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 posted on 20-Jul-2004 4:59:19 PM
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19 July 23:17 PDT
Ah, relaxing with a nice cool one after another eleven-hour day at the best job in the world. Just got my new copy of fROOTS, which had been posted via airmail at a cost of eight pounds on 13 July. Six calendar days via expensive airmail; this may not seem germane, but hang with me.
There has been a bunch of discussion about shipping from Hip-O Select, some of it providing light, some providing heat, most of it welcome � well, perhaps some more welcome than others � but all of which has been read and appreciated. A few people said they sent email but didn�t reach us, which is troubling but we can fix that.
For those who wondered whether their messages were getting to the Person Or Persons In Charge, I can assure you that they have. Only two people have Hip-O Select on their business cards, and we � either myself (label chief, A&R; strategist, Creative Director and utility cleanup person) or my colleague (Marketing Director, Promotion and Publicity Director, Financial Analyst and utility cleanup person) � both read and respond to everything that comes in to the Hip-OCrates mailbox or to us at Select.
Having been a bit of a scientist in a previous career, I decided to put the shipping problems into a numerical framework to see whether our issues were anomalous, systemic or somewhere between the two. Here are some numbers for your consideration: Of the last 3000 orders placed with Hip-O Select, we�ve gotten approximately 47 discrete shipping complaints. Those 47 (give or take) complaints constitute, if I did the math right, 1.566% of the total number of Select orders.
Some might rejoin, and rightly, that that group constitutes only a percentage of customers who received service they felt was substandard. Let�s speculate, for instance, that there were two silent people for everyone who voiced a complaint. That means we�re getting it wrong about 4.68% of the time � or, right about 95.32% of the time. Perhaps a little surprising for a label that has been in existence for only fifteen and a half weeks, but still a number that could stand improving.
I am in almost daily communication with SureSource concerning customer relations. We have made CD packaging changes based on your suggestions. Right now we are tinkering under the hood concerning shipping. European shipping in this volume is a new experience for SureSource, so there�s a bit of a learning curve. For me too; I know more about Martin Briley�s bass lines on Greenslade albums and chlorofluorocarbons in the upper atmosphere than I do about shipping. But we are committed to paring down that 4.68%. We both know it will never be 0.00%, but that�s a nice target to aim for.
To that end, we are instituting an ongoing �secret shopper� type program, in which we order Select releases through double-blind third parties, so that we can independently verify the efficacy of the shipping and customer assistance services. The results will be posted periodically on the boards or the website. Our goal, shipping-wise, is to be at least as good as, if not better than, Amazon, despite their having a several-year and multi-million-dollar lead on us. And we�re looking to be as upfront about our growing pains as we reasonably can be, warts and all.
Obviously, we wouldn�t be doing the Select label if we didn�t intend to get its fruit in the hands (and ears) of music fans. And both of us at Select, as well as HW, �Field Ops,� �Subcomandante TT,� and all of the people involved throughout the Universal Music Group and SureSource feel the same way. We have an emotional, professional and financial stake in making it work. And we will make it work, even for that 4.68% who have been discontented with some aspect of our nascent operation.
But now, the siren song of the vault is wafting over the still night air. Gotta jet.
Thane Tierney
www.hip-oselect.com
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