At least in my experience.
I guess we start with the current story. I get a package shipped from Arizona. New old stock mufflers for the 2015 Road Glide I just picked up. I hate the Vance & Hines 450 mufflers currently installed (yes, me, the biker, hating an exhaust cause it's too loud, but to be fair it also echoes and reverberates. Short version, I hate it.). So anyway, my Road King has a set of Python scalloped slip-ons (you don't have to replace the exhaust headers and mufflers as a unit). A bit of research tells me that touring bike exhaust for Harleys didn't change between 1996 and 2016, so the Pythons would fit my Tour Glide. Except that they don't make Pythons anymore. Not sure who owned the name (Drag Specialties?) but they stopped making them. I did, however, find a brand new set on ebay. Not cheap. Basically the cost of new, even though they've had them sitting on the shelf for who knows how many years, but the only set for sale in the whole United States so if I decide to get them, there they are.
Now to test the concept. I pull the old Pythons off the Road King (side note: it looks really sad right now with no mufflers) and put them on the Road Glide, setting the horrible V&H aside. It runs and sounds great. Decision made. I order the mufflers. Fed Ex says "deliver Friday". School ends on Friday, I head home, no mufflers. Text message from Fed Ex "we were unable to deliver since no one was there to sign. We'll try again tomorrow". Gah! I had no idea signature required and there's nothing I could have done about it anyway.
Well, I'm working Saturday at my shop and then headed out of town for the evening, so call Saturday. Can I get them held at the depot and I'll pick them up Monday? Nope. Shipper instructions say "no delivery changes". What? Why is that even a thing? "We can deliver them Sunday" says the Pakistani or Indian customer service rep? When, I ask, cause I'm going to visit my parents Sunday afternoon around 2 pm. "Between 8 am and 8 pm" says the rep. What? You want me to sit around my house for twelve straight hours waiting for a delivery? "That's not what I said" counters the rep. That literally what you just said, say I.
To make it worse I get up this morning and the text says "left town with package in truck at 8:30, will deliver before 10 pm". 10 pm? You knock on my door at 10 pm and you better have a DAMN good reason cause I get up at 4 and go to bed at 9.
Federal Express is horrible!
That, however, is just the first story. The last time I had cause to be upset with Fed Ex I was out in my shop (portable motorcycle shop in an enclosed trailer I bought and modified), with a friend, working on his bike. The trailer is on the side street (I'm a corner lot), open end facing the alley, just by the garage. As we work a Fed Ex truck pulls into my alley. The driver sits in his truck for a couple minutes, backs out of the alley, and drives away. Thirty seconds later I get a text saying "Attempted delivery, no one home". With the two of us standing in the back of a big trailer, with the door open, next to the house, staring at him.
Fed Ex customer service didn't really care. I never got a call back with an apology, an explanation, anything.
So needless to say, they are, at least in my area, the worst delivery service available.
Finally, while I was typing this I get a knock on the door. I almost fell down my steep 1909 wooden stairs in my slippers to get to the door in time. Nice guy delivering my package. I asked him how come they couldn't narrow down the time, knowing where he would be delivering and how many packages he had, and he didn't really have a good answer, He was pleasant enough though.
Oh, story number three. Did I mention that I have delivery instructions in my Fed Ex account asking them to put packages on the covered and partially enclosed back porch, which they always ignore? Turns out the drivers can't see the delivery instructions. So my question, to those who run the company so horribly, is why allow customers to type that into their account, knowing full well that they won't be followed.
It's not, generally, the drivers (other than the guy who lied about trying to deliver my package) or the telephone answerers who are the problem, but rather the company.
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