UnderCurrent

Being originally from the state of Tennessee, naturally the instinct to pull for the “home state” company comes to mind with Fed Ex, that is Federal Express who are unaware of the abbreviated name change years ago. Fred Smith has done well over the last 30 some odd years with a startup idea back in the early 80’s and for that millions and millions of packages have made their destination, but some hasn’t. Consider Tom Hanks role in “Cast Away”, of course you realize that really did not happen! Working in the business where my company uses Fed Ex on a daily basis, Lots of consumers and myself, am NOT impress lately with the service of Fed Ex and not really sure what has happened over the last 5 years to this company giant. Being the brainchild of Fred Smith whose company began with a thesis at the University of Tennessee, it has ventured far from what was once it was. If my choices were Fed Ex or UPS, the latter would win out by a landslide! Case in point, when ordering supplies from Fed Ex just last week, the criteria that must be met for ordering something as simple as letter “sleeves” that hold the weigh bill have a “minimum” order of 200, and being my company only needed 20-30 to last about a month, the online order placed was followed up with a call from a Fed Ex representative from Vermont, she asked promptly why was 200 sleeves being ordered when their records showed our activity did not warrant that many sleeves?  At that point in our conversation getting very agitated and just butt- up angry to say the least, my reply was less than pleasant to the hapless lady who didn’t realize what she had just sit into motion.

Rough days seem commonplace now.

 My explanation was as follows…the supplies that were ordered ARE indeed needed because the quite large company whom these packages are being sent is probably your largest customer, (lets just say they sell and make automobiles and they didn’t take the bailout), my dealership indeed does not use these supplies under MY account number but under my large partner’s, so you see I am in the middle doing all the shipping and receiving and my mother company is the one fitting the bill, as per our agreement to serve our online customers! So you see when you look at my account, of course, it will not show the correct amount of supplies shipped because it is going through my mother company’s account number. But, all of this is SO irrelevant to my point, what does it matter that there is a minimum on orders in the first place? When an online order is submitted to UPS, anything that is ordered, is received the next day, no questions asked. My example of the stupidity of this phone call to my company by a Fed Ex rep is the same as my excuse not to give out one of my business cards to someone because being afraid they would toss it in the trash. And realizing it does cost money to produce these Fed Ex billboard envelopes and sleeves, but come on, is not having your name sitting on customer’s shelf at HIS business better than having it sitting on a shelf in a Fed Ex warehouse? My opinion is it goes much further, the upper management at Fed Ex has changed over the years and they are getting away from the customer service that got them to where they used to be. They are not the hunter but the hunted, they are not hunger anymore, is it too much business? There is an old saying from years gone by, “a fish smells from the head all the way to the back”, now, Fred Smith is a multi-billionaire no doubt, but the management actually handles the day-to-day services and Mr. Smith is not aware of what is happening around him, we can only hope that’s the case, if not, then they really have problems. Sometimes things aren’t what they seem but I really don’t think that’s the case here. The only advice to give the Fed Ex Corporation is you know nothing last forever and we realize you guys have been around since the early 80’s but to put that in perspective, compared to many other large corporations that have come and gone, that’s not really that long and it can end as fast as it began. Come on Fred Ex, get it together before it’s too late, we’re not splitting the atom here, it a delivery service, from point A to point B. For the most part, in my opinion, Fed Ex sublet out their ground service to outside privately owned “vendors”, they could care less about Fed Ex, they care only about their own agenda, seems that’s the norm now for many companies. The ground delivery person pulls up in a damn Ryder truck, then gets out wearing a Fed Ex uniform and with an attitude. When confronted about the service they give you a smartass look AND answer, “That’s not my problem, I work for myself, not Fed Ex.” But to put it all in perspective the country has changed, as the current administration wanted, and this isn’t a political rant, outsourcing I’m certain saves money, but the service always suffers. If companies would live by the creed “under promise and over deliver” everyone would win, no matter how cute

their Super Bowl commercials are!

This entry was posted on February 4, 2012 at 1:47 AM and is filed under Controversial Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.