Your #Swiss global #logistics partner is… not there to help you out. Even at a major logistics trade show.
There’s something mystically dysfunctional about all national postal services, be it the USPS, the French La Poste or even the Very Special Почта России. Why is that? pic.twitter.com/FsO3BzS6CE
Bizarre Google Reviews of European #logistics centers: 4-5 stars from truckers (hauling the semi-trailer), 1-2 stars from end-customers (businesses and consumers unable to schedule a pick-up or delivery). 🤷🏻♂️
Truck drivers commenting toilets and space for maneuvering… customers complaining about perpetually busy phone lines and address misspellings. 🤯
End-result: a warehouse with loading docks in the middle of the nowhere gets an average 3-star rating. 🤔
– This is @DPD_Fr courier services, how can I help you?
– I’ve just received a notification about a parcel delivery planned for tomorrow… and your #IT systems have deleted half of our address. Let me spell it out for you, so your last-mile delivery person can do their job.
– Oh, I can’t, because it’s not yet at the #DPD Paris Agency.
– Sorry, what?
– The parcel is at a DPD Regional Center. Only when the parcel will be marked as “DPD Paris Agency — out to delivery”, will we have access to the data about your #parcel.
– But that will be tomorrow. And your drivers don’t carry digital terminals. Only printouts on A4 paper. So you won’t update the info over #3G.
– Yes, that is correct.
– So if we don’t change the A4 paper printout Thursday evening, the driver will not be able to deliver the parcel tomorrow Friday?
– Yes, that is correct. Call us tomorrow, so we can add the missing address information.
– [ silence ]
And now, the question. What do you do in such cases?
You’re, among other things, a #programmer with 22+ years of writing #code. You’ve studied #logistics in business school. You’ve built companies, managed film crews… Computers don’t seem like some obscure black boxes.
Do you scream at the call-center person who’s somewhere in Tunisia and barely knows the #Louvre is a museum in #Paris?
What do you do? Do you just watch tracking information update to “missing address, second attempt scheduled for Monday”.
How do you live with daily, hourly #fails by #apathy-striken people?
What kind of processes do you have in your life to try to convince someone that 197 cm is not the same as 199 cm?
Yes, that’s a conversation I’m having with a customer relations #employee… 🤯
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