
D.romanie of indiana, PA on Aug. 11, 2010
You can always tell the quality of service you receive from a business by the effort of their lowest paid employee. In this case, maybe not the lowest but the average paid delivery driver. These are the people that have been given the task of finding & delivering customer goods; like any job it has it's good and bad days. However, they are the only employee that gets to see the customers' reaction when they deliver what seems like a gift one might receive on a holiday or birthday. Normally it's a reaction filled with joy & happiness, that a complete stranger shows up to give you something you've been waiting for, like a kid that can't sleep the night before Christmas Morning.
Let's focus on the importance of the basics for a second, like knocking on the door. It would seem that something so simple would be included in the remarkable effort made by so many to transport packages from the millions of shops & stores around the world to the people who ordered them in a timely manner. Now knocking on the door or ringing a door bell might seem pointless if it seems no one is home to accept the package. However, in this case not only was there someone home, they were in clear view of the door that the driver left the "Sorry We Missed you" tag.
Let's assume the driver tried ringing a doorbell that didn't work and maybe even tried a short knock that went unheard. Does the driver's delivery responsibility end there? It was very clear that people were home and active (vs. asleep) and the package could be delivered. No, not in this case, It seemed to be a lot easier for the driver to leave a door tag and go on his merry way.
People who don't care about what they do show others they don't care thru their actions. This is a point in fact by the lack of effort by the driver to gain attention of a member of the household.. (UPS must train their delivery drivers better, because they show more effort.)
The door tag said "Sorry We Missed You", Fedex didn't miss me. I was there. In fact, I took a personal day from work to make sure I was there. The guy completely ignored the fact that I was home and decided I could wait on him again!
Fedex works for the people that choose their services, so as a employer of Fedex, I've decided to change to someone who takes more pride in the service. My area has had nothing good to say about Fedex due to the door tag issues and how their agents fail horribly at delivering packages as good as 3rd rate choices like USPS. This is mainly because I can drive to the local Post Office and pick it up myself. Hunker, Pa isn't even close to local (Like why bother delivering to an area if you don't have the infrastructure to support the customer's needs?).
It must be greed, biting off more work than you can handle in a timely & professional manner. It's really easy fix to such a no brainer. Train Fedex delivery drivers to treat these rural home deliveries with the importance of a Federal Agent. Train them to use their eyes, ears, and every ability they have to safely and legally deliver their packages and not to just leave a door tag unless it is absolutely the last option left. If this is how Fedex is already training their drivers, then they employ at least one that doesn't take his or her position seriously enough to represent their service's commitment to Fedex customers.