UPS rolling out residential ground delivery money-back guarantee

Beginning Aug. 1, United Parcel Service will roll out a money-back guarantee on its standard ground delivery service to residences. As it has done since 1998 for commercial ground deliveries, UPS will issue refunds to shippers when their packages fail to reach recipients within UPS’s specified delivery windows, which range from overnight for intrazone deliveries to eight days for coast-to-coast deliveries.

“We wanted to extend the total portfolio from the commercial ground guarantee we originally offered to all of our services,” says UPS spokesperson Steve Holmes. “We feel it’s a great value proposition to customers.”

The guarantee gives UPS the one-up on its primary rival, the U.S. Postal Service, which offers delivery confirmation, but no money-back guarantee on its Parcel Select and Priority Mail services. It also helps ward off rising competitor Federal Express, which has been steadily expanding its relatively new ground service around the country.