Culture: A Business's Ultimate Differentiator

Sunglasses may not seem like a big deal for most of us, but for a FedEx customer from Idaho preparing for an important trade show, a few boxes of them were the difference between small-business success or failure. So when he drove a rented van all the way from Boise to our FedEx Express facility in California to pick up the shipment from China, only to find out that it was stuck in customs because of his supplier’s paperwork error, he was worried. He had invested thousands in the product. It was a Friday afternoon and FedEx was his last hope. 

We corrected his shipment’s customs clearance in record time. Not only did FedEx Logistics Senior Manager Steve Ashbaker and FedEx Express International Document Agent Angela Marbley manage the paperwork hiccup, they took care of the heavy lifting — literally. Late that Friday, they personally forklifted all the boxes, brought them down in the freight elevator and helped the customer load them into his rented van. “The whole time, he kept saying, ‘You guys are angels. You’re lifesavers,’” Angela remembers. 

We deliver 15 million+ packages a day with 675 aircraft and 180,000+ vehicles. But the way I see it, our most important number is 450,000. That’s the number of FedEx team members around the world who come to work for the same purpose — to connect people and possibilities around the world, helping them realize their hopes and dreams. Steve and Angela provide the perfect example.

You won’t find the steps Steve and Angela took to solve our customer’s challenge in any employee manual. But they embody what we at FedEx call the Purple Promise: “I will make every FedEx experience outstanding.” The Purple Promise is all about providing that extra, discretionary effort for our customers.

And while the Purple Promise is about doing good, it’s also good business. I think it’s safe to say Steve and Angela helped us earn a customer for life.

For us, stories like this play out all the time thanks to our team members who exemplify the FedEx culture by doing the extraordinary in service to our customers. It’s one of our biggest competitive advantages. It’s the “we” in the tagline you may know from our current advertising campaign: “What we deliver by delivering.” 

The FedEx Purple Promise wasn’t invented from thin air. Instead it is authentic to our culture—specifically the behaviors in our best team members that we want to see repeated. 

When leaders ask me how they can build organizational culture and sharpen what their brand stands for, I always tell them they shouldn’t be asking me — they should be asking their team members. There’s a good chance the answer is already right there waiting to be discovered.