Over the last 16 years at work, my company has been generous with the improvement training and seminars. From Six Sigma, Lean, Agile, etc – we have have adapted and adopted what works the best for our customer first focus.
The interesting thing is that getting into such a mindset bleeds over into “real life” and you start evaluating other people and business processes for improvements. You “think” in terms of how to improve. Which can be frustrating when it’s OBVIOUS and yet… you can do nothing.
Take our recent purchase from Target. Target was running a special on SIMS 4. So my wife ordered it – and chose the “Woodstock” store for “in store delivery” without realizing that there where multiple Target stores in the “town” of Woodstock. (ironically – neither in the actual town limits… just postal codes).
https://www.target.com/p/the-sims-4-bonus-bundle-pc-game-target-exclusive/-/A-52782811
See – we live about 10 miles to the WEST of Woodstock – 7 miles or so from the West-most Woodstock store. The Store she chose? was 10 miles further East. Any savings on shipping would be eaten up by Gas.
Upon discovering our mistake (almost immediately after submission) we called Target customer service to tell them we will pick it up in the OTHER Woodstock store…
Turns out – they do not keep the “Target edition” in the store – it was an online special only. Awesome. So update the store? They can’t. They can only cancel the order – and we can pick a new store when we place another order…
So we did that. A 2nd order later… we go to cancel the first? Nope. Can’t. See – they can’t cancel a ship to store because the stores and internet are not linked. We have to go by the store…. to cancel.
So now we have two games on the way.
We did finally get a hold of the store and get the first game canceled – what a pain.
So the game came in – and I was able to run out in the rain last night and pick it up.
And what did we get? Take a look at the image to the right. Yes.. that’s exactly what the box looks like…. look close…
Seriously Target. You shipped out a box… that only contains…
a piece of PAPER with download instructions.
I had to use my Gasoline to go get a box… that only contains…
a piece of paper with download instructions...
Now I am NOT a Continuous Improvement specialist like by friend Hanson Turner. However, I am still pretty good at looking at processes and identifying problems that could be improved….. lets see… how about….
EMAIL THE CODE. EMAIL COSTS LESS THAN SHIPPING. AND YOUR CUSTOMER GETS IT INSTANTLY
And why make a pretty package for something only available online in the first place?
as the next gen would say… #SMH