Why do customers always blame you when it is the post offices fault

mis-directed blame and the USPS

[lgn]

Shipping from Canada to the USA, we are pretty well forced to deal the United States Post Office (USPS), as UPS shipments are to expensive to be competitive.

Unfortunattly, USPS shipping guidelines are often violated, and the customer gets their parcel late.

When the customer complains, they think it is our fault. We tell them the parcel was shipped on the agreed date, by the agreed method and here is your tracking number. However quite a few customers still think its our fault they did not get their parcel.

I wish customers would take there blame out on the USPS, not on us.

Has anybody else encountered this experince with USPS, and have the same issue with customers.

[pendanticist]

Unfortunattly, USPS shipping guidelines are often violated, and the customer gets their parcel late.

Could you elaborate on "...USPS shipping guidelines are often violated..."?

Pendanticist.

[gsx]

NEVER promise a delivery date for international order or those you cannot guarantee.

Promise the date it will be despatched only. Email them when it is despatched with the tracking number. They can check immediately then.

[pmac]

Yup, just ran up against this 5 mins ago. I Never promise a specific delivery day, but instead give a fairly broad window. Luckily, this is met the majority of the time. Surprisingly, I find the USPS a very reliable shipping method.

I try to keep in mind that the customer is frustrated and do my best to try and satisfy them by any reasonable means.

[lgn]

Im finding a 5% scheduled delivery failure rate with USPS. For Canada Post its about 0.1%.

US Customs should not be a problem as we keep individual packages below $200 US, and we have the
'Duty free under NAFTA' stamped over the parcel.

We have been told that duty free shipments are ussually held for less than 24 hours at the border, and we are at 1 in 10000 with duty being charged in error. At a 0.01 error rate, im happy at least with US Customs.

[pshea]

The USPS began to offer "Priority Service" for shipping within the USA a few years back and a lot a lot of small businesses have taken advantage of the service. This has put more pressure than ever on the USPS to move packages through rapidly. From outside the US, I don't think you have options for speedier service that would cause the USPS to put your packages in the "hot box" for faster movement. So I suspect these packages don't get premier attention at the warehouse. Just guessing here . . .

It's been my experience that the cost of shipping has little to do with a customer's decision in making a purchase. To save yourself the aggravation when shipping to the US, why not avoid the USPS entirely and go with one of the commercial services? I doubt anyone would balk particularly if you explained the stark realities.

[pmac]

>The USPS began to offer "Priority Service<

Actually this service is available to Canadians shipping to the US and is known as Express Post. I don't know what my failure rate is, but I think I would be safe in saying it is less than 5%.

[lgn]

Yes the Express Post is better.

Actually in April of 2003, Canada Post is replacing ground service (which is the major cause of the problem) with Expedited Ground to the US. Hopefully this will solve the problem.

I remember a customer a week after 9/11, complaining that her Air mail did not arrive on time. We explained that the only thing flying was F18's flying CAP. And this lady was from New York City. She still felt it was our fault and not Osama bin Laden :o

[remoteoffice]

We had a huge storm here last week, and it shut down UPS for 2 days. A customer called me Thursday yelling that she recived her pakg 2 days late and wanted a refund.
In her case we actually shipped same day, I told her we are not responsible for acts of GOD.
I really hate when people try and take advantage of a situation.
She told me she was calling her lawyer, I spelled my name for her and told her I would like her to call him.
I know he would tell her she is being looney!

Gotta Love people!
Beth
<snip>

[edited by: engine at 4:54 pm (utc) on June 23, 2003]
[edit reason] No sigs, thanks. See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[aspdaddy]

We used the post office guaranteed next day delivery to send travel docs, If I remberer correct it cost around £14 to send a letter to London.

When it diddnt arrive the post office blamed the sub-contractors :(

[Jane_Doe]

We had an overnight deliver from USPS that was indeed delivered overnight - to some house down the street. We didn't end up getting the package for a week or so.

[born2drv]

Ground mail to the US is "supposed" to take 5-8 business days. I ship it and tell them it will be 10-12. If they don't like it, they can pay more to get it shipped quicker. If they get it in 5 days, then everyone is happy.

Even for overnight, I always say "1-2 business days, depending on your region" or something like that. Always OVER-estimate shipping time that quote you.