Sometimes a delivery failure is great service

The holiday shipping season is coming to a close for us. We have cookies and brownies en route to almost every state and a couple of military bases around the world. A few of our shipments travel via FedEx, but the overwhelming majority are carried by the men and women of the United States Postal Service. While we’re confident they’ll arrive as scheduled, we are particularly happy that one package shipped via USPS was not delivered.

One of the things we do to make sure cookies arrive where they should is to check each address against the Postal Service database. If it doesn’t return a valid 9-digit zip code, we don’t ship the order. But, there are some things that we cannot catch. If it is a good address, but the recipient has moved, the package will be returned. This year we had a client call us with a different address issue that our database could not catch. It seems that the package was addressed to a husband and wife, only the wife had passed away earlier in the year and their list was simply not updated to reflect that change.

Our client called immediately once we sent the tracking information to see what could be done. I’m guessing this would not be the first time something arrived at this widower’s home, but our client was genuinely concerned and asked for help.

I looked up the number for the post office in that zip code and called the Postmaster. I explained the situation, he immediately understood, and perhaps more importantly, he empathized. He asked that I send an email with the package information and a request to stop delivery. Turns out the package was actually being delivered out of another office, but he offered to handle everything. It arrived that day and was to be delivered the next morning.

I notified our customer that the Postal Service was trying to locate the package and stop delivery. I can only imagine how many packages they were processing on that day, but there was never a mention of effort required or any complaint from the Postmaster.

The next afternoon, I received a phone call. Delivery had been intercepted and the package was to be returned to Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. I notified our customer and they were overwhelmed with gratitude.

Depending on who and where you strike up a conversation about the United States Postal Service, chances are good that you’ll hear some type of complaint about delivery, service or whatever. Bashing the US Postal Service is right up there on some people’s list with baseball, Mom and apple pie.

But it’s not on my list. Frankly, we get great service from the USPS. Not perfect, but we’re not either. This is one example where a delivery failure was actually the result of outstanding customer service. Not because he was required to do so, but rather because a compassionate human being understood the situation and did what he could to help. Great customer service comes from people who understand the rewards of serving others and are not afraid to take action to help.

Given the number of orders we shipped out this holiday season, odds are good that we’ll get returns for some reason. And it is possible that some packages will not be delivered when they should be. Failure happens. No one on this earth is perfect. We’ll do what we can to help.

You can rest assured that anytime I’m standing in a crowd and the subject of the Postal Service comes up (it does happen), you won’t find me serving up any complaints. This one act of selfless service covers a lot of other mistakes. You see it just so happens that the addressee who passed away this year shares my wife’s name, Debbie. And I’m very thankful that our postman won’t be worried about stopping delivery of any packages coming to our home, addressed to my wife.