UPS in South Africa a crap experience

I’ve been driven demented over the years by shoddy-to-shocking service from courier companies. That’s about the breadth of the continuum. Narrow and consistently dreadful. From the Post Office’s Speed Services, to DHL to Sun Couriers, on and on. So yesterday, being midway through reading the almost hagiographic book ‘The World is Flat’, by Thomas L. Friedman, featuring UPS big-time, I thought I’d give ’em a try on a tiny but urgent delivery to Melbourne in Oz. Dear God, what a disaster!

 

I’m not going to bore you with the ludicrous chain of incompetence and lies – yes, twice on the same issue from two different people! But I have it all chronologically logged, with names.

As you know, escalating anything that’s routed through a call-centre these days is well nigh impossible. But I did get to a supervisor at 16:30 who swore she’d sort it and get back to me. Still waiting for your call, ma’am!

This morning I thought what the hell. Surely if UPS is this global phenomenon in terms of the size of its ‘airforce’ and logistics/supply chain hubs, they’ll be interested to hear how truly crappy the local UPS SCS operation is in South Africa.

Clearly though, UPS believe their own PR and what Thomas Friedman’s been writing about them. Because there is no mechanism on their (very extensive) website via which you can lodge a complaint. There are many other websites bitching mightily about the perceived arrogance and alleged ‘don’t give a darn’ attitude of UPS around the world, but nuthin’ that I can track to UPS itself.

The cherry on the top was the driver who finally did pitch at 17:15 and attempted to gippo the collection time on the waybill to 16:30 until I forced him to put the carbonised copies together, scratch out the lie and re-write the correct time. I asked for a spare waybill and he tore one off, leaving a sizable chunk of the bottom right corner missing. So the shoddy service goes right through to the smallest detail in Johannesburg it  would seem. Not a good experience. I wonder if UPS senior management know what doing business with their outlet in South Africa is like?

http://www.imbizo.com

Comments

[Gavin Wilson]

UPS in the UK, in my experience, is equally crap. I live in the London suburbs. Each day for the past four days, I have used their fairly impressive Web site to watch my parcel being checked out of the Croydon depot at 5 a.m. and returned to the depot at about 8 p.m., with no attempt at delivery in between. When I phone up UPS, I have to hang on for 15 minutes to speak to a human, and, while waiting, the messages give you no idea where you are in the queue.

UPS looks OK online, but the actual physical delivery of stuff is a really shoddy experience.