Thursday morning, as I was finishing up fine-sorting my deliveries for the route, one of the CSA's came to me with pkg trace paperwork saying that a particular customer was leaving for vacation at 2pm and wanted me to make sure their phone was delivered in time before they left. This was a 2-Day shipment, residential, giving it a before 8pm delivery deadline. It was down a state highway a pretty good way off the route, and I had planned to hit the stop around 4pm before doing the bulk of my pickups. We're talking about a Thursday here, the day when MANY businesses are anxiously awaiting pay checks, and I try to get all of those delivered well before the 3pm Standard Overnight deadline. Asking a driver to go out of his way for a residential stop when he already has several business and in-town stops to make really puts a hitch in his giddy-up. The customer wanted a specified ETA and even left a phone number to call letting them know where I was and when I was coming. I had to change my route up a good bit to accommodate this one spoiled customer and at first had thought to call and have them meet me in town to save some time. Long story short, I delivered the package just before my break around 12, potentially jeopardizing my 3pm deliveries and going well out of my way to do so.
How many of you get these spoiled "me me me" customers, and how do you respond? I understand everyone wants their package NOW, and I do all I can to satisfy customers, but where do you draw the line? What if other customers catch wind of people doing this and decide they want to start asking for pkgs early too? You could have several customers calling in with every sob story imaginable just so they can be catered to when they want.
The way I see it, (and I should have voiced this), you pay for 2-Day Resi shipping, you get your stuff by 8pm, or at least AFTER the others who paid for the priority shipping, especially if it's at a stop that's out of the way.