Jul 23 2013

We bought a caravan over the weekend and I’ve been all over E-Bay picking up a few bits that we need to get us going. In a couple of cases I bought 2 things from the same seller. One offered to drop them off at my work to save me the postage costs, she did that this morning. Another, even though their site says paying for express postage for 1 covers 2 items, has shipped them separately, 1 express, 1 standard. One of my girls will be disappointed when she has to wait while the other doesn’t.

Not a big deal in the grander scheme of things of course. But here’s the thing; being fast, and Lean is predominantly about reducing the time between placing & receiving the order, is not enough. You still have to give the customer what they actually want. In this case, they had shipped the product before looking at the order & confirming that the 2 items, both on the same invoice, should have gone together.

I had even sent a note through explaining that their system did not allow me to select express for both without charging me for both, even though their site said second item free for express. I received a response, a “very sorry, but your order has gone out standard delivery”.

With our drive for faster & faster delivery we can lose sight of the customer in the process when in fact it is the customer that we are trying to please. Yes we want it fast, but we also want it right. Don’t lose sight of the end game, a happy customer, not just in the speed of delivery, but also with the service attached to it.

photo credit: gordon2208 via photopin cc