Up till last week, my favourite picture that I have come to associate with Singapore Post is this image from their website (which on a recent check has been removed):
I love it for the level of dry humour involved in the above picture and helps me get through occasions where I blame myself for once again succumbing to buying online thus putting myself through the torture of Speedpost or vPost services. When I look at the above image, the happy smiling faces and words like "delight" and "timeliness" seem to be a bad joke.
Unless you live in a place with a porter or a maid who is in 24 / 7, being able to get your parcel delivered is a bit of a lottery as they come whenever they like and delight in dropping off failed delivery slips.
I purchased an item through Creative and paid a delivery fee of $6.00 only to be told by a customer service officer that I paid Creative, not Singpost to do the delivery. So I'm left guessing who promised next day delivery and I'm still naively wondering if Creative were such bad people they didn't pay Singpost a cent to do a delivery. My goodness, somebody has to do something about it! Singapore Post should not work for nothing, it would be unethical!
Singpost were never interested in communicating with their customers and hearing the real feedback. Attempts to make contact were never returned. They left a invitation to contact them on my previous blog:
Dear Hong Jun, we are from SingPost quality feedback team and we chanced upon your blog and are concerned about this service lapse. We appreciate if you could call us at 6845 6430 or email singpost@singpost.com with the item tracking number and your contact for our investigaion.
I took them up on their offer but they never got back to me on occasions I bothered writing to them to tell them lapses in their service. One would think that Singpost is not interested in improving customer service, after all, what can you the consumer do? They are the only postal service provider in Singapore and falling short of using local couriers for everything. (Perhaps I should strive to earn enough to live in a service apartment or employ a maid.)
Yet there is no stopping Singpost from trying to look all hip and "youth oriented" by introducing graffiti to their mail boxes. To give them credit, their previous efforts to beautify the mailboxes by commissioning artists for the job definitely contributed to beautifying the overall urban landscape, something I indeed can appreciate as they are visually appealing. However, the latest attempted viral marketing vandalism...leaves me with a new favourite picture for 2010:
You see, the hidden genius in this is that Singpost understands your unhappiness when your parcels don't get sent on time, or worst still if you have to make your way down to Paya Lebar to collect your parcel if they failed to deliver it on the second attempt. Or maybe not...
Possible Reasons Viral Vandal was a good idea at the planning stage:
1) We think young people find graffiti cool! We can show people how cool we are and how young and hip we are.
2) We can generate buzz and conversation online! People may come to notice the mailboxes and look out for them and maybe send more items in the post?
I do not think that there is a need for Singpost to try and pretend to be cool or attempt to appear "cool" while it is commendable that they attempt to bring art to the community and their desire to be more in touch with the consumers, there are better ways to allocate the resources they have and more importantly, do something that is sincere and honest rather than gimmicky and pointless.
On a side note on delivery, I still think that Singpost needs to do more to refine their delivery process and if anyone in Singpost is willing to listen, I'm willing to share. If your CSOs are irritable because they are overworked and swamped with irate customer calls everyday, is there any thing you can do to change that?
I do look forward to the day I can be delighted with receiving my parcel and I can enjoy online shopping with a peace of mind. Without having to worry about having to stay home just to wait for my package.
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