Service items

Service is important every aspect of our business and personal lives. The service that we receive from businesses, be they online retailers or bricks and mortar stores, is critical. It determines whether or not we continue to shop with any particular supplier.

I had my groceries delivered, this evening. It is convenient for me because it means that I do not have to travel to the nearest supermarket and wander up and down aisles only to forget one or two of the products I specifically went shopping for.

I could say that I am being environmentally conscious and avoiding contributing to congestion and expanding my carbon dioxide footprint. But I do not subscribe to that school of thought, and perhaps the reality is that I am just a little lazy when it comes to grocery shopping.

For the web-savvy amongst us it is a no-brainer. Indeed, you don't need to have been on the internet for more than a decade, either. My parents are silver-surfing their way around all sorts of ecommerce stores spending my inheritance.

Back to my groceries, though. I had booked a delivery for a particular time slot that suited me, and I was happy with that. I had received updates before the delivery was sent out and guess what... They didn't deliver in the allocated time slot. Oh no. They delivered my groceries early! Now that was a surprise.

Oh, and so was the complimentary copy of The Times newspaper. That was a surprise, too.

That got me thinking about service. Elkparts has been in business for around eight years now, but, as a business, we don't wish to stand still. We have introduced a number of changes to improve the way we work and improve the service that we offer to customers.

So, I ran off a few reports - this evening - to get a snapshot of the service that we are currently providing to you, to our customers. The results were quite an eye-opener. Here's a summary:

In the period 10 August 2008 to 18 November 2008 Elkparts resolved 85.5% of all email enquiries within one day. That is not working day, that is calendar day. That is to say, the following statistics do not take account of weekends, public holidays or non-business hours. Here's a further breakdown of our email response times:

• 85.5% of all email enquiries resolved within 24 hours of being logged.
• Of those, 12.9% of all email enquries were resolved within just two hours, and
• 34.2% of all email enquiries to Elkparts were resolved within just one hour of being logged!

When you are shopping on the internet, isn't is reassuring to know that there is a human-being on hand to resolve your questions or concerns? Isn't it good to know that you are dealing with Saab enthusiasts who want to look after you? Wayne in Hampshire knows. He just had an email at 23.00 GMT asking for clarification on products on his order - it means that we will be sending Wayne the correct parts for his Saab, tomorrow.

Whilst I am tooting my own trumpet and, before I set myself up for a fall, I'll mix my metaphors further and stick my hand up and admit that Elkparts does not get it right every time. We are a small company and sometimes things do go wrong. Sometimes it is not our fault and sometimes it is, but we always strive to avoid problems.

To this end, you can email Elkparts or you can respond to this blog post by leaving comments below. I have also set up an Elkparts feedback page where you are welcome to post suggestions, ideas, general questions or respond or add to those that others have posted. (Please note, for specific questions about your orders or pre-sales or post-sales advice or support, please email Elkparts instead.)

The next time you are buying that Saab item of undetermined provenance from another vendor, perhaps an ebay seller who may or may not be there tomorrow and if he is seems to have never heard of the relevant legislation that applies to online retailing, then think again as to who is going to be able to help you if something does go wrong? Often people only discover how good the service actually is once something has gone wrong.

Elkparts has never claimed to be the cheapest, but we have always claimed to offer great service and good value for money... and we answer our email enquiries pretty quickly, too: 85.5% resolved within just 24 hours!