Fedex vs. the Professor

1005 Words5 Pages
FedEx vs The College Professor Background In 1988, Sylvia Cooper, a business school professor, was scheduled to give a presentation. She needed a videotape sent to the location of the presentation and had it shipped via FedEx based on their reputation for successful overnight deliveries. When the expected delivery time came and went, Professor Cooper’s package hadn’t arrived. Upon investigation, it was determined that the package had been missorted and would not be delivered that day. As a consequence, the package would be delivered the next day, too late for Professor Cooper’s presentation and the shipping cost would be refunded. While this fulfilled FedEx’s money back guarantee, it did little to fulfill the needs of their customer, Professor Cooper. Discussion Could FedEx have done something different? Could they have gotten the package to the professor by hook or by crook, so to speak? Could they have gone to any length, no measure too extreme, to get her package to her? Could they have compensated her in some other way for their failure to deliver her package on time? There are many things the FedEx COULD do. These include assigning extra personnel to personally deliver errant packages or guaranteeing the customer costs associated with a failed delivery. However, both of these would be cost prohibitive and impractical to execute. They could increase the scale of their money back guarantee by refunding the customer AND shipping their next package for free. Beyond the immediate benefit of free shipping for the late package, it ensures that a customer’s last experience isn’t a bad one making it more likely that were overlook the late package as one time affair and will continue to do business with FedEx. So, in the end, the money back guarantee is satisfactory although it could be bolstered a bit with too much of an effect on cost. What
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