NewsImproving RadioShack Ship-to-Store
Many people consider me to be a complainer. Well, you may be able to make a good case for that. But, I prefer the title of improver. See, when I point out problems, I usually point out how to work on fixing them. Idle complaints are useless… telling folks how to start making things better, well, that’s just downright productive.
And, today’s case is no different. I had to wait nearly 20 minutes to have RadioShack open a box. The process of direct ship-to-store is rather new, but big stores like Wal-Mart have already found great success with them. Basically, you offer free shipping to the customer from your online store, but they have to go to a retail store to pickup the item. This saves the customer money, and shipping in palates drives the cost down to near zero.
Today was not my first RadioShack ship-to-store pickup. However, it was the most troublesome. First, I never was notified of the delivery to the store. I manually looked up the FedEx Ground tracking number and determined that the store received my shipment. As it turns out, the employees in the store (earlier in the day), did not process the ship-to-store items received.
Fix Number One: RadioShack stores should always register ship-to-store deliveries the moment they are received. Sitting on the boxes causes needless delays, and items can easily be forgotten.
This caused numerous problems. First, the late-shift workers didn’t know how to “check in” a delivery from ship-to-store. That prompted them to start phoning their manager… who didn’t answer. So, they had to work blindly at checking in the package.
Fix Number Two: All store employees should be trained on the ship-to-store process, from start to finish. Don’t assume that because someone works a certain shift, that they won’t have to handle such a transaction.
Next, the employees ran into another problem… after checking in the orders, they didn’t know how to validate which package was which. I had two ship-to-store orders to pick up, but there were several in the back room. They had to manually look up the tracking numbers for my orders, and then compare them to the ones on the boxes.
Fix Number Three: Place order numbers on the shipping label, so that employees can compare to the order email that the customer brings in.
Finally, the deluge of paperwork took four trips to and from the printer to print out. First, there was pick up paperwork, then signature paperwork, and finally, receipts. I’d say it took 12 sheets of paper for two orders.
Fix Number Four: Cut the paperwork. Use in-store digital signature pads to capture confirmation information. Eliminate initial printouts. Email the customer a pickup receipt. This should be a zero-paper process, after the customer prints out the pickup email.
Bear in mind, I was the only person in the store, for pretty much the entire process. 20 minutes is simply unacceptable. Hopefully RadioShack will see and implement these suggestions.
I would point out as well that Wal-Mart has already implemented most of what I’ve written down. The only delay I’ve experienced with their ship-to-store system… is when there are an overflow of customers that use the service (which means that the store may take awhile to find your package amongst everyone else’s).
Each one of your “fixes” are already in place. RadioShack has training programs that all employees are required to take…
Looks like that store has some training issues.
The label give those that are trained, enough information to process the customer pick up w/o a long wait.
The ship to store process goes like this…
1. As soon as you place your order, the receiving store is notified via email. The message show the product ordered, customers name & phone number.
2. When the package in received at the store, the “properly trained” employee logs into the ship-to-store program, selects the customers information. This process does three things, changes the status to “ready to pick up”, and sends the customer an email message automatically, and prints a paper to identify the package.
3. At this point, the employee calls the customer, notifies them of the package is ready to pick up. The package is placed on the customer pick up shelve. (with the paper attached to it)
4. When the customer arrives, the employee needs to check id & the asks for the last 4 digits of the card used in the transaction.
5. The employee logs into the ship-to-store program, enters the cards 4 digits, this creates the receipt paper & clears the order in the computer.
In a well trained store, this takes at the most, two minutes.
That was really sad that store did not have their act together.
Instead of airing the complaint on a forum like this, it would be much better handled at the district manager level. That’s what they are there for.
The DM’s will notify the store manager, that he needs to get on the ball and verify his staff is properly trained. It’s the store managers fault for not doing his job.
I’m certainly not alone in having RadioShack site-to-store issues. Check any deal discussion site. If RadioShack thinks they have my fixes implemented, they need to re-issue those communications… from the top down.
Plus I don’t see how they’ve enacted my suggestion for making this a paperless process. I don’t think you really read all my points, since they clearly have not implemented that.
Chris,
If you have such a problem with this, just call the local DM’s office. Don’t have the number, just call the store & ask for it. People do that all the time.
Your concerns will then be heard by someone that can do something about it.
Tripping out in blogs doesn’t do a thing for the problem. Just makes the whole company look stupid, when the problem was (in YOUR case) with that one store.
If I was in that store, and I wasn’t trained as those guys, I’d be upset & would want someones head to roll that put me in that situation.
That would be the store manager. They are responsible for training their employee’s.
Did I mention call the DM ?
Again, a significant portion of my suggestions couldn’t even be issued at a district level. I still think they all shouild be issued at a national level. Finally, I hardly would call constructive criticism to be “tripping”.
I’ve forwarded this entry to the appropriate people in Ft. Worth. I’ll keep this going as per your Brute Force method until both you and myself receive a satisfactory response.
There is no reason whatsoever that any Radio Shack employee should not be trained in Ship-to-Store policy, being a former employee and long-time customer myself. The fact that you lost so much time speaks to the poor level of competence that shouldn’t be there to begin with.