...and the gift I ordered my wife was still not here. I had ordered something online on 12/28 with 2-day shipping via FedEx. I figured that it would arrive on Thursday but, leaving room for unexpected delay, thought it would arrive on Friday in the worst case scenario.

It’s now Monday the 24th and we never got the package. Here is the online tracking:

I was annoyed that the packaged didn’t arrive by Friday, so I called customer service, who assured me that it would be delivered by the 24th at the latest. As you can imagine, I was pretty upset that today was the 24th and they didn’t even bother putting the package on the truck. They determined it was a business holiday—although not a holiday for them, us, or even the US government!

When I called customer service to find out why my package wasn’t delivered, they told me that it was a busy time and they couldn’t get to it. For four days?!? They were completely unapologetic and even went as far as to imply that I might have received my package by Christmas if I had ordered it earlier.

Unbelievable.

Ironically, I ordered a package via UPS 2-day (Amazon Prime default) on Friday, and it arrived this morning. That’s right, it was early.

I’ve never had a serious problem with any of the major shipping companies in the past, so they were sort of a commodity to me. Not anymore. I will now actively avoid FedEx and talk trash about them anytime I can. When I receive a package from the FedEx guy, I will pretend it smells bad and then will act like I didn’t really want whatever came in it.

Sure, I was disappointed that the package will be late, but the real kicker was the awful customer service experience. My company has made mistakes from time to time and I couldn’t image telling a client to take a hike. I understand that things like this happen, but handling the situation poorly multiplies the effect.

This gift is for my wife, who can take the delay in stride. I couldn’t image what it would be like if this was for one of my kids. How could I explain to them that Santa didn’t bring them their gift because he was surprised that there were so many gifts to deliver this year? These guys could have really screwed me. 12/24/2007 10:58:51 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]