Busy booksellers in Montana
I bought an interesting book in the United States a few weeks ago. It turns out, it is the second volume of a trilogy – but the first volume is now out of print. So, I turned to Alibris, the well-known online used bookseller for help.
Since I live in Denmark, I naturally chose the UK site rather than the US version. And I found a bookseller, John B. Driscoll, Ltd, who had the book at a reasonable price.
On April 14, I placed my order.
And waited.
On April 23, I received an e-mail that my order had been shipped “today.” Except that according to the actual order, my book had been shipped two days earlier on April 21.
Upon closer investigation, it seems John B. Driscoll, Ltd. is located in Helena, Montana.
My book is expected to arrive on May 9.
So, here are my questions:
First, why did an American vendor get priority exposure on a UK site? Why even bother with a UK site if it isn’t selective?
Second, why did it take a full seven days to wrap a book and put it in the mail? It seems booksellers in Helena, Montana are busier than I would have thought.
Third, why did it take a full two days for Alibris to send an e-mail telling me the book was in the mail?
Quite frankly, I am seriously underwhelmed. I know that when I deal with companies online, I generally get a better selection than I would find at a bricks-and-mortar shop. And the tradeoff is that I accept having to wait for an order to arrive – no instant gratification here. But I do expect online service providers to make a modest attempt to keep my waiting time to a minimum.
- "We shipped your order today" wrote Alibris - a full two days later on April 23. This gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "today".
Equal time to Alibris
Before publishing this post, I did pose exactly these questions to Customer Service at Alibris.
After the usual problems of finding a useful contact e-mail, which was buried somewhere in the FAQ, I did receive a prompt and somewhat helpful answer from Tim Garvey, Alibris Client Services. Here is his explanation:
"If you're ordering on our UK website to ship to an European address, shipping costs will be less than the US website."
OK. A thoroughly reasonable explanation. However, cognitively, this makes little sense to me as I don't understand Alibris' distribution routines. I would think that the company would always try to achieve the lowest shipping costs no matter which site I use.
Tim continues:
"The delay in shipping you saw was the seller sending their book to our distribution center for consolidation before it was shipped to you."
Again, I have no knowledge of distribution centers or other logistical elements within the Alibris organization. So, if Mr. Driscoll can't get his act together and send the book promptly, well, here's a customer-service aspect that is begging for improvement.
Tim concludes:
"I can't speak to the exact reason for the delay in shipment notification, but I'll be sure to look into that for you and make sure it doesn't happen again!"
Good, clean answer. But my advice would be that all three of the problems need to be addressed in some way.
Fix things BOTH ways
As is the case in every complaint situation, fix things BOTH ways. In other words, make sure to fix the root of the problem, don't just make
me happy. Here's how.
The first action should be to ask John B. Driscoll, Ltd. why they waited so long to send the book to begin with. Next, find out what the average delay is across the board - how many other booksellers are equally slow? Then figure out if there's any way Alibris can encourage booksellers to expedite orders on a same-day basis - carrot (loyalty program benefits), stick (we'll kick you out of the system if you don't perform). Finally, follow up with customer satisfaction surveys to establish a baseline and revisit these issues regularly.
There's also a basic disconnect between what we customers perceive as happening when we place an order and what actually happens. If the point of the UK site is to reduce shipping charges to European customers, then this needs to be communicated more clearly. However, I do wonder if this is enough reason to justify the existance of a UK site. If I am to believe Tim Garvey's answer, this is pretty much the ONLY reason for this site - which, as a web strategist and businessman, makes no sense to me.
Do you have any other helpful suggestions to give these folks?
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