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).