Thursday, December 11, 2014

Love Affair with FedEx


In B-schools, when one hear of companies like FedEx, one associates them with excellent performance, top tier companies, who care for all the stakeholders including customers. FedEx was one such brand in my mind until my recent disillusionment. Being an optimist, I would say they forced me to come out of slumber to write on my blog again.

Let me take privilege to share my experience in details. In mad rush of thanksgiving, I and my wife decided to order lot of stuff online including a coffee table and a dinning set. Well, the easiest part is to pay and then wait for package to come. Well it is that time when excitement sometimes turns into anxiousness and making sure that you are present so as not to miss a delivery ( Coming from developing country, I can tell that you guys don’t know this excitement yet, Some poor courier guy will call you to confirm if you are at home thus spoiling all the excitement) . On Monday the 8th, while checking the status, I found that my coffee table package (Tracking Id: 223979432699931) is already delivered. Well, I didn’t know of invisible packaging till that time. I checked all across, neighbors, leasing office but of no help. Finally, I decided to call FedEx in the evening. Lady on the phone assured me that they will ask driver to get in touch and asked to provide 2 day time period for investigation on this. Well, I still believed, it was a minor mishap and everything will be all right pretty soon.

9th was even more exciting day for me. I was hoping that they will continue the mishap and probably I might end up getting someone else’s more precious package.  Well not so lucky and I can say that law of averages is a fallacy. To my amusement, I found my package containing a dinning set (Tracking ID: 625468687521) could not be delivered due to incomplete address. I called up again and a smart agent checked the address. I gave it all right, but someone somewhere missed something. I asked about first package as well but the SLA was 2 days. Being in IT and an active user of SLA umbrella to save in a mad corporate world, I had to shutup and wait for the godly driver to call me. Day was about to end and no wonder optimist in me was much more excited now than ever for next day.

10th was a better day to start as my wife had a pot lunch planned at her friends place. She was planning to propose next pot lunch at our house under the surmise that we will receive the deliverables. I opened all the blinds so as not to miss Fedex guys. In afternoon, I saw FedEx truck near my house. I was at the peak of excitement but ended up disheartened once again. I called up multiple times and super-efficient service desk of FedEx behaved like a beautiful self-obsessed lady and took 4 attempts to hear me out. I love service desks for this call drop feature. Fourth time as soon as I got the agent, I gave her my number as I am a non-believer in law of averages. She assured me once again. At times, I feel service desk agents should be appointed to help mourners to cope with loss.

In the evening, when I finally left hope, I heard a knock. It was the dinning set. In last few days, this simple piece of furniture has become the reason of my existence. I almost pulled it from the delivery guy. I never knew that FedEx can surprise me once again. The package was improper, open from one side showing a peek of the broken table. Well, it was enough to force me to write this blog. Anyways, I have reached to the seller for return of the dinning set. Optimist in me is hopeful that probably world famous fedex will learn something from competition and deliver my packages - on time, all fine.

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