Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Brandi Burgin
Comm260-A
Chris Morse
20 December 2016
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
Online shopping is one of the biggest ways that the media is used. During the holidays,
strong deals and promotions encouraged more consumers to shop over the holiday weekend.
More than 154 million consumers will shop over Thanksgiving weekend, which went from 151
Thanksgiving weekend survey conducted by Prosper Insights found that 44 percent went online
and 40 percent shopped in-store (National Retail Foundation). Along with shopping online
throughout the year, more than 122 million consumers plan to shop online on Cyber Monday
(National Retail Foundation). Because of the popularity of online shopping, came the crisis
In the year of 2013, thousands of Americans woke up to find that hundreds of their online
shopping orders were not delivered to their house. UPS acknowledged getting swamped by the
season cheer and failing to deliver orders in time, left them in a crisis they never expected to get
so out of hand. As the time continued and the more people that found themselves without
Christmas gifts, customers tried to give their raging complaints to FedEx and UPS customer
service line. When customers found that their complaints were going nowhere, they decided to
express their anger and frustrations via social media. Their complaints went national and even hit
the biggest news stations like KTLA. We are sorry that there could be delays and we are
contacting affected customers who have shipments available for pickup, Scott Fiedler, a
spokesman for FedEx, told the Associated Press on Wednesday of 2013 (National Retail
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
Foundation). Pressed Christmas afternoon, a supervisor at FedEx, the customer support line,
went further in a call with NBC News. He declined to give all his personal information but
acknowledged the extraordinary delays at the shipping giant and said his team had been
apologizing to customers (Nation Retail Foundation). As this was released to the press, the
raging customers felt as though the supervisor was not trying to handle this situation or
presenting a solution to them. We give our apologies to customers, he told NBC News, noting
that bad weather had crippled planes and delivery trucks and unforeseen demand swamped what
vehicles remained in operation (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). While acknowledging that there
was a crisis, he put a shift blame on the weather and trying to avoid the actual situation at hand,
that many customers had no presents to give to their families on Christmas day.
Although, the supervisor did release a world-wide apology to all customers, he avoided
giving out any personal information, even his first and last name. This lead to an even bigger
problem because it left customers feeling as though they were not important enough for him to
show his face while apologizing on television. Along with not telling people who he was, it
made customers struggle to know who to contact when a situation like this happens in the future.
FedEx was not the only company that was affected by this crisis, it was UPS as well. UPS
mirrors the problem that FedEx had at the exact same time. On Tuesday, the day before
Christmas eve, complaints piled up and packages failed to arrive from UPS (Dokoupil, Tony.
NBC News). Once many customers started to realize how big of an affect this had on people,
they started to express their thoughts via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. UPS SUCKS,
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
wrote Kip Ingram in a post on the companys Facebook page, just a short scroll from a Happy
Christmas message from the companys delivery crew (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). They
just FAILED. SUCK, SUCK, SUCK! wrote another customer on the Facebook wall after
Ingram (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). As the harsh social media post, one women named Teri
Martin made a very wordy, shaming post on Facebook. Martin wrote Merry Christmas FedEx.
Thanks for taking my money, ruining my sons Christmas and taking days off to avoid dealing
with desperate customers trying to find out how to get their packages! NEVER AGAIN!
(Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). For many of these people, the void of not having any Christmas
presents to open was spent many days and hours of phone-and-Web wrangling with UPS
customer service (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). Although, many people acknowledged that
Christmas is more than just about the presents, but even some of the smaller, more symbolic
gifts of Christmas got lost in transit. Samantha Edussuriya, the director of online content at
Fuse.tv, the music website, took to social media shaming after FedEx failed to deliver her
mothers passport in time for a family trip to Mexico (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). One
women who expressed her sadness about UPS failing to deliver was Katherine McEachen of
Fairfield, Connecticut. She suffers from lupus and was bedridden for much of the months
previous to Christmas. So when she was able to finally get out of the house to cut the Christmas
tree down with her family, she documented the memory and wanted to make it a present for her
father to cherish on Christmas day (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). UPS ruined my Christmas,
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
McEachen told NBC. It is just a mug, but it was supposed to be so special and it is the only
way I can say those words to him (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News).
UPS and FedEx did not realize the severity of this crisis until the posting of social media
started to pour out. Many people voiced their anger and sadness that even though Christmas does
not revolve around the presents, many people spent a lot of money and relied on these two
companies to make this day special for themselves and their families. UPS understands the
importance of your holiday shipments, the company said in a Christmas Day statement on its
website. However, the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our
network immediately preceding Christmas so some shipments were delayed, stated the
company on the day of Christmas (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). Along with UPS and FedEx,
Amazon.com, one of the countrys biggest package shippers, also cited UPSs failure in an
of delivery carriers, Amazon spokesperson, Mary Osako, confirmed that Amazon is also
attempting to placate affected customers by providing gift cards and refunds for shipping charges
(Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). One thing that Amazon did that gained them a lot of respect and
credit, is that they offered a solution and a give back to the people that this crisis affected. The
company within itself, took responsibility for the mishap and provided a solution. Whereas,
FedEx and UPS hid behind the social media and relied on shifting the blame on something else
cause many people to be angry. The main problem of this crisis was not the weather, it was that
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
the companies were not prepared for this holiday season even though they knew this time of the
The last time a significant number of UPS packages were late for Christmas was 2004,
when an ice storm took over Worldport, the UPS distribution center in Louisville, Kentucky
(Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). Back then, employees ended up manually loading packages for
days, and surprising the customers on Christmas day. This year the company declined to call its
workers in for holiday service (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). Many people were left unclear to
where the UPS network broke down and the company declined to specify the size of the problem
which left the situation to become even bigger. At the same time as this crisis, there was the
continued growth of online shopping, which not only facilitates last-minute gifting but often
rewards it with deeper discounts (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). Online spending jumped 9
percent, to $37.8 billion, between November 1st and December 15th, according to the online
research firm comScore, and retailers expect overall holiday sales to be up nearly 4 percent,
exceeding $600 million (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). During this crisis, UPS anticipated
delivering 132 million bundles in the week before Christmas, according to Bloomberg
Businessweek, and to meet that wave of holiday cheer, Abell organized 55,000-part time
workers, 23 extra planes and what amounts to a second fleet of delivery trucks (Dokoupil, Tony.
NBC News). Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, FedEx handled 275 million shipments,
Fiedler, the UPS spokesman, told the AP. Out of those packages that were not delivered in time
for the holidays, he said, would be very few (Dokoupil, Tony. NBC News). With all these
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
expectations that the two companies were estimating, the customers felt as though this could
After many of the social media posts came pouring in, all posts were written in pure
disappointment. As more media posts went viral, it amped up the crisis in general. Many people
tried to reach out to both, FedEx and UPS, to try to solve their problems but when these two
companies both tried to avoid the situation, it caused a bigger uproar. The hashtag #UPSSUCKS
started to trend on Twitter and Facebook which allowed people to search that hashtag and
connect with people going through the same issues. As more and more complaints came pouring
in, UPS and FedEx really did not know how to handle it. While many of the employees tried to
just ignore the entire situation, FedEx spokesperson decided to address the situation. Mercent
CEO Eric Best, went on to say It is easy to blame UPS, but it is the retailers that are pushing
these next-day shipping offers in the final hours of the shopping season, (Stevens, Lauren. NG,
Serena. Banjo, Shelly. Wall Street Journal). However, with the statements that the spokes
people have said have only made the customers even more mad. Many of the customers sent out
complaints about the customer service they had when they tried to reach out to UPS and FedEx.
Both of these companies made significant amount of excuses to the customers and told them that
they were at fault for this mishap. The complaints to the customer service were shown to only
make things worse for the companies. Customers complained that they did not get any help from
the service and whenever they would call, they would get sent to another line or the phone would
continue to put them on hold until they decided to hang up. Both, FedEx and UPS spoke out
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
about this saying that the only reason they had a hard time about this was because so many
people were calling that they did not have enough staff to take every call (NBC News Online. 21
December 2015). When customers were getting put on hold, many decided to express their local
news companies which ultimately led to many news companies releasing a detailed report of the
From 2013 to 2015, FedEx and UPS had very rough years. In 2013, they underestimated
Americans growing fervor of online shopping (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). Throw
in bad weather, deliveries get backed up and customers become aggressive and upset. UPS and
FedEx spent heavily last year to ensure better performance, but it still had its major hiccups in
2015 (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). Toys R Us, Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, J.C.
Penny and Kohls were among the retailers who missed delivery to at least one part of the
country, according to industry tracking firm StellaService (NBC News Online. 21 December
2015). They lost a lot of customers from this incident but not due to the packages not arriving
but because of how these two companies went about handling it. To prevent similar mishaps,
UPS and FedEx have been working with major retailers to hone their forecasts and have
scheduled their extra holiday workers to better meet the shipping spikes right after Thanksgiving
and the weekend before Christmas (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). As they decided to
come together, some third-party tracking services have signaled a few issues with 2015
deliveries but UPS spokesman Mike Mangeot said that more than 96 percent of packages are
being delivered on time in December and that UPS expects packages to arrive by Christmas
(NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). In many cases customers are receiving the packages
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
earlier than promised as we are advancing deliveries to make sure the network remains ready for
any spikes as last-minute Christmas shipping approaches, says Mangeot (NBC News Online.
21 December 2015). The reason Mangeot decided to come out with this release of making a
promise to have packages delivered in advance to shipping date is to allow customers to know
Although, many of the people have questioned why it took the companies so long to get
the packages delivered, the weather played a huge role in this crisis. At first glance, Kentucky
does not seem like the epicenter of holiday shipping. After all, Louisville is a city of 600,000
people and is known for the Kentucky Derby, the city does have relatively good weather and a
geography that is perfect for shopping (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). FedEx has a
similar operation in Memphis, Tennessee (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). Gary Kelley,
manager of the UPS next day shipping division at Worldport, decided to talk about the location
to eliminate the factor of this being the problem. It is just an ideal location for us. We are
within two hours (flying time) of 75 percent of the population and within four hours of 95
percent. (NBC News Online. 21 December 2015). Along with the distance, when you are
rushing packages overnight, that proximity to the countrys largest cities matters (NBC News
Online. 21 December 2015). The poor performance will make consumers think twice next
holiday season about deliver promises and could boost the popularity of buying online, ship to
store options that many stores offer, says retail brand strategy expert Ken Nisch, chairman of
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
JGA, a firm that represents clients including Macys, Godiva and The North Face (USA Today.
As this crisis broke out, only one online shipping store thrived at this time of the year.
Amazon, the No. 1 online retailer in the week before Christmas, as measured by Experian
Marketing Services, fulfilled its end of the bargain by packing its shipments and delivering them
to carriers on time for holiday delivery, Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said (USA
Today. Leger, Leinwand. ODonnell, Jayne). While Amazon was thriving and delivering all of
their packages on time or before the shipping date, it caused a lot of the FedEx and UPS
customers to become even more upset. They felt as though, if Amazon was able to deliver to
their customers then all shipping companies should be able to as well. Customers that went viral
to complain expressed that they believed the two companies blaming the weather for this issue
was a cop out rather than being able to take responsibility. At first, FedEx was trying to reach
out to the customers to fix the issues and compromise with them. When they saw the anger that
was broadcasted by the customers, they decided to hide from the situation. Even though, FedEx
released a statement to NBC, the spokesperson chose to hide their identity and name. As irritated
customers vented their anger on the UPS Facebook page, the company responded to many by
apologizing and asking for shipping information to get the packages on the right track (USA
Today. Leger, Leinwand. ODonnell, Jayne. 27 December 2013). UPS drivers did not deliver on
Christmas day, but sorters worked Christmas afternoon and evening to load planes at UPS air
hub in Louisville. Even so, UPS said, some packages that were promised to arrive before
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
Christmas still would not arrive until Friday (USA Today. Leger, Leinwand. ODonnell, Jayne.
27 December 2013). Were making every effort to get all the packages delivered, UPS
spokeswoman Natalie Godwin said (USA Today. Leger, Leinwand. ODonnell, Jayne. 27
December 2013).
UPS and FedEx both ignored the ethical issues in regards to the crisis. Ethics in regard to
the organization is when an organization takes responsibility for the crisis or in charge of crisis
management. The main goal is how the employees and the crisis communicator can be protected
within this crisis. However, at the beginning of this crisis, FedEx decided to ignore the entire
thing at hand and avoid taking responsibility. They let the ethical side of their company go to
waste and prove to their employees that they are willing to hide their face in an ethical issue
instead of taking responsibility and trying to gain the trust of their customers back. FedEx and
UPS denied the ethics of the victim as well. Both of the companies should have realized that they
are ignored all people affected by this crisis leaving many families empty handed on Christmas
morning. In regards to how they companies handled the situation was completely unethical.
There are steps on how companies can address a crisis but keep all values available to the public.
Ethics on how the crisis is handled is based on how long the company should be managing the
victims after the crisis is handled and how long after are you responsible for. The most important
question when handling a crisis that has victims ethics at stake is understanding what the right
decision is. The first right decision that these organizations should have made was taking
responsibility right when the crisis started to occur. By hiding their faces and taking the day off
Crisis Within UPS and FedEx Final Paper
rather than doing everything they can to help, they immediately lost the trust in the victims
which is one of the biggest things a crisis communicator should try to avoid. By taking
responsibility and allowing the customers to feel a sense of importance to the organization, it
would have eased the situation a little more. Instead, FedEx decided to go on a news station that
was broadcasted all over the world with a hidden image of a face, a hidden name and a different
voice apologizing to all the customers and explaining what happened with all of their packages.
Because of their lack of empathy towards customers ethical views, they lost a lot of customers
while ruining many Christmases and being shamed on all social media sites.
As many children woke up to no gifts left under their trees and many angry customers
voiced their hate for UPS and FedEx, FedEx and UPS brought this upon themselves. They could
have easily predicted the crisis that could happen during the holidays and have a plan for when
this did happen knowing the growing desire of online shopping. Instead, both companies decided
to ignore the situation entirely and take a day off for all employees making valued customers
even more upset. Both crisis communicators for these companies did not apply any of the
methods or theories we have learned throughout the course of the semester, only making the
impact of this crisis last years after it actually occurred. While respecting victims privacy,
understanding when ethical issues come into play and taking responsibility for the crisis instead
of shifting blame would have decreased the uncertainty that past victims, current victims and
Citations
Press, Associated. (2015 December 21) Inside the Madness as UPS Rushes to Deliver Holiday
madness-ups-rushes-deliver-holiday-gifts-time-n483796
Dokoupil, Tony. (2013 December 25) UPS, FedEx Draw Fire After Christmas Delivery
fedex-draw-fire-after-christmas-delivery-problems
Stevens, Laura. (2014 December 24) UPS, FedEx Got Back On Time This Holiday. Retrieved
from: http://www.wsj.com/articles/ups-fedex-got-back-on-time-this-holiday-1419886180
Leger Leinwand, Donna., ODonnell, Jayne. (2013 December 27) UPS Still Staggering Under
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/12/26/more-delays-as-ups-
staggers-holiday-crush/4207755/
Peterson, Hayley (2015 December 11) Holiday Disaster Looms at UPS, FedEx Overloaded After
shipping-delays-threaten-retail-christmas-2015-12
Stevens, Laura., Ng, Serena., Banjo, Shelly (2013 December 26) Behind UPSs Christmas Eve
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303345104579282432991595484
Retail Foundation, National (20 November 2015) Holiday Headquarters. Retrieved from:
https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-data/holiday-headquarters