The talk goes something like this:
FedEx–“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
UPS–“Moving at the speed of business.”
I have 300+ identical packages to ship next week. No flipping way
amd I making the labels one at a time via a website. I know both UPS and
FedEx have PC-based shipping software for their accounts, so I decided to
acquire such.
I started with FedEx. I registered online, complete with FedEx account
number. In order to obtain the software, you have to call your account
rep. Not knowing who that was, I called the general support number, spoke
to a nice rep, explained what I needed. The support rep sent a message to
my account sales contact. This was about 8:30 pm on 12/5, and I didn’t
leave with a warm feeling anything was going to happen. The next day I
realized I gave the nice rep my wrong extension, called back, spoke to yet
another nice rep, and gave my correct extension. Another message was sent
to my acocunt sales contact. Even with the wrong extension, the main
number on the account is correct.
So, my Plan B was UPS. I registered at www.ups.com, complete with account number, and
filled out the online request form. This was right arount 3:00 pm on
12/6. At 1:00 pm on 12/7, I had WorldShip 8 in my hands. 22 hours
from request to delivery. Still nothing from my FedEx guy nearly 40 hours
later. Looks like 300+ packages are going UPS. On a personal note,
I’m a little torn by this. I grew up in Louisville, where UPS is
based. But I now live near Pittsburgh, where FedEx Ground is based.
Either one is a home-team to me.
Small businesses have weird needs. Sometimes (as in this case) we have
huge shipments all at once. Business owners are pretty much 24/7
living their business. This phone tag stuff is so ’80s. Hard to
believe it’s so tough to give your business to a company
sometimes.
How did it all turn out? Are you still using UPS as your preferred carrier? I own a small business and am making the same decisions now, we have accounts with both, but are looking at using one for the bulk of our shipping needs.
Thank you!
UPS did a great job! The software arrived, and after a few test imports, we were able to generate the labels for over 300 packages in a few minutes (they even give you the stickers to run though a laser printer). We scheduled the pickup online, and off the packages went. I would definately recommend UPS.