meeting, so he would have them call me back. I wasn’t falling for that crap again! I insisted that he leave me on hold until a supervisor picked up or he could escalate the call to a manager that wasn’t in the “meeting”.
Back to call waiting jail…..
When the supervisor finally answered I had to go through all the same crap all over again. You abandoned the package. No I didn’t look at your case file and call log. You never called us. Yes I did and here is the case file number. Oh, you did call us….blah…blah…blah. So apparently now they are trying to find my package in overgoods and arrange for delivery. I don’t hold any hope. UPS just doesn’t care about customer service, so now I am posting this here and many other places for posterity.
Maybe a real manager at UPS will review the phone calls and case file, like I specifically requested on the last call and was promised, but I doubt it. If they really wanted to help customers they would include an option to talk to a real person in their voicemail jail. They don’t want to help, and when you do force them on the phone they just want to get you off. All the information is right there in front of them on their screens when they pull up your tracking number. Rather than take some time and review the case notes they give you the first, easiest explanation, then try and get you off the phone.
Long story short…Don’t use UPS if you can avoid it. It is just that simple.
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