RIP UPS
My entire life, UPS has been reliable. Not any more. With a recent package, I discovered the fees-for-everything model. And a now-unreliable tracking system - A request to change delivery date took 4 days to register in the app, leaving me to wonder whether my expensive signature-required item was in fact rescheduled. It was, but on that new day it was never put on the truck. I stayed home all day. The app says almost there, but it’s 9Pm and the map clearly shows the truck at the UPS facility 15 miles away. Customer support can basically only read what the website says. They said they cannot do anything to change the delivery date again, (I cannot accept it for the next few days) or send it to a facility, only I can do that. The app then told me those options weren’t available. I paid $10 more to try to reschedule it again.
This is what a company does then they are exiting a market. They’ll chase profit up the margin chain, ditching the low-profit consumer market, keep cutting distribution centers and personnel, then one day find they don’t have quite the critical mass anymore for the high end of the market. And UPS will die. I wish I could say I’m sorry about it, but seeing this sudden plunge into “we don’t give a shit at all about you” mode, it is inevitable. And deserved.