Taking it from fdx

[wornoutupser]

Racerx,
You are obviously one of the "upper crusters" that do not have a clue about the role of a driver in obtaining, maintaining and keeping a large account.
I am glad that your type does so well in losing these accounts.
Let me explain.
My center recently lost the single largest shipper in town.
I am the one that told UPS that a switch was being planned to Fed Ex ground. UPS did not have a clue because our account executive has to be shared between a very large center and our smaller one.
Critical time was lost because that shipper had to be put into "my schedule next week".
I explained that I had the back door connection because the person that was told to make the change is married and his wife is my wife's best friend.
I took the time to go over to his house and explain that Fed Ex could not handle their pickup volume. Fed Ex has a 45 mile drive back to their center and only has 1 truck in this area. UPS has a center within 2 miles and a unlimited supply of vehicles to handle their volume, which has been done exceptionally well through the years.
I could have stopped this cold except that the local rep had to reschedule TWICE before arriving at the door. By that time, even my connections could not overcome the feeling that UPS did not care about the lost business because of the 2 reschedules that the rep did.You must understand that this is MAJOR money that we lost.
Now, please explain to ME that drivers just do not understand about large accounts buddy. This was WELL OVER !100K a year!

I am waiting............

 

[wornoutupser]

Racerx,
You are obviously one of the "upper crusters" that do not have a clue about the role of a driver in obtaining, maintaining and keeping a large account.
I am glad that your type does so well in losing these accounts.
Let me explain.
My center recently lost the single largest shipper in town.
I am the one that told UPS that a switch was being planned to Fed Ex ground. UPS did not have a clue because our account executive has to be shared between a very large center and our smaller one.
Critical time was lost because that shipper had to be put into "my schedule next week".
I explained that I had the back door connection because the person that was told to make the change is married and his wife is my wife's best friend.
I took the time to go over to his house and explain that Fed Ex could not handle their pickup volume. Fed Ex has a 45 mile drive back to their center and only has 1 truck in this area. UPS has a center within 2 miles and a unlimited supply of vehicles to handle their volume, which has been done exceptionally well through the years.
I could have stopped this cold except that the local rep had to reschedule TWICE before arriving at the door. By that time, even my connections could not overcome the feeling that UPS did not care about the lost business because of the 2 reschedules that the rep did.You must understand that this is MAJOR money that we lost.
Now, please explain to ME that drivers just do not understand about large accounts buddy. This was WELL OVER 100K a year!

I am waiting............

 

[wornoutupser]

Racer,
Do you have an answer?

 

[feederdude]

wornout,
His posts have shown his feeling of superiority.
He is a legend in his own mind. Maybe he is looking for the drivers in his center to educate him in the art of eating humble pie. I hope he has learned a valuable lesson, as there isn't a single person on this site, or at UPS that can do it all by themselves. So consider this a repsonse from racer, since I'm sure he is embarassed by his earlier statements. He is extremely sorry for his one sided view of how important his task of representing the hard working UPSers throughout the US and beyond, I hope everyone on this board can forgive me and let me join in on future discussions. I'm happy to do this duty for racerx.
Sincerely,
Feederdude

 

[over9five]

"So consider this a repsonse from racer.."

See? I told u he was a nice guy!

 

[racerx]

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, boys and girls. Being an upper cruster means I get 10 weeks of vacation. I just got back from Europe and boy, are my arms tired.

I dont feel superior. I just feel that I can see both sides to an argument. Apparently that trait does not exist in vast quantities on this board. And I never said that I could do everything by myself. Please, go back and look at my posts and tell me where I said AEs rock, Drivers suck. I didnt. I wouldnt. My first post was in response to speeddemon who made a blanket statement about his sorry account execs. Okay, I admit my post was extremely sarcastic, but the point was still there if you werent involved in managing the account - not servicing the account - then you dont know what went on. It was my hope to begin a discussion about what goes into maintaining an account. Instead, it became a Drivers rock, RacerX sucks discussion. I agree with over9five if the AE did not explain why the account was lost to the drivers, then he/ she does suck. That line of communication is so important!

My next post was an attempt to explain to feederdude that we do not win or lose accounts strictly on whether the customer likes the driver or not. That is a factor, but the amount of importance of that factor diminishes the farther away from the dock the transportation decision is made, or as the amount of revenue increases. Take Dell for example. We have won and lost that account multiple times. Not once did the likeability of our drivers come into play. It was purely financial.

Wornoutupser, thank you for taking a sincere interest in your Centers accounts. The fact that you stayed on the account management team shows that you really do bleed brown and I applaud you for it. Was the diversion of your account due to lack of response by the AE? Maybe And if that is the case, get rid of him/ her. However, other statements in your post give clues to why it might not be entirely the AEs fault (Please!!! I said might not be his fault). As you know, this company manages to attain numbers, not results. No where is this more true than in BD. Let me explain.. As an AE, I knew what my priorities should be: #1 Maintain my current business, #2 Gain new business, #3, everything else. The company believes it is exactly the opposite. I have been involved in many meetings where we talked about making more calls, or getting more contact time but nothing was said about what accounts were being worked on. I would hear weekly if my number of calls per day fell below a certain number. It was made clear that the most important thing was maintaining numbers, not maintaining business. That, my friend, is why I am not an AE anymore. If your rep could not fit one of his largest accounts that he knew was about to divert into his schedule and had to reschedule twice, then maybe he does not belong in sales. But again, I was not involved with that account so I do not know. I believe it had more to do with the priorities that were set by his management team. And if that is the case, then that is just sad

 

[dannyboy]

For an upper cruster, ya ever heard of call girls? That way the arms dont hurt!

All kidding aside, your post and others like them, and the knowledge that I have of the inner workings of UPS currently has me very worried. It seems that over the last 5-7 years we have turned increasingly inward with our company focus instead of focusing on the customer. As you said, its all numbers, not real results. Kinda like being over or under. Just numbers, not really an indication of a good job or not.

As for the larger accounts, I understand that the local service has a limited impact on if we can keep a large account or not. But there are many times we do things to keep our numbers up that actually hurt the customer.

Like leaving packages on the dock because there is not enough cube room in the package cars. Why not dispatch a feeder to get the packages? Well because all management decisions are not made locally anymore.

For the most part local management are like eunuchs, a lot of promise but no clout when it comes to delivering on service. They have to justify anything that drops the centers numbers, and providing service is usually not enough to justify a large drop in the centers stats. That is a shame. But everything is geared to please the number crunchers up the ladder.

And it was not too long ago that we were turning our focus on how upper management could empower local management to empower their drivers to get and keep more business.

Funny how a number cruncher can do that to a service company. I just hope when he gets the boot, it will not be too late to turn the ship around.

d