Customers eh - got one complaining about none delivery for something we sent out last

[Page]

YEAR!

(October)

 

[Ranks]

"The customer is always right"

 

[Bri]

As long as the payments cleared, hey ho.Bite me.

 

[Rolo Tomasi]

I'm sure your T&Cs state your policy for lost parcels - just draw their attention to them

 

[APC RoadLink]

The carrier should be able to provide the proof of delivery, unless you just put it in the post.

 

[PMSToys]

I have one delivery currently sat in the post office for collection for the past 2 months. I'm wondering if they'll ever pick it up.......

 

[inventive]

Send them a scan of proof of posting you got from the post office, they can use it to claim back the cost of the item from royal mail

 

[AndyP]

Send them a scan of proof of posting you got from the post office, they can use it to claim back the cost of the item from royal mail

As I recall, the cutoff point is six months so its too late to claim now.

 

[Ishtiak]

I am also agree with you.

 

[deniser]

I thought the cut off was 12 months for UK mail and 6 months for international? Or have they changed it recently?

 

[AndyP]

I thought the cut off was 12 months for UK mail and 6 months for international? Or have they changed it recently?

You could well be correct.....my six month suggestion was purely "if memory serves...." which it quite possibly didn't!

 

[Deleted member 73976]

I have one delivery currently sat in the post office for collection for the past 2 months. I'm wondering if they'll ever pick it up.......

It will sound weird but do they know where that parcel is? Few months ago I ordered something from Germany, it was sent by DHL. I didn't get any tracking number and the sender left for a very long holiday. I waited for almost one month for my parcel and finally I managed to reach my sender. They gave me DHL tracking number but Germany DHL record stated that my parcel was already in UK. And there was no UK DHL record for my parcel. So what happened? After many calls it turned out my parcel was forwarded to Parcel Force and their record stated three deliveries were unsuccesful. But I didn't know about it because I didn't get a single card from Parcel Force. If I didn't know the parcel is somewhere I would never look for it and probably it would be still left in their depot. It was second time when I wasn't informed by courier about delivery. And I cannot understand how come Germany DHL cooperate with Parcel Force not UK DHL?

 

[Christiane]

LOL I had one of those! I ignored the email, simple as! Some emails are not worth replying to.

 

[sysops]

Some emails are not worth replying to.

What about emails that start off: "I would like a quote for 20, 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 10000 of product X please"?

 

[meanandgreen]

What about emails that start off: "I would like a quote for 20, 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 10000 of product X please"?

...and can you send one to us for free so we can evaluate it before placing our huge order.

 

[AndyP]

To be honest, unless it really is a "my husband was killed in a plane crash leaving 20 zillion dollars" email we reply to them all.....most especially if they "appear" to be order enquiries......of course loads of them are potential scams...but the odd one here and there is genuine....and I would have sleepless nights if we missed one! We have a signature set up in Outlook which is effectvely a standard response giving them details of how to place an order with us both on and off line and assuming that this is a B2B enquiry how to register as a business to obtain business concessions etc. Its easily editable but the bulk of the content is standard stuff.....it takes seconds to edit and press send..... and I get to sleep well!

 

[matt.chatterley]

Saw one to a customer once whinging about how awful their product was, etc, etc and could we please have lots of free product to make up for the crapness. Um!

Besides which, it said something like "Your product, which I bought in shop xxx".. no.. you didn't - it's only sold online!

 

[sysops]

To be honest, unless it really is a "my husband was killed in a plane crash leaving 20 zillion dollars" email we reply to them all.....most especially if they "appear" to be order enquiries......of course loads of them are potential scams...but the odd one here and there is genuine....and I would have sleepless nights if we missed one! We have a signature set up in Outlook which is effectvely a standard response giving them details of how to place an order with us both on and off line and assuming that this is a B2B enquiry how to register as a business to obtain business concessions etc. Its easily editable but the bulk of the content is standard stuff.....it takes seconds to edit and press send..... and I get to sleep well!

We reply to all emails from actual customers.

As for enquiries, we now filter these, and reply to perhaps 10% of them. The volume has been steadily increasing, along with the time taken to handle them all (most turn into a conversation, rather than just a question + answer). So at the beginning of 2009, I crunched some numbers.

I looked at the total number of enquiries, the number of sales resulting from them, the average sale value, and the amount of time each one took to handle (on average). This was easier than you might think - I spent some time gathering all those emails in one place, then word-counted them. I then searched for order numbers within those emails to determine which ones had resulted in orders.

It turned out that we were spending around 3 hours of customer support time per £100 of sales for these out of the blue volume enquiries. This compares with around 2 minutes per £100 of web orders. So I put in place a strict filtering system, you just follow a simple set of rules which determine whether or not you should respond.

 

[AndyP]

We reply to all emails from actual customers.

As for enquiries, we now filter these, and reply to perhaps 10% of them. The volume has been steadily increasing, along with the time taken to handle them all (most turn into a conversation, rather than just a question + answer). So at the beginning of 2009, I crunched some numbers.

I looked at the total number of enquiries, the number of sales resulting from them, the average sale value, and the amount of time each one took to handle (on average). This was easier than you might think - I spent some time gathering all those emails in one place, then word-counted them. I then searched for order numbers within those emails to determine which ones had resulted in orders.

It turned out that we were spending around 3 hours of customer support time per £100 of sales for these out of the blue volume enquiries. This compares with around 2 minutes per £100 of web orders. So I put in place a strict filtering system, you just follow a simple set of rules which determine whether or not you should respond.

Interesting! Maybe I need to set aside some time to do exactly what you have done... it could be quite enlightening!

 

[sysops]

Interesting! Maybe I need to set aside some time to do exactly what you have done... it could be quite enlightening!

It may be very different in your sector. Because we stock a lot of lines (over 4000), and they are very diverse, that tends to attract a very broad range of enquiries. You might find that your enquiries are more focused. Would be interested to know what you find