I would like to give you a quick update as to where we are with processing and fulfilling orders. Today we are picking orders that were placed on Thursday 4th and Friday 5th December. I just want to reassure you that our team is doing all we can to get back to our normal service levels - this week we have more than doubled our night-shift team. Our goal is to get back to a 24 hour despatch as soon as we can. We are also making good progress on ordering and receiving stock which will improve the fill rate, and we appreciate your patience as we work through outstanding orders and queries.
I would also like to quickly respond to a recent comment in the media – “It now seems it’s too late to order for Christmas from STL.” I want to make you all aware that this is absolutely not the case. We are currently running at 48-72 hour despatch and with the additional night shift team, this will go a long way to helping us achieve our goal of a same day despatch. I would like to thank you for your continued patience during this time and also to apologise once again for the inconvenience this has caused you.
If you are having issues, please don’t hesitate to contact our customer services team on 0845 705 6568 or speak to your Areas Sales Manager.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
mmm, its great to see someone deciding that you guys should blog........
I mentioned that STL should do this about 18 months ago and perhaps i directed my suggestion at the wrong person, nonetheless, blog on
Welcome to the blogosphere: enjoy the ride!
Things are improving though I'm not entirely convinced that you've hit that 48-72 hour despatch you mention yet —but it would be good to be proved wrong. Anybody out there to gainsay me, please?
Now, if only you could catch and kill that noxious little gremlin who keeps adding carriage charges to the invoices, please!!
Hey, supersimbo, you wretch: you beat me!! I wanted to be first!!
Hi All
Just wanted to say thank you for getting involved with our blog. Also to respond about the delivery time – we do have some parcels going out at 48hrs despatch. Realistically the majority are 72 hrs at the moment but we are all working really hard to improve this as soon as we can....
I’ll be sending an update out later today….
Congratulations on opening this blog! I am sorry to start off with a rather negative comment, but I would like to suggest to you that to say that you are achieving 48/72 hour despatch times is simply nonsense. I am getting orders in in one week, i.e 120 hours. This has been consistent since shortly after your system upgrade at the end of October. As an example I placed an order at 9 a.m. on Tuesday 4th December; when I phoned customer services yesterday to suggest that it might be arriving yesterday (48 hours) or today (72 hours) they were apologetic, and surprised that it stated on the website that you were achieving 48/72 hour despatch. I am expecting it to arrive possibly Monday but more likely Tuesday, based on my consistent experience over the last month.
I am sympathetic with your predicament in trying to integrate your new system, but could we please have a little more reality and a little less spin?
It's great that you are picking orders from December 4 and 5. Does this mean you will finally be able to pick and ship my order from November 17?
Yes, honestly, I am still waiting for that order, despite STL telling me that is now in Urgent status.
I agree that 48/72 hours delivery is still completely unrealistic. We placed an order on 10th Dec and we were told today that it might leave STL today, if not tomorrow. That means it will have taken a week or eight days to arrive. If delivery is going to take this long, it's much better if we can let the customer know at the time they place their order. Then we don't have to keep phoning them up to let them know it's late.
In fairness, I think that retail and distribution talk different languages. I think STL mean that it takes 48 hours to receive an order and process it so it is ready to leave. In 'the retail', we include the other day it takes to arrive. So an order I placed on Monday left STL on Wednesday, and arrived with us on Thursday. So STL may be right- but for my customers, it's still three long days!
Is this the right place to mention that we also received a duplicate of that Monday order? Probably not! It is, sadly, the case that there are still constant problems, basically on every order that comes in. And they are generally 'systems' problems- duplicated orders, charging issues, incorrect boxes, separated boxes etc- and I suspect that the 'temporary pickers' will be nowhere near any of these issues....... Anyway, we have now wound down the Christmas ordering, cleared out our backorders, and hopefully our friends at STL will have a chance to regroup, take a much needed break over the Christmas period, and return refreshed to the fray. Every blessing, folks- you have had a huge amount to deal with, and I have a high regard for those in Customer Services have tried their best to help us through this. Much appreciated.
Just to confirm that 48/72 hours is our despatch time (not delivery). Our aim is to get back to our standard service of ‘same day despatch’ (by this I mean – order placed on day 1 (before 2pm (or 4pm electronically), picked and packed on day 1 and despatched on day 1 with delivery in the hands of our freight handler to deliver it to you on day 2). We are aware that there are orders getting stuck in our system, thus taking longer than this, but we are working through these issues and making these orders our highest priority.
Glo bookshop – Thank you for your comments – I have passed on your kind words to our customer Services team. I’m sorry about the duplicate order you received on Monday. Unfortunately there shall be no rest for STL Distribution this Christmas as we will continue to work hard to recover the backlog of orders and work through the outstanding issues.
Post a Comment