In a recent blog, I mentioned that I have just sold my store on Columbus Avenue. I have spent the last seventeen years owning and operating this Manhattan Mailroom location. That store is considered a “mail and parcel center” and is part of a larger community. I learned many things within that community and within the four walls of my store. Those experiences shaped the way in which I see things today. I love to say that “when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” I do very much believe that to be true. But, perhaps it is more important to note that if your life seems to be full of only hammers, then you will never notice the screwdriver on your desk.
Sometimes this is a good thing. There is nothing more important in the retail experience than customer service. In retail, your job is to make people happy with their time in your store. There are a lot of things that you can give customers to make them happy, but none so cost-effective or powerful as a smile. Despite what you may have heard, the customer is not always right. But they are always “the” customer and they must be treated as such. All of these past experiences have lead me to believe that that customer service and customer interaction are vital to any business.
Most people in the package logging software business have a very different approach to customer service. Because of their background in dealing with computers and processes, many tech people are influenced more by machines than people. It seems that many package tracking software companies try to design a process whereby the “user” can get “self-serve support.” I think that our package logging system clients are customers, not users. While giving our clients access to self-serve help and ideas is important and something we strive for, “self-serve” is no substitute for live help with a real person.
There are also the kinds of past experiences that shape our worldview in a negative way. While talking to potential clients we asked them about their current package logging process. It’s amazing how many different ways there are to attack the same problem. Some of these ways are ingenious and actually spark ideas for how we can make our package logging system better to emulate their efficiency. Some of these ideas make me shudder however. We have heard stories of those who will literally lift each and every package up onto their photocopier so that they can get a copy of the label. Next, they would hand log everything into a paper sheet, making sure to meticulously transcribe all of the information that was captured by the photocopy. Additionally they would actually weigh and measure each package. After all of this data was recorded, they would drop off these packages to another department for re-delivery. I am sad to say that that department would then have to repeat this entire process. I am sure that they had been doing it this way for a long time, but that does not mean that it was a very efficient use of anyone’s efforts.
Next time you deal with the packages in your organization, make sure you take some time to think about why you do the things you do and about how much really needs to be done. Think about how much easier your life would be with package logging software. Also remember that the friendly people here at EZTrackIt have heard every story about package logging you can think of and we have been able to help those folks make their lives easier by embracing a little change and a new perspective.
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