Dude, "knowing" your customers' needs-and especially servicing them-means always asking them what their needs are, and then doing something about it, which is the whole point of a sales lead. We should be doing this regardless of whether we get compensated with program points or t-shirts. I didn't ask if you have driven for a long time, I asked do you know what our business is? I don't think you do.
We don't "keep our routes efficient" by making sure businesses don't expand on our routes, or bury our heads so we don't know when they want to and offer to help. Reasoning like that leads to companies becoming obsolete and dying; customers leave, less business, cut routes, leading to more inefficiency. Grow the business, get more bus iness, make the areas tight and thick with our packages, and then adapt, or rather, get management to adapt to the needs. When I call management and let them know a pickup is still processing orders and may be a while, they tell me to keep going and then send another driver to pick them up later, based on the businesses closing time. That's taking care of the customer, not "It's 5:30 and you ain't wrapped? C'ya!"
Does your center manager care about 9.5s? Mines does, and goes out of his way to prevent them; he also understands that you don't turn away good business opportunities, and he for sure doesn't seem to care of the operational headaches he'd incur if a large business might want to plop down in his center's areas. My goodness, I really don't know what to make of this?! Why don't you move on? You obviously could care less about what you are doing! I do, which is why I was telling people about MyChoice even before the promotion, as I already stated up-thread.
In addition, I have my own route, and I take care of my customers as best I can. They know I care, despite there being days when I haven't run as well or efficiently as I could have or would like to. I care about my customers; when they "apologize" for blowing my truck out, I point out that's a good thing because they are busy; when they have a downtime I make less money, or could lose my job, which makes them chuckle because of the truth in that statement. They don't care how "efficient you are", but can you help them grow. I've always perceived that, and you-in your "25 years of driving all types of routes"-have not? Maybe you move around too much...
I hated covering other drivers' routes and hearing about the shoddy service provided so the driver could remain "efficient", i.e. get off and home as fast as possible, or customers kept in the dark for similar reasons. Do you not understand people will go someplace else if someone else speaks to their needs? How well can UPS speak to their needs if YOU, face of the company, don't want to do that part of your job! Forget sales leads, you've just basically stated you don't encourage your companies to ship with us because it may give you-and all your fellow UPS workers who already work a lot of OT-"more work"! What the hay?!?
You've let the bitterness in working in tough conditions obscure what we should be doing, sales lead or not. But you know what they say, "More happiness in giving than in receiving." Try giving your customers better service, i.e. more than what they are getting from you now-and that's growing their businesses, not just getting packages there on time-and see if the profuse thanks you will receive time and time again doesn't cheer you up. I've experienced that many times, not that I needed that from them to be who I am (which is why I could do that for them in the first place)!
