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Click here to return to Bill Wood's Blog Pages.Absolutely Positively Unacceptable Customer Service22 August 2006 Frederick W. Smith Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer FedEx Corporation 942 South Shady Grove Road Memphis, TN 38120 Dear Mr. Smith: It is a pity that you personally will almost certainly never read the words that are about to follow. I hope that someone who cares about your company does read this letter and takes to heart the story I am about to relate. This is a story not just about the loss of a small account, but it is a story about a once great corporation that has somehow stumbled mightily in its capacity to serve its customer. On Saturday 12th August I received e-mail notification that an item I had ordered was shipping earlier than expected and was scheduled for delivery on Tuesday 15th August. (The shipment had the tracking number xxxxxxxxxxx.) I immediately called 1-800-GOFEDEX to explain that I needed to have this package delivery rescheduled for Monday 21st August since I was taking my summer vacation from 15th August through 20th August. No problem I was told. On Monday 14th August I received another e-mail indicating that this package was scheduled for delivery the next day (as per the prior notice). Once again, I immediately called your 800 number where I was told (1) FedEx has to make the first delivery attempt that was originally scheduled and (2) that my package was in fact rescheduled for delivery on Monday 21st August. On the morning of Wednesday 16th August, while on vacation, I checked the status of the package at your web site. To my great consternation, the web site showed that the package was on a truck scheduled for delivery later that day. Once again, I immediately called your 800 number to confirm that the delivery had been rescheduled for Monday 21st August. It was during this call that I first learned that the service responsible for delivering this package only operates on Tuesday through Saturday making a Monday delivery impossible. Curiously, the first two folks I had spoken were completely unfamiliar with the actual days of operation of your services. In any event, I then confirmed that the package would be delivered on Tuesday 22nd August. On Thursday 17th August, still on vacation and out of the country, I checked your website once again and saw that the package was on a truck for a third attempted delivery. Once again, I immediately called your 800 number here in the States to express my concern and to confirm that the delivery had been rescheduled for Tuesday 22nd August. I was told that it had. On Monday 21st August I called your toll free number a fifth time to confirm that the package would indeed be delivered the next day, 22nd August. I was told that it would be. Finally, this morning (22nd August) around 6:00 a.m., I went to your web site and saw to my utter disbelief that the package was not out for delivery but that it had been held at your Wilmington, Massachusetts facility where it was “available for pickup”. I immediately called your toll free number a sixth time where I was told by the agent who answered the call that all of the attempted delivery attempts had been made. At my request, I was then connected with a supervisor who basically made it clear that he was not empowered to do anything. After explaining my situation, I asked for the telephone for the Wilmington facility. He told me he couldn’t give it to me. I then asked him to have facility contact me. He said he could try but that it probably wouldn’t do any good. I calmly explained that if they didn’t contact me by 10:00 this morning that I would cease all future business with your company on account of the appalling service I have received thus far in connection with this shipment. The fact that you have this letter in front of you should confirm the obvious: no one from your Wilmington facility made an effort to contact me this morning. Given the record of the six calls I have made thus far, I see no choice now but to spend over an hour to drive over 30 miles to go pick this package up myself. As a result of this inconvenience and the incompetence which preceded it, I hereby request that you see that my personal FedEx account XXXXXXXXX, is permanently cancelled. What I still find hard to understand is why it is apparently not possible for a customer like myself to call your company 48 hours prior to a scheduled delivery (long before the package has reached the destination sort facility) to request that that delivery be rescheduled. That was exactly what I tried to do on that first call eleven days ago in order to save both FedEx and myself the inconvenience that has since ensued. I remember well when I was getting my MBA at Columbia Business School following my own graduation from Yale that FedEx was portrayed in one of the case studies we read as a veritable study in how to satisfy the customer. And, in all fairness, over the fifteen or so years that I have had my own FedEx account (during which time I used FedEx almost exclusively for all of my shipping needs), I have generally had pretty good experiences: certainly nothing that even begins to compare with the blunders and mistakes I have just described. There is undoubtedly an explanation for this story: it may be something as simple as a catastrophic failure of your organization to assimilate the RPS service which (as I understand it) has now become FedEx Ground and FedEx Home. In all truth, while I hope you care, I don’t. You’ve already lost me as a customer for the foreseeable future. And, if you don’t care, my guess is that others like me will follow. Sincerely, |
