Common Issues Part 1: Books missing/damaged in the mail and how to avoid it
The other day a few of us were discussing things that occur occasionally that can upset our customers. The first thing we noticed was that all of the main issues we discussed had to do with money. Not really surprising if you think about it. CKY customers utilize our service for two main reasons. One is to get paid for their used books; the other is to recycle their books.
The theory behind what we do is simple — offer a fair price for quality items in good condition. Like a lot of theories, things can and will go wrong with the reality. For example, getting the books from point A to point B sounds fairly simple.
We realized there is nothing we can do to prevent the occasional customer from having a bad experience, it just can’t be done. We are committed, however, to trying to limit this number to the smallest possible amount. We have taken the top five most common issues that are likely to upset a CKY Books customer and are exposing them for all to see in a series of five blog posts. We hope you take a few minutes to read them and some preventative measures you can take to make sure they don’t happen to you.
1) How do my books go missing in the mail? How did they get damaged? How did only half of my books arrive?
Ok. This is a no brainer. This would tick off anyone. We get upset when it happens to a customer. We look bad even though it is not our fault and we never touched the shipment. This is mostly because people find it easier to blame us than the United States Postal Service.
The cold hard fact is that while CKY Books pays for the FREE shipping to our warehouse it is your responsibility to make sure that your items arrive and they arrive in the condition we require.
To prevent or limit the chances of the scenario below from occurring to you we suggest you PACK YOUR BOOKS WELL and PURCHASE POSTAL INSURANCE.
The most common scenario: You pack your books in a box and you drop them off at the post office. As soon as you are out the door the post office begins to work its magic. Your shipment is loaded and sent on to the next stop, usually a regional station or bulk mail center. This is where 90% of all damage or loss will likely occur. Your shipment is now part of a long conveyor line of packages. Hundreds of thousands of packages a day will travel through a Bulk Mail Center (BMC). Packages will fall off conveyors, they shift, they fall off carts, they are thrown on trucks, they have other packages stacked on top of them.
It does not take a lot for a box to break open and the contents to spill out, either entirely, or partially. These facilities utilize an assembly line process. If your shipment is unfortunate enough to come open they don’t waste time trying to figure out whose books belong to which box unless it’s obvious. It is very easy to see how books can become damaged or lost while in transit. Also remember mail is subject to inspection. This means they can open your package at any time to look inside, which means if they don’t tape it closed good enough…well they aren’t going to take responsibility for it.
Here is a little known fact about the United States Postal Service (USPS). They do not have any standardized procedure for dealing with incidents like this. Each BMC makes its own internal rules or guideline with how to deal with damaged shipments. There is no Post Master or official USPS form that is filled out for your damaged shipment. We know this because we have received damaged shipments from all thirteen of the BMCs and they all handle damaged shipments differently. If you are lucky you get what we call the “sucks to be you letter”. It goes something like this: “we regret to inform you we damaged your package while it was in our care…sucks to be you…we’re sorry”.
If you are unlucky you get nothing — no note, no contact, no apology. Your shipment just goes missing in the mail. Eventually missing or loose in the mail items are routed to Atlanta, GA where at some point they are put up for government auction.
There is a form that you can fill out, and request they look for your item at the Atlanta site. I personally have no knowledge of any customer ever having their item returned as a result of filling out this form nor have I ever heard of any person ever having their items returned.
If your books do get damaged or lost in the mail and you go to a postal window they will essentially tell you “sorry about your luck”. Your only recourse to prevent this from happening is to purchase postal insurance prior to mailing your package. If you pay extra money they will actually attempt to take care of your package and with that little bar code on the shipment they do a good job.
Interestingly enough, we have never had to file a postal insurance claim for a customer. There was one instance where we could have but the customer decided he didn’t want to mess with the hassle.
Delivery Confirmation (DC) is a cheaper alternative that does help. It is a little green sticker with a bar code that is put on your shipment at the post office when you mail it. Statistically these packages arrive in better condition than packages without DC. They also go missing less often. Most likely this is because the USPS requires they be accounted for in a more stringent manner.
Remember to pack your shipments well and purchase postal insurance if you think the value of your shipment warrants it. We get really upset when the USPS loses or damages a CKY Books customer’s shipment. When I have to send out an email notification that this has happened I get a bit overly emotional because I know that our customer is going to be disappointed and upset. And I hate that.
By Todd Bradley
CKY Books
Account Manager
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