UPS has always been the delivery service of choice for Quintain Marketing and most of the shipments you receive from us will arrive in the famous brown truck. We’ve always invoiced our customers the published UPS rates for packages, so in an effort to help you plan your budgets for 2011, we’re passing along some information we just received from UPS regarding rate changes that will take effect next year. Please see the UPS website for more information.

Effective January 3, 2011, UPS Daily Rates will increase as follows: UPS Ground services will increase a net 4.9% through a combination of a 5.9% increase in rates and a 1% reduction in the UPS Ground fuel surcharge; UPS Air and International services will increase a net 4.9% through a combination of a 6.9% increase in rates and a 2% reduction in the UPS Air and International services fuel surcharge.*

Even with this change, Daily Rates for UPS Next Day Air® remain up to 6% lower than our largest U.S. private competitor for similar services.

In addition, effective January 3, 2011, the dimensional weight divisor used to calculate dimensional weight will change from 194 to 166 for domestic U.S. UPS Ground and Air services shipments, and from 166 to 139 for U.S.-origin export shipments. To review these dimensional weight changes, as well as other accessorial changes taking effect on January 3, 2011, visit ups.com/rates on the following dates:

• October 29, 2010: Preview changes to the dimensional weight divisor and other charges, including accessorials.
• November 12, 2010: Preview the 2011 Rates.
• January 3, 2011: Download the 2011 UPS Rate and Service Guide.

Here at Quintain Marketing, we’re big fans of UPS. About 90% of the products we sell are delivered to our customers by a shipper and UPS has been our shipper of choice since we started the company in 2006. Why do we love UPS so much? They’re reliable, courteous, consistent, and great at communicating with their customers.

After 4 years of stellar service from UPS, you can imagine our suprise when one of our suppliers called us to say that they were having trouble shipping an order out because our UPS account was listed as “inactive.” The call came on July 5 and we quickly discovered that our customer service representative (who has always been great at working out problems) was on vacation for the week and not reachable. When several phone calls to various UPS customer service lines did not resolve the issue, we were left feeling like our 4 year relationship was quickly going down the tubes and Fedex might be our future shipper of choice.

That was the case until we took our complaint to Twitter, where we sent a short (140 characters or less, of course!) shout out to Evan (@evanatups), a member of the UPS corporate Customer Relations team. Within 4 minutes of our tweet, Evan responded with a direct message asking for more information, and within one hour, we got a call from Evan AND a call from UPS corporate letting us know that the problem had been resolved.

The real secret to stellar customer service isn’t avoiding mistakes or problems altogether – that would be impossible – but in making sure that any problems that DO arise are handled quickly and efficiently with minimal impact on your customers. Our interaction with UPS is the perfect example. Evan’s use of Twitter to quickly resolve our problem made a lasting impression and convinced us that UPS truly is the most customer-friendly shipper around! Way to go UPS!

The 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games are being held in Vancouver, British Columbia from February 12 -28. If you are planning on shipping anything to Canada during that time, you should be aware of several UPS service changes that will be in effect February 1 – 28. These changes may also impact you if you are purchasing a product that originates from a manufacturer in Canada, so its important to plan ahead and order early in order to meet your deadlines.

Due to imposed security requirements and access restrictions related to the Games, the following service changes will apply in Vancouver, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, British Columbia:

• All shipments originating outside of Canada to the affected postal codes will have an end-of-day delivery commitment for the time period noted above. Delivery guarantees for international origin shipments of UPS Worldwide Express Plus™ and UPS Worldwide Express™ services will not apply.
• UPS Worldwide Express Plus, UPS Worldwide Express, and UPS Worldwide Express Saver™ shipments originating outside of Canada will require one additional day for delivery to Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.
• UPS On-Call Pickup® requests for a same-day pickup will not be available in the affected postal codes. All pickups requested through 1-800-PICK-UPS® (1-800-742-5877) and on ups.com will be picked up on the following business day.

Service will be affected in postal codes beginning with the following three characters:

Vancouver, British Columbia
V6B, V6C, V6E, V6G, V6Z,
V7G, V7H, V7J, V7K, V7L,
V7M, V7N, V7P, V7R, V7S,
V7T, V7V, V7W, V7X and V7Y

Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, British Columbia
V0N and V8B

This information is posted as a Service Update on ups.com, and further updates will be posted if necessary.

If you are working with Quintain Marketing on a project now or in the next month, we will notify you if the above UPS service disruptions will have an impact on the timeline for your project. If you have any questions, you may also contact us directly at 866-788-3226.

Here at Quintain Marketing, we’re big fans of UPS. They are our shipping partner of choice and we use them for everything from deliveries from vendors, to large fulfillments we send out on behalf of our customers. They rarely let us down and when they do, they’re always quick to find a good solution. Plus, they’ve begun introducing hybrid vehicles into their fleet, so they help us maintain our commitment to the environment.

One reason I love UPS is that they are great at communicating with us about any potential delays or interruptions to our regular service. Today, I received a notification from them about how delivery schedules will be affected surrounding the July 4th holidays and I want to share that with our customers so that you are prepared and your Independence Day promotions are not affected as we come closer to the holiday weekend.

UPS is offering nationwide ground package delivery service to businesses on Friday, July 3. Because Independence Day falls on a Saturday, many shipping companies are taking that Friday as a holiday. UPS will be open, and can deliver and pick up all of your international, air and ground packages that day.

Plan ahead now to make sure you will have the most flexibility in meeting your shipping needs for the July 4 weekend. You can count on UPS for critical Friday deliveries that are shipped 1-5 business days prior to July 3. You can refer to the UPS online time-in-transit maps if you have any questions about when your shipments will arrive.

While UPS package operations remain normal on July 3, that Friday is a holiday for UPS freight operations so there will be no air, ocean or LTL freight service on July 3. In addition, all UPS operations are closed on July 4, with the exception of UPS Express Critical.