Customer Service…..or not
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship on January 12, 2011
It is absurd what passes as “customer service” these days. I may not be an expert on the subject but for the last 2 years I have tried my best to live customer service through my company, scrubadoo.com.
What has my all piped up about customer service today??? Comcast.
I don’t know if you have seen their TV commercials about “customer service” but when I see them I laugh. You know what they consider good customer service? They won’t charge you for an appointment if they fail to show up. Ready for the cherry on top? If for some reason they don’t do the job right the first time they wont charge you for a second visit! Are you kidding me??? They actually advertise these two exact things on TV? What a joke! I have heard of setting low expectations so you can exceed them, but give me a break.
That is basically the equivalent of me advertising “If we don’t ship you any scrubs after you have ordered them, guess what? We will refund you in full!” I can see our add now: “Receive Maternity scrubs??? (As a young man holds up a pair of maternity scrub pants) don’t worry, we will ship you the correct scrubs at no extra charge!” How does Comcast have the balls to put that add on the air (don’t worry they take their boots off to make sure they wont track mud in your house).
Today I had an interaction with this Mecca of service here is how it went:
I was immediately brought to an automated answering service at which point you have to go through a series of steps prior to selecting the choice that will take you to the correct department (pretty standard, unfortunately not very “customer service” oriented). I went through these steps to talk to someone about canceling my service (outrageous prices!) and when the automated service attempted to transfer me to the appropriate party I was disconnected. This happened 4 times! I then went a different route and called the “new sales” people. The phone was answered immediately. Fairly typical. Unfortunately they couldn’t help me with what i needed! I was again transferred and then put on hold. They were experiencing a “longer than normal” wait time, but I stayed on hold. In the end my conversation lasted about 1 minute and didn’t really accomplish anything. Two thumbs up, I bet I wasn’t even charged for the longer than normal wait time.
The lack of customer service oriented companies is one of the reasons I started scrubadoo.com. Sure, we sell scrubs, shoes, and other nursing uniforms, but I figure if we can help change the perception of what good customer service is, even if it is one nurse at a time, then I am helping to shift market expectations and slackers like Comcast would never be able to claim “customer service” as a strength.
Would someone do us all a favor and jump in that market, start a company, and take Comcast down? They are ripe for the pickings.
Why I Love Running a Company
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship on January 7, 2011
I was recently asked “What is so great about running a company?” It really got me thinking. After some deliberation I came up with a multitude of reasons I enjoyed running scrubadoo, however I was able to narrow it down to 4 and thought I would share them.
Control your own destiny
Ultimate success or failure rests solely on your shoulders as a small business owner. At a large company it seems like there is always a scapegoat or someone else to blame. Here I have no one to hide behind or pass blame to. The successes of the company are also your successes and the company’s failures are your failures. This adds an element of pressure and excitement you don’t normally get at a large company. Entrepreneurship is a little like gambling, the major difference is that hard work, skills, and perseverance can tip the odds in your favor.
No Such Thing as “No”
From my own experiences and through the stories of many of my friends who work for major corporations, a common complaint is the inability/lack of support to try new ideas or new methods. Here at Scrubadoo we will try anything. If we think a new marketing strategy may work we can implement it immediately. There are no hoops to jump through or politics to deal with. We have had clients give us feedback about something they didn’t like on our site and we have literally made a change within hours. I would like to see a major corporation be that responsive.
The Education
I have flat out learned more about business, customer service, and operations (the list could go on and on) in the last 2 years than I ever imagined I would. Every day there is a new challenge. I don’t have specialized departments to figure problems out for me, so I either learn it or underperform in that area. You become a specialist in so many areas that you never dreamed you would. Some areas are more useful than other, anyone need to know specific details about Cherokee women’s flair leg scrub pants?
The Contribution of Friends & Colleagues
Scrubadoo.com wouldn’t be close to what it is today without the help of a multitude of people. I can easily name dozens friends and colleagues from my past who have no financial incentive in my company, but have pitched in and helped us. From legal work to selling scrubs off of a table at a school; lawyers, doctors, consultants, and a many other highly skilled individuals have helped us out. Why do they do it? My theory is, they get to enjoy the excitement of a start up without the risk, they love the passion that I have for the company, and they get the satisfaction of helping a friend out. Plus if we ever hit it big, drinks are on me.
I truly enjoy running a company and the many perks that come with it, (I didn’t even mention “no pants day” when you get to work from home).
Vacation (not for me!)
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship on December 20, 2010
With the holidays upon us, the lack of vacation time as an entrepreneur has begun to hit hard. December has been by far our busiest month ever, which is a good thing, but it also ensures that I will not be taking 1 day off over the holidays. It turns out that people buy scrubs as presents. They seem to be especially fond of our collegiate logo’d scrubs. Which is great as long as we are able to fulfill all of the orders without a hitch. But I digress, back to no vacation.
Unfortunately Scrubadoo.com is not yet running itself. What makes this even more difficult is their are several daily tasks that only I know how to do. Unfortunately we aren’t large enough yet where I can bring someone else on to handle these daily tasks, and while many can be automated, automation takes capital and we still are low on that.
I honestly don’t remember the last 24 hour period in which I didn’t open my computer and do at least an hour or so of work. It is somewhat pathetic. My Fiance is worried about being able to take a honeymoon this summer (and so am I). If we don’t bring someone on or make some significant changes I don’t know if it will be possible.
I am positive that it won’t always be like this, but this is certainly a reality of entrepreneurship that I didn’t put a ton of thought into when I started the company. Crazy hours and little time for rest is a given, but when you start a business you literally must live that business. Especially when your most valuable asset is your time.
Publicity
Posted by Brett in Start-Up Tips on October 26, 2010
I was recently informed of haro.com, or “helping a reporter out.” It is a pretty cool concept. Basically reporters from all over post a quick snipit of ideas they are working on and ask for “expert” opinions and quotes.
As anyone trying to build a company from scratch knows, getting your name out there is extremely difficult to do. I wish there was a magic bullet that I could use to send thousands of people to scrubadoo.com, but there isn’t. Every little bit of publicity helps.
Haro.com is a great way to achieve some free publicity. I have been following the feed for about 2 weeks now and you can check an article out here that I have already been quoted in.
Moral of the story: Every little bit helps and you never know what will come of small stories like these.
Its been a while – Catching up
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship on September 23, 2010
I haven’t written anything in quite some time (there just aren’t enough hours in the day) and there is a lot of catching up to do. SO this is a quick update of what has happened in the last few months.
- May - We hired two new interns for the summer, both performed extremely well. I reiterate to any aspiring entrepreneur to make sure you take advantage of the resources that you have around you.
- June – Growth continues. We have been able to grow revenue pretty much every month we have been in business to this point. We add Barco scrubs & Grey’s Anatomy scrubs to the site. We are close to closing a deal with Crocs. The entire summer will be spent deciding if it is worth bring Crocs inventory in (they dont drop ship). As of today we have not yet added Crocs.
- July – We add two new pages to the web site one is for scrub fundraisers and the other is for scrub bulk sales. We have already had several request for both of these and they should pay for themselves in the next month or so. At the end of the month we start selling on Amazon. Unfortunately they only allow us to sell shoes as they are not adding new clothing retailers at this time. It is a lot of work to manage but we think it will be worth it. Either way with the addition of the two new scrub lines we carry every major brand. There are a few more we would consider adding but I am pretty happy with our selection now.
- August – Biggest month ever. A few repeat customers make some large orders. Hopefully we can keep the repeats coming in. Our two interns finish their summer internship. One of them decides to stay on while he goes back to school. We get close to completing some major back end upgrades on the site. We have now automated a lot of our product management. On the customer side we now have real-time inventory availability visible. We split with the SEO firm we hired in January as they have not completed the original contractual agreement and have not produced any results. This is a huge headache and I will try and write more on it later. I am looking for a new firm to work with if anyone has any suggestions. We work on a huge marketing campaign targeting nursing schools. We now have minor partnerships with over 60 schools.
- September - Issues with one of our major suppliers has continued throughout the summer. I am really at a loss as to what to do here. It got to the point where I attempted to speak with their CEO and I was effectively blown off. Some of our partnerships with nursing schools combined with our fund-raising page may pay off by the end of the month as we have a few large fund-raising partnerships that may come to fruition by the end of the month (which will help us beet August’s #’s).
That is an incredibly quick catch up. I hope to get back into this on a more regular basis. We will see if the company lets me!
-Brett
New Interns
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship, Start-Up Tips on May 26, 2010
Last week we said goodbye to our two interns that had worked with us for 6 months and really helped us take some big step forwards.
In addition to all the hard work they put into the company, they also helped me learn and grow as a manager. Specifically, today I am much better prepared to work with all of our future interns that come through the company. To help ensure all parties get as much as possible out of the internship we now have a few established practices.
First, we require that all incoming interns fill out an entry evaluation. This allows them an avenue to communicate their expectations for the position and what they want to get out of it early on. We can use it to temper expectations and catch any potential issues early on.
Second, we are now holding bi-weekly team meetings on Mondays and Fridays. We have always held a weekly meeting with our team, but by increasing the frequency to twice a week I hope to increase the accountability of everyone (including myself) to get as much as possible done during the week. On Mondays we go over the weekly expectations/projects for the week and on Friday we see how everyone did. I like a little pressure to perform and this helps add it. These meetings have also proven to be great times for brainstorming and cross-pollination of ideas.
Third, we are requiring some in-office work hours. This was tough to do in the past as we didn’t have an “official” office. I am a fan of remote work environments, however I think the accountability of required hours will improve performance. On top of this it gives them an opportunity to have each other and myself near by to bounce ideas off of one another. We are requiring that everyone spends about 1/2 their time in the office.
Finally, we have established an official exit review. All the interns were informed up front that they will have an exit review and they were provided a template of what they will be reviewed on. This should again increase accountability. It also provides us another great opportunity to receive feedback on our internship positions, management style, and anything else that is on their mind.
This week we welcomed 3 new interns that will be here for the duration of the summer. Hopefully these new additions to our internship program will really allow them and us to maximize the value of the internship experience. I know we are getting better and better at it every day.
Supply Chain & Control
Posted by Brett in Start-Up Tips on April 28, 2010
Scrubadoo.com is a drop-ship operation, you can read about our supply chain and how we got our start as a drop-shipment company here. We are trying to differentiate from our competitors based on our service, not an easy thing to do. It becomes even more difficult when you have a limited amount of control over the fulfillment of your orders.
In case anyone is thinking of starting a company with a similar model I thought I would throw a few of the issues you may run into.
-All of your suppliers have different fulfillment periods.
- If someone orders products from two different suppliers it is very likely that the products will arrive at different times. This tends to make the client think we forgot a portion of the order.
- We can’t actively advertise that your product ships out in “x” days since they all ship out in different amounts of time.
-Suppliers have different return periods.
- While we accept returns for 100 days, they only accept returns for 30 days typically, thus anything that is returned to us becomes inventory.
-They all have unique order entry systems.
- This makes it impossible for us to have a standard order entry process, resulting in more time spent on this task.
-We do not always receive tracking numbers.
- If a client calls to see the status of our package sometimes we do not know it.
-You are managing several relationships.
- Just like anything else the relationship is important, especially for the smaller companies. The better you treat your account reps the more they will take care of you.
- If you need some rush work done, you can’t do it yourself, you are depending on another person to come through for you.
-We don’t have the ability to put anything in the box
- All that is shipped with the item is a packing slip, it is not unique and pretty obviously does not come from us.
- We can’t use the shipment to market our products further
There are a lot of issues that arise from a drop-ship model. Unfortunately, it is our only option right now. Inventory costs money, and right now, we have very little.
Dealing with a Major Industry Change
Posted by Brett in General Entrepreneurship, Lessons Learned on April 12, 2010
There was recently a major shake-up in the Medical Uniform industry which has become the cause of slow delivery, shipping mis-haps, and upset customers. The result; a back-order log of more than 200,000 Dickies Scrub products that need to be shipped, a number that won’t shrink quickly.
To keep the details brief: For the last eight years Selecta Corporation has had the rights to manufacture and wholesale Dickies Medical apparel to your favorite retail uniform stores, like scrubadoo.com. As of just a few weeks ago this is no more. Selecta lost the rights to produce anything under the “Dickies Medical” brand. Dickies Scrubs won’t be going away, the rights for these products has been awarded to Strategic Partners Inc., who also produce scrubs under the Cherokee, Baby Phat, Sketchers, and other well known brand names. Strategic Partners will take over full time on the Dickies Medical brand June 1st. Unfortunately Selecta has already had to lay off over 100 employees due to the change, with more to come.
These layoffs, which amount to more than 75% of the account service reps and 50% of the warehouse people, have caused customer service to slow to a crawl (our rep was laid off) making it very difficult to get orders processed and once you do get an order through, shipping times have become extremely slow due to lack of staff.
On top of this there are issues on what inventory Selecta can ship right now as they are trying to lock down a price with SPI for the purchase of everything. This has made matters worse. SO the question became, what do we do, if anything? We have really only taken 2 major steps.
- Turn off all active advertising for Dickies Products
- When a client does purchase product let them know about the issues immediately and give them the opportunity to exchange their order or even get a refund if they can not wait the extra week or two fullfillment will take.
So far that is all we have done. Hopefully we do not need to stop selling the products all together.
Until next time,
-Brett
Advertising
Posted by Brett in E-Commerce, Start-Up Tips on February 24, 2010
It is difficult to drive traffic to a website.
I realize that this probably isn’t an incredible revelation to anyone out there. However, it is really hard. Especially with what adds up Marketing budget that could be exhausted with one big night on the twon. There are really only so many free avenues to market your product.
We have tried, gift cards, flyers, direct mailing, emailing lists, promotions, addwords, approached nursing groups on Facebook, and more. Turns out that none of these are a magic bullet. I have come to realize that there probably isn’t one.
As you can probably tell, when I started advertising the site I decided to take the approach that I would throw a bunch of cheap darts at the board and see what works. So far we have had very mediocre results. They have gotton us to about 150 unique visitors a day, which isn’t terrible, but it isn’t going to make us.
We are actively trying to come up with new ways to market the company. I am looking for any media outlets that will give me 5-10 minutes, the chance to write a blog post, or a quick write up in a magazine or newspaper (let me know if you have any for us!). It doesn’t matter how big or small. I have also started approaching prominent bloggers in my industry to see if they will help us spread the word about our win free scrubs for life promotion. I hope that some of them will help me out (we need it), I figure we are just asking them to spread the word about a contest that is beneficial to their user base. It’s not like I’m selling crack.
We have also attempted to set up partnerships with hospitals and nursing schools to help market our site. Basically we give them a discount for their students/employees and they spread the word about it, a win win right?
Finally we have approached other web sites that target the same market. The goal is to try and set up partnerships with them such as this one (where our link will be shortly).
Hopefully all of these things will slowly build our base. If any of you have any ideas for me it would be great to hear them as we are always looking for fresh new ideas. There is no bad idea. We are thinking about chalking sidewalks and shoveling our site name into the snow along the major highway…..seriously, so let me know what you think!
Frustrations
Posted by Brett in E-Commerce, Failures and Frustrations, Lessons Learned on February 10, 2010
So I recently told you how difficult it was to sign with manufacturers so I would actually have product to sell.
Despite this I am almost to the point where I am going to discontinue our relationship with one of our manufacturers. This company has been nothing but difficult to deal with since day 1.
When we first started I wanted to sign them up as our lead supplier for our “scrubraisers” brand. However we needed a price point that was lower than their standard wholesale pricing. I figured since we would be buying in bulk we may be able to get preferential pricing. I knew for their involvement to be feasible we needed to get our pant cost to $9.00 a pair, which was roughly a 25% discount to what they currently offered me. I spoke on the phone with our account rep and he said he had to check with the higher ups. He gave me a call back and said as long as we were hitting certain minimum order sizes they would work with us.
A few weeks later I emailed in our first order and I received an email back from a name I didn’t recognize stating that my rep had left the company. They then told me that they didn’t offer pricing as low as what I had mentioned in my email. I called in to explain the deal we had agreed to between our companies. At this point I started looking for an email chain, which I didn’t have….in fact I didn’t have anything in writing (lesson learned there). Eventually after many phone conversations, it became my word about a conversation I had on the phone with an account rep that was no longer with the company which didn’t end up being enough (mind you Mer, my partner, had actually visited this company personally, met our account rep, and the CEO). After going back and forth I actually got on the phone with the CEO about all of this and he basically questioned my integrity. Which really pissed me off.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to drop them as a supplier as they were pretty much my only option at the time. They also have a fairly unique product that we have since done fairly well selling.
The problems didn’t stop there. The supplier specializes in “collegiate logo” scrub apparel, has 16 base colors and really only 4 cuts that they sell. Which is VERY minimal compared to the large companies. When adding their scrubs to our site we needed some info from them, such as what colors come in what sizes and what schools do they offer. Turns out that no one in the company has an exhaustive list of either of these things. I asked for this list over 6 months ago and still haven’t received anything that is even close to what we need (I have been promised it many times, most recently I have been told we will get it in February….we will see). It has turned selling these products into a trial and error game.
Unfortunately it doesn’t end there.
A few weeks ago we sold a set of “Army, Black Knights” scrubs and when I sent the order in I was told they had just terminated carrying that product (we weren’t told).
One of our first customers from OCTOBER, just recently reached out to me and said they never received the Stanford scrubs they ordered. I contacted my new account rep and sure enough the package had been returned to them because it was lacking an Apt #….It was returned over 4 Months ago and they failed to contact me so I could alleviate the problem and reach out to my customer to let them know about the issue.
Two weeks ago we had a client order a UGa scrubs and wanted the rush delivered. I called my rep and asked if we could do it (we paid the rush shipping charges etc) he said no problem. 5 Days later I get a call from the client and they have yet to arrive. I called my rep and he found the scrubs sitting in a “ready to ship” pile that they had been in for 5 days. They promised to rush them out that day. 4 days later I get another call from the client, and the scrubs he received didn’t have the logo on them, they were just blank scrubs.
The list goes on. I would guess that 1/2 of the orders I have taken for this company have been mis-managed in some way. This makes us look really bad.
I don’t know where my breaking point is with them, but I think I am close. It is a lot of trouble to sign a manufacturer and then get their scrubs available for sale on scrubadoo.com. Which makes it very difficult for me to cut the ties.
I haven’t done anything yet, but we may be close.