Scan - delayed order: poor stock managment and poor communication

[ikonia]

it seems like every time I order something from scan the order is delayed - it's not every time, but it's certainly more than it should be.

I know these things happen, and every time a thread comes up saying "scan stock management is poor" the same response is given "we are getting better and it's only %1 of all orders that are a problem", I get it, huge stock, mistakes happen, the problem is when these mistakes happen, scan falls to bits in terms of customer service and reliability.

this morning placed an order for 4 hard disks, order was processed and I was expecting delivery tomorrow.

7:30pm I receive an SMS saying the order is delayed.

7:30pm is pretty annoying as you're closed and I can't do anything, and it's a bit late to notify my that the order isn't coming after I've made arrangements to be around tomorrow to get my delivery from scan. So that's a real pain and pretty poor customer service after I've made arrangements and managed my work commitments.

Secondly, you sent a very helpful email stating that you've been let down by your supplier as they stated the ETA for stock was 22/04/2014, it's now the 29/04/2014 when I placed the order so you've known for 7 days the stock didn't come in - why not update the website in those days to say "not in stock/order processing to stop me ordering more than you have stock of" rather than let me order them, not have them in stock.

finally, your email while honest and helpful doesn't really tell me anything other than "you're getting stock sometime soon", while I appreciate you don't know yourself as you have said you've been let down, that's not really helpful to me to say "sometime in the future", I know you can't do anything at 7:30pm at night, but for a business as large and as experienced with stock management as you are, I'd expect better supply chain information than "sometime in the future"


I've used scan for years, and when the orders work, it's a great experience, but too often it's "out of stock" and if anyone suggests that the stock management is not great it's always "getting better" and "just a small partition of orders", this is not a rant on the internet for fun, it's a complaint from a customer that your stock / order management process fails "me" more often than it should, and when it does you fail at customer service.

[NoPrisoners]

Scan have always been like this. How hard is it to have on their website how many of an item they have listed as in stock? Many other retailers manage to do this, the information is already on the system. If you want to order more than one item it would be useful to know.

They cynical part of me thinks that by leaving this ambiguity on their site they are trying to get your money even though they can't deliver all of the items you wanted.

[Chris P]

ikonia

Could you confirm the Invoice number so we can look into this ,

Best Regards

[ikonia]

Chris,

as requested invoice number in your private message inbox.

thanks.

[Chris P]

Thanks ikonia,

Customer Service are looking into this and will contact you directly.

Best Regards

[ikonia]

just wanted to put a public note on this to say that I was contacted by customer services and the disks where in stock and delivered 2 days later, which is pretty good.

The communication was poor though even with the "good" email telling me the disks where back in stock, instead of being informed they where in stock and when did I want them delivered, I was just told they had been dispatched the day they came in stock, which for some people will be excellent/positive, and I can see the benifit to getting them out as quickly as possible after a delay, however it was a problem for me as I'd not made arrangements to be at home that day, and was fortunate that a neighbour grabbed them for me, as I had to make a work trip and would be away for a few days.

Excellent turn around on a complaint scan, thank you very much,

still very frustrating stock management and very poor communication though, despite an excellent response in this thread and a really good turn around on the stock problem, the lack of communication / poor communication (the 7:30pm text message etc) will pretty much void me from being able to depend on scan for any work related purchases going forward.

Genuine thanks for a quick turn around to a very frustrating order.

[The Fish]

I echo that iknoia. I have placed two orders in the past 48 hours and both got me an email at 7.30 saying an item was out of stock.

The first order was a poor experience : the website would not complete my payment. Checked bank, all ok there with no markers on my card. Waited until morning and rang. Order completed even though apparently same system used by telesales and website. Got email at 7.30 - delayed order by a day, which is a customer build. Order came and issues with no post when mobo bundle installed, but that is just luck of the draw. I order the same board again to get this build done quickly and pop on 2 USB cables. Email comes at 7.30 ... USB cables out of stock.

I simply fail to understand why a modern stock control system would show an item in stock, order made and then suddenly later that evening its out of stock? It does leave me thinking that No Prisoners comment about cynically taking money may have some foundation.

And as iknoia has said, I am unable to use Scan now for my customers. Sent the first one to Dabs this afternoon. And I don't like the BT owned Dabs, because they inherited all of BT's shady business practices. But they do have a stock control system that doesn't send an email at 7.30 when you can't do anything about it.

To be fair, the guys I have dealt with trying to sort this build out have been quick to respond to my urgency over a duff part. Credit there. But the issue is two emails in two orders and not being able to trust the stock system at Scan. And as of today that is still happening.