Federal Express Corp. is gearing up for the annual avalanche of Christmas packages with new services for gift givers and an automated customer-relationship management system from Clarify Corp. for itself. In addition to tracking packages and trucks, the shipper hopes to better track its corporate customers--and the employees who work for them.

The multimillion-dollar Clarify software rollout is part of a larger internal shift to a solutions-based sales mode that's a new way of doing business for FedEx, says Henry Maier, VP of customer automation marketing. By New Year's, the company promises to deliver a single customer-service organization that will handle and collect information on its ground-shipping and express-shipping customers. Currently, each group operates separate sales organizations, uses different account numbers with separate invoices, and asks customers to dial separate customer-support centers even though businesses often use both sets of FedEx services. For customers, the integrated structure will provide a single point of resolution for delivery issues, says FedEx VP David Roussain.

Countering the holistic approach to customers, though, FedEx also will focus more on the individuals who stand at their shipping counters. An upgrade to FedEx's Ship Manager software suite lets an individual agent enter a unique ID number that's tracked separately from the corporate account, so FedEx knows about not just its interactions with XYZ Corp., but also its interactions with John Doe. "As an employee moves from one company to the next, we hope he'll carry his loyalty to FedEx to the new company, and we want to give him the respect due a loyal customer. When he calls us, we want to know what kind of issues he has had in the past," Roussain says.

Meanwhile, FedEx also is making changes to help online Christmas shoppers with an upgrade to NetReturn. Consumers who want to return merchandise can use their computers and printers to create a bar-coded shipping label that includes all tracking numbers and customer information. FedEx competitor United Parcel Service revealed a similar service in September. Both are a step in the right direction, says Jupiter Research director David Schatsky, citing a Jupiter poll in which 42% of online shoppers say they would buy more online if returning merchandise were easier.