My post last week about guaranteed service refunds triggered a number of responses. Steve Thomas, the warehouse manager at Polek and Polek, a leading distributor of copier parts, fax supplies, and printer products, told me how he gets his money back on packages that are not delivered as promised.
Steve sets up every package he ships with an email notification from UPS to inform him of any exceptions. Exception notifications indicate anything that may cause a delay in the delivery of the package. This way he gets an email when a package has been mis-routed or is going to be late. After he is notified, he calls the carrier and asks for a refund. (You can even set it up so that another person gets notified, so you can delegate this task to someone else such as an accounting clerk). UPS and FedEx both offer this service for no charge. Steve saved his company over $2,000 last year by simply doing this.
You can set up your shipping system to notify you of exceptions by selecting the box to be notified. See below for an example.
Steve, thank you so much for sharing your advice!
What are you doing to save money in your shipping department? Please let me know and I will post your suggestions for the benefit of all shippers. You can email me at mark.taylor@myshippingcoach.com.
