An open letter to anyone planning on calling the courier companies to bitch about the lateness of your Mother's Day deliveries:
Before you make your call, could you please make sure they're actually the ones to blame?
Here are a few quick tips:
Know the difference between the shipper (the company or individual from whom you ordered the delivery), the courier (the company hired by the shipper to physically make the delivery), and the consignee (the company or individual who will be receiving the delivery). If you order from Amazon and they ship via UPS, Amazon is the shipper and UPS is the courier. If you have the package shipped to yourself, you are the consignee. If you have it shipped to your office so your mailroom can sign for it, your company is the consignee and you are the company's representative. And if you have it shipped to your mom, your mom is the consignee and you are her representative.
Same as step 1.
The courier company does not know or care what's inside your package. Their concern is delivering the package based on the commitment time agreed to between themselves and the shipper.
See step 1.
The person at the call center for the courier is not the courier or the shipper. Screaming at him or her is not only not going to solve your problem, it's going to make it harder to solve, because while you are on hold for the agent to research and obtain a valid response to the issue, he or she is telling everybody what an asshole you are as well. This is called multitasking.
When you have a lost package, it is not your responsibility to track it down. Your shipper is supposed to work with the courier on your behalf. Contact the shipper. If you would prefer to call the courier's tracking department, feel free, but be advised that they may not have the shipper information. Do you know why? Because they do not know or care what is in your delivery. They only have to deliver it. You should have all of the shipper information from when you placed your order.
If you want to track a package, make sure you have your tracking number. If you don't have it, don't call the courier looking for it. They don't have it till you tell it to them. You know who has it? Your shipper. See step 1.
If your delivery is late, think about why it might be late. If the shipper gave it to the courier late, it's not the courier's fault. They can't begin the delivery process before they have the parcel. See step 1.
If your mom is not home when the courier tries to deliver, that's still not the courier's fault. And again, it's not that they don't care whether your mom was at the doctor's, the supermarket, the hairdresser's, or having a nice cup of tea with their kid, the one who cares enough to have her over for a regular visit rather than sending a flower arrangement a few times a year; they just don't have any need to know. Your sob story does not change the courier's responsibilities — the solution will be the same no matter what the reason. The courier can have the package located and a time of redelivery scheduled long before you can finish attempting to make them feel guilty. Don't bother.
Oh, and if you placed the order at the last minute, you're to blame. Don't call anybody trying to get them to take the heat for your inability to plan. Alternately, you could request your order be delivered via TARDIS Express, where it absolutely, positively, has to get there yesterday.
All that having been said, I placed my own Mother's Day order well in advance, it was delivered on time and in excellent condition, and the company called the Mom to make sure she was home.
As far as the tea is concerned, I am too far away geographically to invite her to drop by, so I had her orchids delivered in a teacup.
To all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day.
To all you muthas out there (and you know who you are — you're the ones who will be ignoring this open letter and calling the couriers to scream about the fact that you asked them to leave the package on the porch, and they did, but the dog that you didn't know your mother had gotten since the last time you called her lifted its leg to it), you might want to just plan better for next year, mkay?
And call your mama, before it gets to the day when you're wishing you could call her and cannot.
Weblog-Index