Last week, the video below made the rounds of the Internet and local news shows. In it, you’ll see a Fedex employee carelessly tossing a package containing a computer monitor over a high fence, with no regard for the contents. Of course, this is completely unacceptable, and in my experience not something that most Fedex delivery folks would have even thought about doing. Here’s the video:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKUDTPbDhnA
What I want to highlight, though, is Fedex’s response. The original video was uploaded on December 19th, a Monday morning. The response below was uploaded on December 21st, Wednesday, just two days later, along with a blog post.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ESU_PcqI38
Fedex did several things right here:
1. They acted quickly – a 2-day turnaround on a video with a high-ranking executive is awesome. If you’ve done much corporate video production, you know how quick this is.
2. They addressed those affected first – Mr. Thornton states that they’ve already reached out to the customer, apologized, and made that situation right. Next, they determined who the employee was and adjusted his schedule so that he’s not interfacing with consumers. Both of those tasks are not a quick phone call – there’s research that needs to be done, etc.
3. They used their response video to own the situation – the video basically recaps the original situation, explains that the customer has been taken care of and the employee has been reprimanded in some form or fashion, and then shifts the focus back onto Fedex and how they’ll use this situation.
Brilliantly handled, Fedex.
Ricky Cadden 