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How to Lose a Customer the FedEx Way

I’ve had a FedEx account for at least 20 years. Earlier this week, I logged into the account to ship a package. The first time I noticed that something wasn’t right was when the website wouldn’t display an estimated cost/timetable for my shipment. Instead, it displayed an ugly red error message stating that the service I had chosen was not available at the destination address. (Which made no sense at all, given my choices.)

But, I needed to send the package more than I needed a cost estimate, so I ignored the message and continued. Now another ugly red error message appeared, this one even more cryptic. It generically told me that an error occurred and displayed a link to click for more information. That link, however, led to a missing (404) page.

Ugh! I picked up the phone and called FedEx customer service. After the voice robot gave up on helping me, I was transferred to an agent. That agent gave up too, and transferred me again.

The new agent confirmed that the credit card they have on file is correct and unexpired. Also, that I could log in to the account (obviously), and then finally discovered that my account was suspended due to inactivity.

In other words, FedEx decided to put a hold on my twenty-year-old account because I haven’t shipped a package in the last couple of months. (Hello, business-stopping pandemic? You might have heard about it.)

Somewhere in FedEx HQ, a programmer created an algorithm that decided “Hey, we haven’t seen this customer for a few months, so fuck him.”

The new agent was able to clear the problem, and then I was able to generate the label for my package (after having to start all over, of course).

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