Whether smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, Memorial Day weekend or any ordinary day during the year, UPS employees realize how the little things — perfectly executed — can have a huge impact.
All UPSers are directly responsible for the success of our deliveries and the satisfaction of our customers. Recently, we asked them about some of their most memorable customer experiences.
Here are a few examples of what they shared with us:
Larry – Georgia
During my initial years with UPS – at a time before tracking numbers and package visibility – I worked during the night sorts at several hubs. It was a regular practice if Christmas Eve was during the week to have packages that appeared to be presents that had been missorted that day consolidated and distributed to the management team relative to wherever they lived or were traveling to for Christmas. You cannot imagine the feeling you got when you knocked on someone’s door on Christmas day with a present and experienced the gratitude they expressed for going beyond their expectations to make their holidays special.
Bruce – New York
A while back, we managed to get Diana Ross’ dress delivered just in time for a concert at Madison Square Garden.
Amy – Kentucky
I had a customer that exported large air freight shipments of live lobsters to Guam every Friday night. They had to move on a very specific routing, because the packaging only kept the lobsters alive for 72 hours.
I was on call late one Friday night of Memorial Day weekend when I received a call from the airline’s trucker saying that they missed the flight out. I had no idea what to do, but there was $40,000 worth of live lobsters headed back to Louisville, and I had to find a way to get them back in the tank before the time ran out.
I did not have a cell phone number for any one there, but my contact there had a somewhat uncommon last name, so I whipped out the white pages and started calling every number for that last name in Louisville. “Hello do you work at XYZ Lobster Company?” After about 10 calls, I found him. He recognized my voice, and his first response was “Why are you calling me at home?” When he heard what had happened he was ecstatic because he was on the way out the door to go to the lake when I called. Fortunately there was a happy ending – we got all the lobsters back in the tank in time, safe and sound.
Timothy – California
A manager for a nonprofit organization came running into the customer counter in a panic. She had a grant proposal that had to get to Washington, D.C., the next day. The East Coast air driver was already on his way to the airport. She thought all was lost, but I quickly processed the package and contacted the driver and asked him to meet her before the airport. The driver met her and got the document pack to the airplane in time. Our customer came in to the customer counter a day later overjoyed that their grant had gotten to D.C. in time. She let me know how much her nonprofit needed the grant to continue their work in the community. What I thought was just another day at UPS sometimes means so much more to our customers and community.
John – Missouri
About five years ago we got a new stadium in St. Louis. As the new stadium went up, the old one came down. Team ownership made available to the fans an opportunity to purchase a set of seats from the old Busch. UPS set up shop at the old Busch Stadium and got down to the business of boxing up all those seats and getting them to some very rabid fans. Each stop was a pleasure. Some were season ticket holders, some were employees, some just had to have a set, but all were excited to see me and share some of there favorite Cardinals memories.
Jason – South Dakota
The following customer letter explains my best customer experience:
“On Thursday, October 18, I needed to send an overnight package. My wife works for me and usually does all my shipping, but she was out that afternoon and this package needed to go and be delivered on Friday, so I prepared the necessary paperwork and called for a UPS pickup. What I didn’t realize at that time was I had used the Second Day Air booklet and blue label on this package. I checked the overnight box on the form and I thought everything was good to go.
The next day at around 4 p.m., I received a call from the person who was expecting the package letting me know that it hadn’t arrived yet. I asked my wife to call UPS and run a check on the package so we could determine where it was. She then informed me that it was scheduled for delivery on Monday morning. This was a major problem because the package included football tickets for a game that started on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
I quickly called the UPS number and the person was very professional and helpful. Through a series of questions and answers she was able to tell me that my package was in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, station and was being sorted for final delivery.
She then told me that she would contact the Sioux Falls station and that they would try to locate my package, and if they were successful someone would call me. About 30 minutes later, Jason Bouwman called me and informed me he had my package in his hand. At that point in time, I was about ready to drive the six hours myself and deliver the tickets, but Jason informed me that if he could work it out around his son’s sports practice he would actually drive half way down to Sioux City, Iowa, and meet my client to deliver the package. I arranged a conference call to get us all together, exchange information and to set the meeting location. At 9:39 p.m. later that same evening, I received another call from Jason, saying that he was with UPS and my package had been delivered.
That is what Brown did for me. After I made the mistake that caused the whole crisis, two very professional UPS employees went the extra mile to serve the customer.”
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