Let me share with you how Her Closet carries out our liason with our customers. Usually, I will be the one fronting my customers to ensure that they are pretty satisfied with our products and service.
There are many customers who loves to create conversations with me as they place their orders.
Sometimes it is really challenging especially when my time is pretty tight at work. But I sincerely appreciate the time they have to write to me and will only return the same and hopefully in time more as I reply and go along.
Of course we do have unsatisfied customers. Like I say, I am always going to keep it real here. Her Closet do have customers that really give me a challenging time till there are time I would just pull my hair, trying to figure out what they exactly want.
More importantly, I have many more wonderful customers who have been nothing but accomodating especially when they know that I am pregnant and just dont feel like working out the postages. Of course I will end up apologising and many times giving them complimentary upgraded service of sending the items right to their doorstep.
There are also times when I get customers who complained of not getting their items. Swearing in the name of God that I have sent it out will not help because all customers want a pleasing service. Even I do.
I always reach dead ends when the postage was not registered and no way I was able to track the items.
I sometimes do question the validity of the situation but there were only so little answers I get. Despite urging customers to register their mails, they prefer to trust that Singpost can do a good job. Some never become recurring customers after getting a free replacement from me, which actually I am not even obligated to provide. So I will leave it to them and Him. My conscience is clear.
Let me share with you my experience.
Previously, my maid will head down to the nearest neighbourhood postbox and help me post out the items every morning. It turns out that over 2 months I received a lot of complaints.
Missing mails.
I was replacing items for free because of the reputation that we uphold.
Then when it reached too many, I was at the peak of my frustration.
I ran through my records and tried to analyse what was wrong. It turned out that mails which were sent out on Wednesday morning were always. I wrote a letter for them to investigate but they mentioned that they were unable to trace any abnormalities.
I wanted to kick their ass, how simply they tried to close the issue. Knowing how persistent they can be, I decided a workaround solution. Get the husband to drag all my postages to Singpost branches and mail it there.
There are incidences of "lost mail" but it fell drastically.
(please tell me i should not be kicking their ass)
Yesterday, while I was happily taking down all my orders, a frequent customer of mine who rarely shares much opened up an incident to me. I was shocked. Stunned. Read her mail in disbelief and of course I really felt like kicking their ass again.
Here was her note to me and I am sharing it with you ladies.
From Siti Aloyah:
You know, that time i didnt get my tudungs that i ordered fm u. But it's not yr fault. Singpost problem. I saw the packages in the morning but didnt take out, tahu2 ptg dah hilang. Geram kan. So made police report n report to singpost. Unable to solve case but they reimbursed me the money out of goodwill. Haiz.
The fortunate thing is, Tuhan nak tunjukkan yg the packages already arrived. This was the letter that i wrote to Singpost.
"On 27 June 2011, I opened my mailbox and found several mails and 2 envelopes containing tudungs (headscarves) which I bought online. As I was leaving for work, I only took out the mails and left the two envelopes in my box. After that about an hour or so, my husband also did the same to check for his mails. He also noticed the two envelopes in the mailbox and left them there since he was also going to work. Around 5pm, when my husband came back from work, he told me the two envelopes were missing! No one else have access to the mailbox, except me and my husband, and of course Singapore Post delivery person. This is a very serious matter. If we had not opened our mailbox in the morning, we would not even know that our items have been delivered, and we may have thought the online sellers did not send to us. If it is theft from your own staff, this really tarnishes Singapore Post's reputation and I hope you will give the culprit serious punishment. Please investigate the matter immediately. I will be waiting for your response."
Case dah tutup and they gave me the amount of money i paid for all the tudungs. However, Singpost said this is out of goodwill and not admission of guilt.
Honestly, in my heart, I was like,"WHAT??? OUT OF GOODWILL???".
They actually managed to trace who was on duty the other day and it was a Malay lady but since she did not admit anything, the management decided to take her word for it.
Like what my customer said, who else would have access to their mailboxes.
So they can really shove the act of goodwill and really start protecting their organisation.
Work with no ethics is really intolerable for me and ethics really include structure, integrity and professionalism.
I hope sharing these incidences with you help you understand that sometimes it is not the online shop administrators. We are in a situation where we do not know who our middle man is.
There are many online small businesses in the market today. Some earn better than others but there are many who try to keep afloat. While many usually do not opt for registered mail, I hope Singpost can give the sense of security that we can trust their system and that our mails reach to the respective recipients.
We need to be rest assured that they are a responsible organisation which the people can trust.
I received another email from a fellow online retailer.
From Sis Rafeeda Leurima:
salam sis.. read your blog on singapore post ...as i do have my fb online biz too..
one time we order something, that suppose to courier to our doorstep by singpost. We receive a call, she claim that she the one suppose to deliver to us today, as her duty.... then she give a reason make us understand that she unable to do it. It was her personal reason. SHe said i will just do it for you next day when i pass your area.. IMAGINE THAT!
we came down to singpost to do our regular mass post. i question the malay officer that was serving us, why is our customer not receiving the postage early .. sometime delay till near 2 weeks for normal postage. as we can't trace it as its not register post.
she answer to us, that now singpost is outservice... IS no longer their official staffs..its outservice to other private company ..
i really wonder what kind of people they hiring .. (outservice) Now all they(singpost) care is they receive our payment .. weather our receiver...... receive it or not is not a matter to them...
honestly its very sad to out happening .. with singpost ..
Yes, sometimes customer's mails arrive 2 weeks agreement. In the website, their SLA (Service Level Agreement) to us is 3 to 5 working days.
Worse, they decided when they can suka-suka deliver the things to recipients.
Outsourced service? Sure, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing.
But how closely is Singpost keeping their operation process intact? Or did they just outsource, washing their hand and leave the system to take care of itself.
Who is the gatekeeper then to ensure their business processes?
