Capstone

Capstone Assingment for Becoming a Journalist, by MSU.

Where is my package?

What happens when you live in a country with a poor international postal service.

Monday, April 30th 2018

"- Good afternoon Mrs. Alison. This is Eduardo, What can I do for you?

- Hi Eduardo. I wanted to know if there is some sort of problem or inconvenience in the airport's postal service area?

- ... (silence)

- A strike or staff issues?

- Ermm, no madame. There are no such things. Everything is working in a regular way.

- Oh, good. Because I have a package waiting to be delivered, and it has not moved since March 3rd. And, according to your Terms of Service, that should take 10 to 15 days.

- Do you have a tracking code?
- Yes, it is LZ354794151US

- We can't track it down.
- But I could. On USPS website, it shows its arrival to Chile on March 3rd.

- Well, actually that can take up to 4 months to be delivered.

-But that's not what it says on your Terms of Service. Has the company thought about hiring more personnel to tackle this?

- I will put you on the phone with International Services, hold on please.
- Ok.

- ........

- ........

- Thank you for contacting Correos de Chile. Good bye (Call ended sound).

This is a real conversation I hold with a Customer Service operator from Correos de Chile, the public postal service responsible for sendind and receiving letters, documents and packages in the country and for the world.

According to their Mission and Vision stated on their website, they have "emphasis on quality, fulfilling its promise of sale, reliability and personalized delivery. Correos de Chile is a public company that increasingly generates value for society, responsible to its customers, its workers, its suppliers and the community where it operates. It is comparable with the best postal companies worldwide."

When you think about the best postal companies in the world, it is logical to imagine a clockwork company, where everything is under control, where punctuality is key, nothing gets lost, making reality the concept of 'quality service'. But when you meet a company that has more than 23.000 complains in www.reclamos.cl (a website that receives complaints for bad services), something is not right.

According to the National Consumer Service (a goverment bureau in charge of defending consumer's rights), Correos de Chile is one of the 3 companies with a worse indicator of unfavorable response, with a 39,4% in 2016, and 54,6% in 2017 (See this study, in spanish, here).

Gustavo Orellana is one of the thousands of people that is waiting for an answer, he bought an item on a healthcare supplies website in november 2017. He said the Chinese store did a good job sending the item fast. "My order shipped to Chile on november 29th 2017 and, according to the Chinese tracking system, my package was received by Correos de Chile a month later, on december 28th 2017. Everything was ok, I thought. I had a tracking number, so I guessed my package would arrive to my house"

- What happened then?

- The days passed and I did not received my package, so I filed a complain on January 30th 2018.

- Did you get an answer from that complaint?

- No, it's been more than 3 months and nothing. They said they would have an answer to my claim on april 2nd but nobody has called me back. I had to call them on the phone, but they said they would insist on the claim.

- What is the item you bought, if I may ask?

- Yes, it was a portable CPR machine.

Roberto Garcia is another customer with a similar problem. "I bought an item on Aliexpress the first days of march 2018. The package arrived to Chile and Correos received it on march 14th. The most amazing thing is that it went out for delivery on the next day"

- So you did receive your package?

- No! I called them on the phone because I didn't received anything. The operator was very unpleasant, but I filed a claim on April 2nd 2018.

- Did you get an answer from that claim?

- No, they said an 'analiyst' would take my case and called me back, but nobody has done it. I'm sill waiting.

Frequently, Correos de Chile make educational advertising campaigns, explaining what is the process of placing a package in the country, just like the image pictured here.

This infographic explains the process each package

         goes through when enters Chile. Image: Correos de Chile.

It starts when the airline delivers cargo to Correos, then Correos present it to Customs for their inspection. If they are free to go, packages go to their final recipients, that takes at least 1 day to 90 legal days to be delivered (4 months approximately).

If they need more documentation, the recipient gets notified. If the documents are ok, they are free to go. If payment needs to be done, then the customer has to go to Treasure departement and then, paying the debt. After that, the package is free to go.

The problem is that, in many cases, these time frames are not met, thus making customers very angry.

Has the service improved?

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

Hey, apparently something moved on today. (Does this have anything to do with my phone call?)

This is a screen capture from the Correos website, showing the state of the package.

Well, good news is after two months in airport limbo, my package was acknowledged by the Postal Service, even when they said it was untrackable for their system.


On April 29th 2012, Chilean National Televison make a report in their news program "Esto no tiene nombre" ("This does not have a name" was a special investigative TV news report, about denouncements and controvert cases that affected citizens, like re-using waste food on a pizza place, Real estate sales that do not fulfill what was promised, etc.).
In that occassion, several cases, very serious cases, were shown of people who were affected by Correos de Chile irresponsability. Missing laptops, legal certificates of studies lost, vanished medications, scolarships or job opportunities missed, and so on. And despite the company recognizes its responsibility, they do not deliver any solution to those affected.

This is the episode of the program stated above. You can watch it here (in spanish)

Video: Youtube (Carlos Salas uploader - TVN broadcast)

At the end of the show, the Correos de Chile manager said he recognizes this big service failures, but they have begun to work to solve them, giving examples like improving their website, making it more interactive, presence on social media for customer service and inquiries, decongest the call center, but above all he compromised on being a company that doesn't let their customers alone.

Correos today

6 years have passed since that TV report, and yes, things have changed and improved. Correos call service is not taking those 50 minutes to answer your phone call, but not more than 5. Their website has a tracking system that works, showing the "last known" state of a package with tracking number. However there is always place for improvement.

In 2017, Correos de Chile managed more than 246 million 246.900.391 documents and packages in the national territory, almost 14 million of international packages and letters (through Universal Postal Union) and almost 4 million of international packages for private postal services (See Correos de Chile Memory 2017 here).
When you take this numbers, the number of complaints is minor, but that does not free a public company to rest on the laurels, so Correos de Chile still has work to do to take their service to the standards of 21st century.

In the meantime, we still wait for our packages.