Green Pickups are not a concern to drivers?

[bumped]

The whole point to getting regular pickup accounts is so the customer will be more likely to ship UPS. Now, this new service with the driver coming less means a much greater chance to ship another way.

I don't see UPS giving a prorated price reduction for fewer days of pickups. I see the cost staying the same, but with the hope of fewer days of pickups.

 

[Catatonic]

Nobody mentioned On-Call pickups which is very green.
And its not really mentioned explicitly in the ad but all pickups will be charged regardless of services in the pickup.

As P-Man said, the new Smart pickup heavily leverages technology to pick up customers only when they have packages to pickup.

I am somewhat confused about drivers thinking this is a bad thing ... that approach reminds me of the railroads continuing to have firemen when the engines were changed to diesel.

 

[Dustyroads]

Sorry, Hoax, but the oncall pickups aren't that green. You get the alert, drive out of your way to make the pick up, the package has no label on it, customer says someone else is going to pay for it, but they don't have any account number or credit card number. The customer says, the person on the phone said you'd pick it up. You explain about Return Service tags, the customer looks through all of the paper in the house, but comes up empty. You look on the diad screen, that nameless phone operator has just entered the generic 999-X99 account number. You call the center, get put on hold, lose cell service, have to call again, can't pick up the package. The customer is upset. You are driving away, 15 minutes later, have to cancel the on call pickup, getting nothing for the stop but a headache.

Not really that green, thanks to the call center. This happens all of the time.

 

[rod]

Nobody mentioned On-Call pickups which is very green.
And its not really mentioned explicitly in the ad but all pickups will be charged regardless of services in the pickup.

As P-Man said, the new Smart pickup heavily leverages technology to pick up customers only when they have packages to pickup.

I am somewhat confused about drivers thinking this is a bad thing ... that approach reminds me of the railroads continuing to have firemen when the engines were changed to diesel.

I miss cabooses

Norfolk Southern 34A with 2 Cabooses !!!

 

[DS]

Sorry, Hoax, but the oncall pickups aren't that green. You get the alert, drive out of your way to make the pick up, the package has no label on it, customer says someone else is going to pay for it, but they don't have any account number or credit card number. The customer says, .

Are you telling me every single box needs an address on it? So why bother putting a tracking number on every one?
Hoax,every day I get from 12 to 24 oncalls,and they can call right up until 6:29 PM, and to be honest most of them are shipsmart,but the ones that aren't can ruin your day in 1 minute.
Its really busy here,and we get the message,everyone must stay under 10.5 today,so the big problem is that we are not psychic,and must accept all oncalls up till 6:30.duh,I called and said I still had 15 resis to deliver at 5:30 and 6 pickups and would go over if I got any more oncalls...hmmm
well try to stay under 11 hrs...the customers still have an hour to call...

 

[satellitedriver]

Nobody mentioned On-Call pickups which is very green.Not on rural routes. OCA and drive 20 miles to pickup an ARS ground and having to back track to get there. Green, indeed.
And its not really mentioned explicitly in the ad but all pickups will be charged regardless of services in the pickup.So, hopefully the charges will cover the cost. So far that is not the case.

As P-Man said, the new Smart pickup heavily leverages technology to pick up customers only when they have packages to pickup.

I am somewhat confused about drivers thinking this is a bad thing-( It will work only because the drivers will make it work, no matter the planning. At least, that has been my experience over the last 23yrs.)- ... that approach reminds me of the railroads continuing to have firemen when the engines were changed to diesel.
Reminds me of my center team's approach.
They start fires, with lack of planning, then they run around like rats on acid looking for the fire hose.

 

[trplnkl]

Nobody mentioned On-Call pickups which is very green.
And its not really mentioned explicitly in the ad but all pickups will be charged regardless of services in the pickup.

As P-Man said, the new Smart pickup heavily leverages technology to pick up customers only when they have packages to pickup.

I am somewhat confused about drivers thinking this is a bad thing ... that approach reminds me of the railroads continuing to have firemen when the engines were changed to diesel.

One reason drivers think this is bad is due to history. Over the years UPS as started different services that are time savers, DR, EDD, PAS etc etc. With every one of these time savers ( most only saved minimal time) the driver was rewarded with ten more stops to run daily. It all adds up to much more work needing to be done in the same amount of time.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I had not heard of this new service but like what I have read thus far. I have a couple of mom and pop stores that ship every now and then and either they get the pkgs to me, bring to center or drop off at MBE. This service would be perfect for them. I would also use this new service as a sales lead tool for other customers who drop off their shipments at MBE.

OCAs can be a pain for all of the reasons DS gave.

As with any new service there will be bugs to work out.

 

[upandcomer]

As far as I know, the initiative is now called Smart Pickup (no longer green pickup).

It seems relatively straightforward.

It is a lower cost pickup option for shippers that do not need a daily pickup. If a shipper ships more than $75 per week, there is no benefit, so it will only appeal to these smaller, lower revenue shippers.

It give them some lower cost alternatives to a daily pickup.

UPS will use its technology to offer this service. I'm positive there will be glitches at first. In the long run, it seems better to offer this choice than to force these shippers to pay the higher price.

May be worth holding off all the complaints until more facts are on the surface.

P-Man

P-Man this isn't exactly correct.

The Smart Pick-ups are one option under the Green Pick-up umbrella.

The Smart Pick-ups are similar to on-call pick-ups but they are charged a flat fee per week instead of a fee each time we pick-up a package.

The daily pick-ups will have different rates for the number of days you want to be picked up starting at $10 and going up.

We are significantly raising our 5 day a week pick-up charge to encourage smaller customers to be picked up fewer times per week.

My question for the drivers is what percentage of your pick-up stops have zero pick-ups on any given day?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

My question for the drivers is what percentage of your pick-up stops have zero pick-ups on any given day?

I have 22 pickups and I can think of 5 or 6 of those who would benefit from this service offering. Changing one of those would be a detriment to me as the receptionist is cute and I like going there every day.

 

[reydluap]

I'll throw out another question here. Right now, the Supervisors get their panties in a twist if you don't make your pickups in the 1/2 hour window that's provided. Taking some of these pickups and having them done at a random time a few days a week will really make the job of pickup compliance a pain. How is this going to play out?

 

[upandcomer]

I have 22 pickups and I can think of 5 or 6 of those who would benefit from this service offering. Changing one of those would be a detriment to me as the receptionist is cute and I like going there every day.

Haha!

So lets say you reduce every driver in the country's pick-ups by 20%. Now we obviously delivery to way more locations then we pick-up, but I could see a 3-5% reduction in drivers with this initiative alone.

This is not the kind of move that wins lots of new business, it is the kind of move that reduces cost.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I would also think that combining the pickup and delivery whenever possible is something that should be looked at. I have 2 of these on my area and it works out well for both of them. One of these is a college bookstore and they have my cell if they need me to come back in the afternoon, especially before each semester as they send out book orders. This would obviously not work with our larger shippers.

 

[pretzel_man]

P-Man this isn't exactly correct.

The Smart Pick-ups are one option under the Green Pick-up umbrella.

The Smart Pick-ups are similar to on-call pick-ups but they are charged a flat fee per week instead of a fee each time we pick-up a package.

The daily pick-ups will have different rates for the number of days you want to be picked up starting at $10 and going up.

We are significantly raising our 5 day a week pick-up charge to encourage smaller customers to be picked up fewer times per week.

My question for the drivers is what percentage of your pick-up stops have zero pick-ups on any given day?

You are correct that I mixed a couple of things together. Let me clarify.

First, as you said, UPS will raise its published pickup rates. There will then be three new options for these smaller customers to choose from:

Day Specific Pickup where they get picked up on specific days. If they ask for three of less days, its cheaper than a regular pickup.

On Route Pickup. This is basically the same as our current before 2:30 pickups. Dumb thing in my mind. There is no discount for the shipper at all and pickups are made on trace only.

Then there is Smart Pickup. Its not like on call air. Its kind of the opposite. Each customer that signs up will have a notify by time. Lets say a customer has a notify by time of 3:00. If they don't ship a package by 3:00, a message will go to your DIAD taking the pickup off. Generally, the notify by time is one hour before the normal pickup time. The best case is you will know one hour before the pickup that its NOT going to be made.

By the way, UPS has lots and lots of zero piece pickups. These are the customers that will look at these pickup options.

P-Man

 

[pretzel_man]

I'll throw out another question here. Right now, the Supervisors get their panties in a twist if you don't make your pickups in the 1/2 hour window that's provided. Taking some of these pickups and having them done at a random time a few days a week will really make the job of pickup compliance a pain. How is this going to play out?

I think Corporate needs to address their current ridiculous push on pickup compliance. At least how its done today.

I think pickup compliance is a good thing, but only for the customers that care. Some customers need a consistent pickup time. We should promise consistent pickups to them and monitor those.

We are currently tracking pickup compliance for every pickup account and this is driving some very bad behavior, extra miles, and unnecessary focus.

These new services need to be properly monitored, but should not use the current compliance tools.

P-Man

 

[Jones]

You are correct that I mixed a couple of things together. Let me clarify.

First, as you said, UPS will raise its published pickup rates. There will then be three new options for these smaller customers to choose from:

Day Specific Pickup where they get picked up on specific days. If they ask for three of less days, its cheaper than a regular pickup.

On Route Pickup. This is basically the same as our current before 2:30 pickups. Dumb thing in my mind. There is no discount for the shipper at all and pickups are made on trace only.

Then there is Smart Pickup. Its not like on call air. Its kind of the opposite. Each customer that signs up will have a notify by time. Lets say a customer has a notify by time of 3:00. If they don't ship a package by 3:00, a message will go to your DIAD taking the pickup off. Generally, the notify by time is one hour before the normal pickup time. The best case is you will know one hour before the pickup that its NOT going to be made.

By the way, UPS has lots and lots of zero piece pickups. These are the customers that will look at these pickup options.

P-Man

This would be absolutely perfect for at least two of my pickups.

 

[Dustyroads]

Last year we stopped issuing one time pickups printed on labels like the call tags or RS tags. Instead, the call centers just issue an on call pick up and expect the driver to fill out all of the information on the shipping papers. It just kills a day, and it makes for inefficiency all along the cycle of the package in the system. Those packages, on shipping papers, can't be PAL'd in the system and have to have a PAL label generated by a person. The driver delivering the package has to use a minimum of a dozen extra key strokes to get it in the diad. And, for some reason, we chose to abandon one time pick up tags using a 1Z barcode for the epitome of inefficiency, the on demand pick up.

DS was on target with everything that is wrong with the on demand service, and he was being kind.

 

[pretzel_man]

Haha!

So lets say you reduce every driver in the country's pick-ups by 20%. Now we obviously delivery to way more locations then we pick-up, but I could see a 3-5% reduction in drivers with this initiative alone.

This is not the kind of move that wins lots of new business, it is the kind of move that reduces cost.

Actually, its about multiple things; increasing revenue, keeping customers, and cuttting cost.

We will increase revenue by raising our publised pickup charge.

Lots of smaller customers will not want to pay this additional fee. Because they ship less, their rate is higher, AND its going up. There is a fear that we could lose them. This gives them some lower cost options.

Third, yes its about reducing cost for these customers. What's the point of reducing the revenue on these customers if we cannot reduce the cost as well?

P-Man

 

[Dustyroads]

I have a question about the new smart pick up. Let's say you have a business who is scheduled to have a pick up made only on Friday. This business, however, is one that you deliver to every single day, with inbound packages. On Wednesday, they have an outbound package prepared, with a label and barcode. Will we let the package sit until Friday, or just pick it up on our way out the door?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I have a question about the new smart pick up. Let's say you have a business who is scheduled to have a pick up made only on Friday. This business, however, is one that you deliver to every single day, with inbound packages. On Wednesday, they have an outbound package prepared, with a label and barcode. Will we let the package sit until Friday, or just pick it up on our way out the door?

Dusty, from what I have read here I know that you would do the right thing and take the package. You can simply add it to a later P/U stop.