The Late Box

Balikbayan Boxes are love, although technically, bittersweet, because it means that someone is sending them to you, so they live miles away. #Drama ;-D More or less, 9 out of 10 times, our relatives and friends from California use Atlas Shippers International. So far, Atlas delivers timely, be it from our previous Pampanga address. I think the quickest was about 18 days after pick-up form the sender. That’s nice! Angeles City takes about 21 days, more or less. But this time around, to a Manila end point, it took about 32 days. Yes, it was still within the 35 days period, but my, it was rather frustrating that it arrived August 11 to their warehouse, was attempted to be delivered to us August 14, but because of traffic, (Hello! Manila Traffic is a way of life!), and not because of custom-related issues or even flooding that it didn’t reach us. They waited 5 days to do so again! That’s considering, we were doing our endless soirees of follow-ups here and at their US office! It’s a matter of urgency because I need to finalize the party services I will be availing. Plus, I son was super excited, and was getting impatient, to think he was doing a count down based on the committed date of delivery to the shipper, August 14 or even earlier.

Box shipped via Atlas shippers International, Inc. It was officially picked up July 16, and we received it under our Ortigas Center, Pasig City address, August 19.

As a promotion of Atlas, a free Junior Box is included.

Uh Oh! A bottle of Jam broke!!! This was not the first time, last time a shampoo and a bubble solution fo Gazillion Bubble Maker, broke too. If it’s a packaging related reason, or a box handling, I can’t say for sure.

It’s just sad when companies instead of improving, backslide on customer service. Please gear up! Delivery lead time is a key! Oh my, kaka-high blood! In fairness, I talked to a couple of customer service assistants, the first few calls were uneventful. The Thursday, my first irate follow-up, SA’s did call me back asap, so I had hopes! I tried calling again, the second lady didn’t call me back. Tsk! Tsk! So, when we’re raging mad came Friday, and we found out that nothing was noted on how supposedly crazy mad we were, we vent out all our frustrations to the third lady. Oh my, I was seriously mad a la near Claudine Barretto raging mad. *LoL But she was okay, A for effort, so we calmed down a bit. And besides what can I do, I would not dare picking it up, knowing we paid for a Door to Door Delivery service. And if so, we should have done it the Monday if we really couldn’t afford the wait. Anyhow, to appease us, I guess, they promised to do best effort Friday, and Saturday as the committed delivery date. They did delivered though…past 5pm. I work in an industry that key competency and competitive advantage are made because of delivery lead time. So it’s a bit frustrating, when this company can actually capitalize on a better delivery lead time vs. others, but decided to forego it.  Oh well, this is me, ranting! I can’t help it, I’m only human! *LoL

Now, on with the happy things, what’s in a box?

Camouflage Theme Party Supplies from Party City and Candies/Chocolates Overload. Love, love, love! ;-D I shared this earlier on my FB Page.

More Lovey Dove-ys for us! More Toiletries, and you ought to know I’m addicted to hoarding them! *LoL SPAM, never fails. Peanut Butters, Jams, and Jelly spreads. Mac and Cheese, my son’s favorite! ;-D

In fairness, the boxes are here, finally! Thank goodness! I’m just saying that cargo shippers need to improve their customer service level. And oh, they need to invest on some GPS, or if not, use Google Maps, they keep saying that our Ortigas Center address is part of Rizal. Hello! Know your customer, keep your customer…the basic principle of selling! Basic is that there’s should be a log of some sort of calls, queries, and follow-ups made by an account, so as to save everyone the trouble of retelling. Remember the emotional consideration on the bittersweetness of receiving a box that is at most time filled with hard-earned gifts of a family that is away from home, on how it should be an “Awwww…” moment, useless follow ups sadly ruin the moment! Oh well…still thankful for the boxes! ;-D