Today I went to the local UPS Store to drop off a portfolio I had reviewed. The photographer had provided a return label, but I needed a new UPS box into which to put the portfolio. Now mind you, the store was an official UPS Store, branded UPS, and the first to come up on the UPS site when I searched for a local UPS location. It’s not a Postal Annex or some other store.
So, imagine my surprise when the worker there told me “We don’t carry UPS boxes.”
“Wait–you are a UPS Store, right?”
“Yup.”
“But you don’t have UPS boxes?”
“Nope.”
“You’re telling me I have to buy a box from you in order to use the prepaid shipping label I have here?
“Yup.”
“I don’t think so.” I said, and headed out the door.
Of course, when I got back to my desk I called UPS to let them know about this awful service, after all, a good company would want to know that their representatives are essentially scamming their customers. After being put on hold while she checked, the nice customer service person said, “That store isn’t owned by us so they have the perrogative not to provide UPS supplies.”
I was stunned. I said, “But the store is branded UPS. That makes your company look terrible! You should pass this on to your marketing department…”
“It’s that store’s perrogative, Ma’am. There’s nothing we can do,” the voice said in an obviously bored and disinterested voice.
“Thanks.”
“Thanks for calling UPS! Have a nice day.”
What marketing or customer service department thinks that after telling a customer that they don’t care about you or how their business looks to the outside world, saying “have a nice day” is a good idea? I’ll tell you: a lousy one.
Don’t act like UPS. Even if you can’t do anything about “it,” find something you can do. If the woman had said “I’m sorry about that, can we send a driver with the box–there will be one in your neighborhood today” or “Here’s the address where you can get the supplies you need,” that would have been much better.
This must be a standard UPS thing.
I had a similar experience. My wife needed a few UPS boxes to return a book she
had been working on [proofreading]. I have a UPS account at my studio & the business next door has a UPS pickup everyday, so I will pickup a few, wrong. The UPS driver had none & the business next door had none.
OK, Staples has a UPS store and is on my way home, sort of, so I will stop & get boxes. I got the same story “We don’t carry UPS boxes but you can buy ours.”
I finally got boxes [online] but I had to order 20, by then I had forgotten the size so I got 20 of each size, I now have a lot of boxes. And so it goes.