Guaranteed service refunds are a normal part of the parcel industry. Just like you have insurance on your phone or your car, a guaranteed service refund is essentially insurance on your parcel shipments with FedEx and UPS. Click To Tweet
A guaranteed service refund is essentially a money back guarantee for parcel shipping. Say you’re planning an event and ordered 500 swag bags. The promised delivery date is scheduled for two days from the time of your order. Well, if you receive them in three days, they’ll be useless because you received them after your event. You’ll be scrambling to find replacements if it is even possible. In this situation, you would need to request a refund from the parcel carrier and if approved they will repay you for your shipping charges, which typically applied as a credit to your next invoice. A general rule of thumb, if the shipment was sent via an express service the guarantee is usually day/time specific. If sent through the ground service with the carrier, it is day specific.
Here’s the process you must go through in order to receive your guaranteed service refund:
Audit Parcels
An essential business practice for every industry should be to audit your shipments. The audit should not only look for late deliveries but also include your contractual rates were applied properly, that all residential deliveries were valid, that you were not charged for any voided shipments, etc. This can mean outsourcing with a company that specializes in parcel auditing or doing it yourself. It can be tedious and time-consuming to audit each shipment individually. This does not even include the amount of time it takes to file the claim and then reconcile that refund was applied to your future invoice.
Pro Tip: When it comes to parcel auditing, it’s recommended to work with a professional auditing company. Freight Cowboy’s audit process for parcel shipping includes over 50+ points that are verified on all transactions.
Tracking Numbers
In order to get your GSR, you must know the tracking numbers of your deliveries. Once you locate your tracking numbers, you’ll want to organize them. If you have multiple refunds to apply for, you should organize them by the oldest date 1st. Most carrier policies only allow 15 days for you to file for a late delivery.
Delivery Date
Ensure that you know when your package was delivered compared to the actual promised delivery date/time. However, if inclement weather delayed your delivery or any “Acts of God” occurred, your claim will most likely be denied. Also, be aware of the contractual language in your carrier contract, in many instances, the carrier will implement a GSR waiver in the contract, that will hinder you from filing a claim for a late delivery… read the “fine print”. As a reminder, our firm typically secures refunds on behalf of our clients at 1-8% return (based on spend with the carrier), through our audit process.
Your Parcels, Your Refund
Keep in mind, these refunds are part of the carrier’s policies. Furthermore, you must be aware of what’s mentioned above to receive your full refund.
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