Tag Archives: employees

Day 113: FedEx Office Ft. Lauderdale

My original letter from Day 24

My original letter from Day 24

I mentioned on Sunday that last week a letter that I mailed back in January to a FedEx Office location in Ft. Lauderdale was returned to me. Yep, it took the U.S. Mail nearly three months to figure out it was undeliverable and send it back. I double checked the address and there was no problem with that. The only thing I can think of is that the person I addressed it to, the general manager of that location, no longer worked there.

Well, I was in Ft. Lauderdale this week and decided I would hand deliver the letter to the FedEx Office. Unfortunately my schedule got pretty full and I got there after they closed. So I wrote them a short note explaining what happened and put everything in a new envelope and dropped it in the mail before heading to the airport this morning.

Day 113

Dear FedEx Office,

I’m not sure why my original letter was returned, hopefully you get this one. If Tom Vayne is not the correct name of the store manager, please forward this to the appropriate person. 

Best regards,
Reed Sandridge

Day 24: Tom

Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. ~ Steve Jobs

I tried to stealthily snap this photo of Chris hard at work.

I tried to stealthily snap this photo of Chris hard at work.

Customer experience has probably never been as important as it is now. With online marketplaces commoditizing the vast majority of products and services, it’s the customer’s experience – whether face to face or online – that dictates whether they will publicly praise or shame you.

I had some items to ship on Friday and headed to FedEx. They were awkwardly shaped, so I needed to get them boxed up. I’m terrible at these kind of tasks, thankfully Chris, the FedEx team member that helped me, was awesome. It was refreshing to see a young person take his job, and more importantly his responsibility, seriously. I decided to drop his boss a note.

It’s funny – I called back hours later to get the name of the manager and Chris answered – he’d been there all day at that point and still sounded as polite and professional as he did at 9am. I didn’t tell him I was writing this letter to his boss…I just asked for the manager’s name.

Day 24 Tom-2

Tom,

Just a note to tell you how impressed I was with a member of your team. I stopped in on Friday with two large items that needed boxed up and shipped and a young man named Day 24 TomChris did a fantastic job – from making sure that I got the right kind of boxes to guiding me through my shipment options. He took care of everything. His badge said that he was a trainee – I’m sure he’ll be moving up in no time. Please let him know that his professionalism and attention to customer service made an impression on me.

Keep up the good work,
Reed Sandridge