Horrendous customer service

(Update: 16-12-2009 Received a call from City Link Express. See my comment at bottom)

An organization or company that cares, especially the one that directly deals with customers, will put customer service as it's utmost important part of its daily operation. I remember an advertisement where a child said that when he grew up, he wanted to be a customer because he learnt from his father that a customer is the most important person in his company.

We have heard sayings like "Customer is king" often enough to know their meaning.

Unfortunately, day in day out we are offered sub-standard services. And it happened to me today!!

I instructed a company to send an item on my behalf to a customer in Kulai, Johor. That was on 1st December, 2009. I have used many courier services like National Express, Pos Laju, Sky Net, GDex, etc and have never encountered any major issue with the companies. The services can be rated good to best.

However, this company uses City Link Express. The problem started when, after a week, the customer called me saying that she has yet to receive her parcel. I immediately alerted the company and City Link Express and one Sharifah promised to keep me informed of any development. She even promised the customer that the goods will be delivered the next Monday, come what may.

Today, 15-12-2009, after 2 weeks, the customer is already extremely furious. For her, rightly as a customer, she does not want to listen to excuses like no delivery man, branch closed, and all those craps. She wants to cancel the order and have her money refunded.

I called the company again, and Sharifah refused to talk to me despite me leaving messages. And the excuse "computer system down" was sung to me every time I called them today.

As much as I tried to be customer-oriented, things happened beyond my power. If I had the say, I would definitely terminate the courier's service and choose one that puts its customers first. City Link Express certainly does not belong to that group.

All courier agents allow us to do tracking. Here is the tracking of my goods:

Update:

I received calls from representatives of City Link Express. To outline how important customer service is to them, they, including Mr Nash gave me a call. Mr Nash expressed his sadness over the whole matter and promised to look at the matter himself. He apologized (without giving excuses, I must say) and promised to settle the matter immediately. Often times, when dealing with disgruntled customers, that's the only thing that matters. They want to hear an apology, nothing else. (Having been in customer industry myself, I know this, first hand). Mistakes may happen on and off. The important things is how we deal with them.

The whole thing was settled pretty quickly. The customer did not however get her order as she had gone outstation, and the item was to be returned back to me, and the fee was waived. It was a nice gesture.

Last night, when I dropped by at my shop, I received my redeemed gift from Bonus Link, delivered by, well, City Link Express....