Numbers or The Purple Promise?

MrFedEx

Engorged Member
A lot of areas of the country had weather issues this week. Add-in the holiday Thursday, and a lot of Tues and Wed pkgs did not get delivered. So, when Friday comes around, what is the "Purple Promise" thing to do? Why, make your Friday numbers, of course, and blow-off all of those Tues and Wed pkgs that our loyal customers have been waiting for.

That is the way the Purple Promise really works. Screw the customer, but make goals. What a joke.
 

UPSBluRdg03

Well-Known Member
Friday was a optional work day for most UPS drivers around the country, was it the same at Express? I signed up to work because its easy money. I felt like a UPS "Express courier" because all we delivered was NDA and 2DA mainly letters, medicine, and zappos boxes. I ran an extended route and covered the area of 3 normal routes. I usually do and did see the Express guy earlier in the morning. We always cross paths later in the day as well but I didnt see him Friday afternoon, was wondering if yall ran all your mail or not. Also, saw the ground guys high tailing it home about 1pm.
 

Cactus

Just telling it like it is
The "Purple Promise" is about as real as Santa Claus.

Sure the ol' PR people can paint a pretty picture but reality is always right around the corner with late freight, late deliveries or no deliveries at all. All upper management cares about is numbers and what looks good on a report, otherwise there would be sufficient staff to handle situations that arise when unfavorable weather strikes or when the volume spikes like it does every year at the same time and Memphis always acts like it's a big surprise.

Fred couldn't care less about customer satisfaction, bottom line. And the "purple promise" is a sad promise by the Memphis puppeteers.
 

MrFedEx

Engorged Member
Friday was a optional work day for most UPS drivers around the country, was it the same at Express? I signed up to work because its easy money. I felt like a UPS "Express courier" because all we delivered was NDA and 2DA mainly letters, medicine, and zappos boxes. I ran an extended route and covered the area of 3 normal routes. I usually do and did see the Express guy earlier in the morning. We always cross paths later in the day as well but I didnt see him Friday afternoon, was wondering if yall ran all your mail or not. Also, saw the ground guys high tailing it home about 1pm.


Friday was a regular day for us at Express.
 

FedExer267

Well-Known Member
So Friday was a regular day for you to at Express. For all the pkgs you could not deliver Friday are they going to try and even out your volume on Monday so you don't get slammed or do they expect you to do 2 days work in one day. I don't know about you but 90 percent of my business was closed Friday so I can I magine that Monday is going to be screwed and unfortunatley my boss has hired no temps so I am thinking I will be out late on Monday.
 

Myort

Well-Known Member
So Friday was a regular day for you to at Express. For all the pkgs you could not deliver Friday are they going to try and even out your volume on Monday so you don't get slammed or do they expect you to do 2 days work in one day. I don't know about you but 90 percent of my business was closed Friday so I can I magine that Monday is going to be screwed and unfortunatley my boss has hired no temps so I am thinking I will be out late on Monday.

Monday will be busy with all of the closed stuff from Friday, but I figure Friday was a light day for pickups so things will even out.
 

LTFedExer

Well-Known Member
Sure. It's because Fred S has a special deal that allows him to keep his companies non-union and undercut you on price.
Wrong. For a letter going from NY to CA. FO, P1 and SOS cost the same.
So Friday was a regular day for you to at Express. For all the pkgs you could not deliver Friday are they going to try and even out your volume on Monday so you don't get slammed or do they expect you to do 2 days work in one day. I don't know about you but 90 percent of my business was closed Friday so I can I magine that Monday is going to be screwed and unfortunatley my boss has hired no temps so I am thinking I will be out late on Monday.
Not necessarily true. If you have a business route, you'll be making the same stops. Each stop would just have more packages.
 

MrFedEx

Engorged Member
I meant the prices for those services cost the same for FedEx and UPS.

Do UPS and FedEx have the same cost structure? In other words, which company has the lower operating costs, and why? For any shipper that sends more than a handful of pkgs per day, they have a discount. Big shippers like Amazon have incredible discounts. Which of the two companies would be able to undercut the other on price strictly based on labor costs? I rest my case.
 

vantexan

Well-Known Member
So Friday was a regular day for you to at Express. For all the pkgs you could not deliver Friday are they going to try and even out your volume on Monday so you don't get slammed or do they expect you to do 2 days work in one day. I don't know about you but 90 percent of my business was closed Friday so I can I magine that Monday is going to be screwed and unfortunatley my boss has hired no temps so I am thinking I will be out late on Monday.

Yes, Express will have plenty of Friday freight to deliver Monday. But because so many businesses closed Friday there will be little Monday freight. So it'll even out.
 

LTFedExer

Well-Known Member
Sure. It's because Fred S has a special deal that allows him to keep his companies non-union and undercut you on price.

Do UPS and FedEx have the same cost structure? In other words, which company has the lower operating costs, and why? For any shipper that sends more than a handful of pkgs per day, they have a discount. Big shippers like Amazon have incredible discounts. Which of the two companies would be able to undercut the other on price strictly based on labor costs? I rest my case.
1. To the average shipper, they care about the final price. Cost structure means nothing to them.
2. I suppose UPS NEVER undercuts FedEx to get the big accounts? Would you rather make $0.30 instead of the normal $0.75 or would you rather your competitor make $0.20?

Amazing how you take a common business practice and try to spin it into a conspiracy.
 

FedEx2000

Well-Known Member
So Friday was a regular day for you to at Express. For all the pkgs you could not deliver Friday are they going to try and even out your volume on Monday so you don't get slammed or do they expect you to do 2 days work in one day. I don't know about you but 90 percent of my business was closed Friday so I can I magine that Monday is going to be screwed and unfortunatley my boss has hired no temps so I am thinking I will be out late on Monday.

Think about what you just said: 90% of your businesses were closed Friday. Thursday as well, and many closed early Wednesday or didn't ship as much. This means that there will be very little "new" volume that comes inbound for delivery on Monday....it's basically a cleanup day for all the stuff that was closed the previous week. Obviously, Ground is a little different, but Express will not have much inbound Monday morning besides what is already at the station.....outbound will be very heavy Monday night though.

We had 3 sorts on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday....still got everything attempted. No DEX01/84's....it can be done...and with all the businesses that were closed on Friday, it shouldn't have been an issue getting everything cleaned up for the week.
 

FedEx2000

Well-Known Member
Do UPS and FedEx have the same cost structure? In other words, which company has the lower operating costs, and why? For any shipper that sends more than a handful of pkgs per day, they have a discount. Big shippers like Amazon have incredible discounts. Which of the two companies would be able to undercut the other on price strictly based on labor costs? I rest my case.

So you don't think that UPS undercuts our pricing? Happens all the time. One example I can give you is John Deere. Their contract expires every 5 years I believe, and when it does FedEx sends a team of sales people in to try to negotiate a new one as it is a lot of Int'l/large/priority/FO/SAT shipping. They take our proposal to UPS and say "Beat it" which UPS then does. They screwed us after the UPS strike in '97 after we were bringing in 2 additional planes just for them, we went on good faith that they would continue to ship with us, but shortly after the strike ended they moved most of their volume back to UPS. They still ship enough with us to get a decent discount and keep us on the hook, but ship far more with UPS. Coincidence that they are both union companies and basically use us as a bargaining tool? I don't know.....

Also, Amazon ships a lot of Saturday, a surcharge for which we don't discount, only the base shipping charges.
 

FedExer267

Well-Known Member
Think about what you just said: 90% of your businesses were closed Friday. Thursday as well, and many closed early Wednesday or didn't ship as much. This means that there will be very little "new" volume that comes inbound for delivery on Monday....it's basically a cleanup day for all the stuff that was closed the previous week. Obviously, Ground is a little different, but Express will not have much inbound Monday morning besides what is already at the station.....outbound will be very heavy Monday night though.I was just asking cuz I have no idea how Express runs I know at Ground what wasn't delivered Friday will get added to for Monday when preload comes in Saturday morning for their regular shift. Monday will be slammed always is but its ok cause I am not working that day.

We had 3 sorts on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday....still got everything attempted. No DEX01/84's....it can be done...and with all the businesses that were closed on Friday, it shouldn't have been an issue getting everything cleaned up for the week.
 

FedExer267

Well-Known Member
I was just asking cuz I have no idea how Express runs I know at Ground what wasn't delivered Friday will get added to for Monday when preload comes in Saturday morning for their regular shift. Monday will be slammed always is but its ok cause I am not working that day.
oops sorry about that
 

quadro

Well-Known Member
A lot of areas of the country had weather issues this week. Add-in the holiday Thursday, and a lot of Tues and Wed pkgs did not get delivered. So, when Friday comes around, what is the "Purple Promise" thing to do? Why, make your Friday numbers, of course, and blow-off all of those Tues and Wed pkgs that our loyal customers have been waiting for.

That is the way the Purple Promise really works. Screw the customer, but make goals. What a joke.
Most of the time it's actually easier to make your numbers in this situation if you DO take the Tue and Wed pkgs. Just gives you more density so better stops per hour. Especially on a day where you are more likely to be spread out between stops. I don't think that what happens in your station happens at a lot of other stations. Most people I know took their late Tue and Wed freight. And I mean that in the sense that your management team is not on top of their game.
 

upsyo

Well-Known Member
Fedex fumbled the john deere account. I wasn't around at the time but I heard they screwed up pretty bad so they came back to us.
 
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