Unbelievably bad.
Written: Apr 28 '06 (Updated Nov 19 '06)
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One of the most frustrating situations that I encounter from time to time is when all of the ingredients for excellence exist, but somehow, they just don't come together. This is the case with the United States Postal Service website.
I am currently waiting for a supervisor to call me back so I can voluntarily contribute my negative experiences with his company's products, in hopes that it might lead to solutions. It has been two and a half hours since I started trying to print a shipping label online. At every step, I have encountered multiple problems resulting from an impressive lack of both organization and development of the website.
For starters, you MUST have Adobe Reader version 5 or higher to print labels from the website. This is clearly indicated on the website, but here's the thing: I don't use Adobe Reader. I use Foxit Reader, a free program that is a fraction of the size and 10 times the speed of Adobe. Despite the warning, I went ahead and attempted to print the label without downloading and installing an extra and unwanted application. You see, EVERY OTHER WEBSITE IN THE WORLD that I have used has the exact same warning, with instructions and a link to download the Adobe Reader. And every other website works with Foxit. This is not magic. Both are simply programs that read Portable Document Format (pdf) objects. HOWEVER, the USPS website apparently will not work with anything but Adobe. New one on me. No problem. They recommend Adobe Reader version 5.0 or higher so I install version 5.0.1. I refresh the browser; it still doesn't work. I uninstall it, install version 6.0, and it STILL doesn't work. Apparently, you actually have to download the MOST CURRENT version, which is about 20.3 megabytes - if you have the presence of mind to UNCHECK the boxes which would also download and install the Yahoo toolbar and the Photoshop Album Starter Edition. If not, it's more like 27.7 megs. Compare this to the 2.5 megabyte size of my Foxit Reader, and you start to get the idea of why I prefer it.
Sooo... I restart the computer and log back in to the USPS website to try again with version 6. A survey pops up. I'm not making this up. So I let 'em have it. Here's what I said:
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What suggestion(s) do you have to improve the "Contact Us" link overall?
First of all, and I think this is EXTREMELY OBVIOUS, which means that it sort of [urinates] me off that you HAVEN'T DONE IT ALREADY. Try using your own service to print shipping labels. When/If you do so, please note that the service REQUIRES Adobe Reader, and apparently WILL NOT WORK with any other/better/faster pdf programs, such as Foxit. As if it weren't bad enough to have to install an unnecessary program on my computer just so that I can use your quirky service, after installing the recommended minimum Adobe Reader version 5.0 it still doesn't seem to work, even after restarting the browser! Finally, after installing AR version 6.0 and restarting the computer, there doesn't seem to be an intuitive way to SIMPLY RE-PRINT THE ******* LABEL FROM MY SHOPPING CART!!! Seriously, my computer and software somehow manage to work with EVERY OTHER WEBSITE IN THE WORLD EXCEPT YOURS!!! This tells me that instead of requiring me to change the way I do things, you should... hmmmm....let's see...Oh wait, I've got it! HIRE SOMEBODY TO KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR WEBSITE and possibly improve it from time to time. The only thing that is worse than wasting an hour and a half trying to figure out something that should have taken 2 minutes to complete is being asked to FILL OUT A SURVEY when I am in the middle of negotiating a stupid and unnecessary website issue.
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I get done there, and continue on my mission. No problems until I try to re-print the label. There is no button, no instructions, and nothing in the ENTIRE help file relating to re-printing a label from your shopping cart. I fool around with the search function for a while, but nothing comes close. I go to my shipping history to see if maybe the label can be printed from there, and discover that I have been charged $7.50 for every single time I have attempted to print the label - about $45 total.
So I go to the refund section, and begin the process of requesting refunds one at a time. This is tedious, and I am upset, but if I can get just through it, I'll be free to go and ship the box using another company. No such luck. I get one refund request completed and the website won't let me back into the shipping history, where I need to go to get the label & transaction numbers.
So I go to the help section again and search for the phrase "website help", both in quotes and out. Both searches yield the top result of "Tax Help". Useless. So I go to the contact page and there are four numbers listed:
1. General Information
2. Domestic Package Tracking
3. International Package Tracking
4. TDD/TTY 1-877-877-7TDD (1-877-877-7833)
Obviously, I called the first one, got an obnoxious and useless phone menu, stabbed the zero button until I finally got someone, and was told that they don't handle website issues but would give me a number I could call. It honestly took the woman about five whole minutes just to find the correct phone number, during which time I expressed my growing dissatisfaction with their competence level. She got just a bit snippy, but that was understandable. Finally, she found the number and I called it...
After the usual intro crap that every company seems to use these days - privacy policy, call-may-be-recorded-warning (ironically for quality purposes!), phone menu, I got to an operator named Christian. She was somewhat blase right off the bat. I gave her my user name. She said it didn't exist. I gave it to her again. She said it wasn't coming up. I gave her my city, state, and user name yet again. Nothing. I slowly spelled it out as if talking to a person, such as an infant or a foreigner, who is just learning our alphabet. This time it came up. She refunded everything and we were all set, until I did what I always do - I asked for her employee number, extension, or last name. Silence. I said "hello", and she indicated that there was only *one* person there named Christian and that that was all I needed to know. I didn't like here attitude, nor was I the least bit satisfied with ANY of my experiences today, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. She did the standard song-and-dance routine; placing me on hold, then coming back to report that he was on the phone but could call me back. I said I'd hold, though she tried to discourage this. After a bit, she came back on and said that he was still on his conference call and could call me back. I said I'd hold, and she flatly refused to allow it. So that brings us to now. I have been waiting for approximately one hour for that phone call, bringing my total time wasted by the USPS website so far to approximately three hours. When I finish this review, I'm going to call back. I don't expect to get anywhere, but I believe in due diligence.
UPDATE 2006-05-02:
After an hour and 10 minutes of waiting, I finally called back and was able to speak to George, the supervisor that Christian was supposed to get to call me. He was polite and professional, and as I explained everything, it seemed to me as though that he had not been given the message at all.
It is worth noting, for anyone who may have to request a refund from the USPS site, that none of my six refunds have posted yet. Somehow, my bank was able to process the transactions by now, but USPS was not able to cancel or refund them. And people joke about bankers' hours...
UPDATE 2006-05-05:
According to 5 separate emails in my inbox today, the refunds for 5 of my 6 erroneous transactions have just now been approved for processing! Wow, I am so excited! I mean, the money is not back in my bank account yet - what, did you think that's what I meant? Oh, no... slow down there, tiger. No, I have evidently just been *approved* to have my money returned to me at a later date. After all, its only been a week!
UPDATE 2006-05-16:
Finally, on May 15, I received the last of my six refunds from these guys! Pretty impressive, huh?
UPDATE 2006-11-19
Still no changes to the site. Still the same old problems. I have, however, found a way to 'trick' the site into working properly. When Internet Explorer blocks the label from popping up in a separate box, and you click the yellow information bar at the top of the browser window, it gives you the option to download the file. Simply click this option, but here's the tricky part: when it prompts you to refresh the page, DO NOT!!! Instead, click 'cancel'. This will bring your browser back to exactly where it was, while initiating the download of the shipping label in PDF format. Now just choose where you want the download to go, such a your desktop, and click 'save'. Once it downloads, you can open and print the label with your pdf viewing program.
Recommended:
No
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