Having Communication Isses with Staff

snivybricks

I held an order for an instruction manual back so that I could ship the order when I am able to obtain the manual. I am currently away at school and it is not possible to store both the bricks and instructions, due to the sheer weight of the box. I informed the buyer prior to purchase and he said he was alright with the delay.

Since it was about two weeks since the quote and I was not heading back home (a 3 hr round trip and $40 of gas) it would not be fair to the buyer to mark the order as shipped, so my store was suspended from the order.

I have been trying to reach out to BO staff for help and they asked for explanation for their previous contacts- which I provided as asked, and they asked for an 'Action Plan' with no description to what that even means. I am not a native english speaker and I am from the united states, so maybe I am missing something or some sort of understanding for what this means. I provided explanation of an order process, and explained the occasional delays that have occured due to COVID-19, as I am at risk for deadly complications of the virus, it is not safe to enter a post office stuffed to the brim, nor realistic to travel every few hours to the post office.

My order turnaround average is well under my projected dispatch (3.8 days - 6-7 projected) and message response time is .8 days. This has been an unpleasant experience and staff seems to have no interest in responding to me or answering my questions. What can I do? I just want an explanation of an 'Action Plan' - they just throw the name at me like I should know what it means.

This is my only source of income right now and I really need help here.

Hoddie

Sounds like they want you to explain what you'll do to resolve the issue. When will you return home? When will you have the missing book? When do you expect to post the order, and is the customer fully aware of when they will likely receive it?

snivybricks

The booklet was sent out on 8/6 and the buyer was notified of the shipment

Calibrick

You can reach out to BO staff directly at brickowl.com; you can point them to this thread, but as Hoddie says, it says they just want to know what the plan was. And if your comms with the buyer are via BO per rules, then they can easily see this is just a unique situation and can go from there with you. :-)

snivybricks

Unfortunately brickowl.com points me right back to Lawrence, who is not responding in the first place

Calibrick

I have always found @lawrence to be highly responsive... I suspect admin is awaiting a response to their request for a go-forward action plan to base their response upon. Your English sure looks great onscreen to me. :-)

Typically in business, an action plan would mean not only how you intend to resolve the current issue, but also how to prevent the issue going forward, e.g., if you cannot have instructions on-hand right now to ship in a timely manner, maybe you will temporarily mark the instructions category as not for sale (so they don't appear on your store) to prevent this from happening again? Risk mitigation, basically.

Meeting your store's advertised dispatch time is important around here, as even if that buyer was totally cool with it, the next buyer may not be and will consider it false advertising - each of our stores and our hard work affects each other, as typical customers don't see a problem with a specific store, they see a problem with "Brickowl" and frequently take their business to an entirely different platform (which hurts us all).

So when looked at from that context, BO asking for an action plan (likely prevention-based since the current issue is resolved) is important. And it's really good for us all as sellers, too, as it forces us to think thru strategies to improve and avoid a situation from happening again. :-)

Also, a tip from an individual who is VERY high risk for COVID-19 complications (no immune system) to another: you do NOT have to go to the post office and stand in line for things. You can do this all electronically, and if you're away at school, is it highly likely they will do free pickups from your location. You can buy your postage straight from USPS, or via PayPal or stamps.com, then schedule a free pickup with USPS. It's safer for you, safer for USPS, gets your orders out immediately vs. having to wait for the weekend to get to the post office - basically the win win all around! :-) And if you do during their scheduled daily mail delivery (that is an option on the pickup request form at usps.com, it's FREE, regardless of how many packages, etc. :-)

snivybricks

Unfortunately international packages cannot be done at this time, either from a site like Paypal OR from USPS' website directly.

It is also not exactly environmentally conscious to toss every manual I get.

Lawrence messaged me finally with:

"Hello,

I'm afraid we can only advise that you take a look at the previous messages that we have sent to yourself. Without a plan of action, we aren't able to progress this situation any further.

Lawrence James"

I did exactly as asked, and found the single message that said anything other than 'plan of action' and sent exactly what was asked, only to receive

"Hello,

Without a plan of action, we aren't able to progress this situation any further.

Lawrence James"

It feels like I'm talking to a brick wall. It has been over two weeks now and I am starting to worry about this source of income

qwertyboy

From what I understand, you have an order that is late in getting shipped out. I also understand that you have reasons for this delay. What BO is asking you is not to explain the reasons for the delay, but:

What will you do next in regards to this order?

They want to get some assurance that either the order will get shipped, or that you take other measures to fix this (like maybe have a fellow seller ship to your customer, or refund the entire order etc). You need to take some action (and let Lawtence know what that is).

So? What are the plans?

Niek.

Calibrick

Actually, you can ship internationally from PayPal and USPS still, the message on-screen with PayPal is just asking you to check the current shipping rules for the country you are posting to, is all. At least that's what I thought (I'm cheerfully open to being wrong).

I noticed you posted admin's messages to you, but not your response... as qwerty and I both noted, they are pretty clearly asking for an action plan going forward, not about the current situation. :-)

Due to english translation, you may not have understood my suggestion - I was NOT saying toss your instructions (agree, it's totally wasteful! <s>). What I suggested is you mark in BO those items you do not have on-hand at school as NOT for sale. You still have them, you just aren't marking them for sale at the moment. Then you can mark them again FOR sale when you're back home where you physically have them in-hand. In fact, that would be a good action plan for that category going forward, potentially... :-)

The admin here is super-practical and fair, so I can only assume that the definition of action plan has gotten lost in translation (communication, fun huh? <s>).

I hope this and qwerty's well-written post has helped you to move forward, and stay well! :-)