Is there anyone in upper management that can justify the push for production and reduction in customer service?
Well, I'm not in upper mgmt, but I can list a few reasons.
1. The company has a commitment to shareholders to be profitable. Even with this year being a good year, we only made a profit of 11% of revenue.
2. We can be the best service company in the world, but if we aren't profitable, we won't be around in the future.
3. Domestically in the US, (and similarly for other areas in world). UPS pays the highest wages compared to our competitors (mainly FDX, USPS, and DHL).
4. The USPS loses billions each year, and they have a monopoly and don't pay real estate taxes, excise tax, parking tickets etc. They don't even have to make a profit, their goal is to only break even and with a monopoly on mail, they should be able to easily do it, if not for bad mgmt.
5. FDX has a tremendous cost advantage on us when you look at how much more our drivers make then their drivers. Also include the cost of H&W and pension payments UPS makes vs what FDX pays as benefits to their drivers. Additionally FDX trasnsports their loads from Hub to hub via inexpensive gypsy drivers, where UPS either utilizes rail for long distance or UPS drivers for shorter distance. This is a big cost disadvantage.
6. The only way to stay profitable, with these obstacles is to be efficient and productive.
As far as Service. I realize that there are mistakes made, sometimes by accident, sometimes they are intentional. However, as a company we have to make decisions. If you asked every customer when they want delivery and when they want pickup. 90+% of them will want to be delivered first thing in the AM, and 90+% will want a pickup as late as possible. Customers that have been used to early delivery but relooping caused their delievery to be later are upset. We as a company need to determine which are the most valuable customers and give those customers as good a service as possible. I've been involved with some customers who recieve over 1000+ NDA Ltrs per day (Yes per day). We put in special driver runs, did special operating plans in SDF, so we can get all of these pkgs (weather NDA or NDP) delivered earlier then the EAM commit time. We had 50% of their volume before, but after our special operating plans, we recieved 95% of all their inbound volume (which is what they controlled).