On Saturday afternoon, 14 Aug 2021, Covid control period, we received an online wine gift order from a customer for a recipient in Kuala Lumpur. The gift needed to reach the recipient on following week by Friday, 20 Aug 2021.
As usual, we prepared the wines and the message card, then handed over to our courier partner on Monday, 16 Aug 2021. The truck left Butterworth in the evening, and we expected the parcel to arrive Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday or Wednesday just like a regular shipment.
On Tuesday, 17 Aug, we checked the status in the evening and found that the status was still “In transit”.
Okay, for benefit of doubt, we would wait for another day.
On Wednesday, 18 Aug, we checked the status and unfortunately it was still “In Transit”. Sensing that something wrong must have happened, we decided to call up our courier partner to find out what happened.
We called the branch and also escalated to another branch manager for help.
Our courier partner told us that the hub was stuck that caused the delay.
We informed customer the shipment did not arrive that day and closely follow up the shipment with the courier partner.
On Thursday, 19 Aug, we checked status again at 7.04pm and found that the parcel arrived at the CCI station. We could almost certain that the wines breakage happened.
In normal order whereby our customers normally do not need the wines urgently, we could either offer send out a replacement or refund after confirmation from courier partner. This time, the order is a gift and need to arrive by Friday. When time was of the essence, we had to try our best to commit.
As we ran out of time, we could not wait any longer for our courier partner’s confirmation. We immediately prepared a replacement parcel and once the courier partner confirms the breakage we would be able to send out immediately. However, we knew that the parcel would fail to reach to recipient on Friday.
Failing was not an option we ever wanted. We asked two of our supply partners in Kuala Lumpur for help so if plan B fails, we still have plan C.
Fortunately, one of our partners in K.L. was able to help us arrange delivery with an alternative wine to our customer’s recipient
On Friday, 20 Aug, our partner successfully delivered the bottle to the recipient.
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After the incident, we studied our packaging and communicated with our courier partner on their handling. Then, we improved further our packaging and wrappings to prevent the same case from happening again.
Last but not least, thanks very much to our KL supply partner for their help in such a challenging Covid control period.