May 27, 2008

Q&A with Kraft Canada's Tassimo Customer Support Department

We're always interested in getting to the bottom of shipping and single serve coffee availability issues here at Single Serve Coffee in the United States and of course any country single serve coffee is sold. Our Canadian correspondent S.H. has some details regarding shipping and customer service, shipping, and T Disc availablity for Tassimo in Canada.

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Kraft Canada ships their eShop orders via Canada Post Expedited Parcel from a warehouse in Kitchener, Ontario and depending on which end of the country you live in, it takes on average 5 to 6 days to receive your order. I've found over the past several months that you can obtain answers to most of your questions by calling Kraft's Tassimo Customer Support Department; however, your luck depends on 2 things:

Asking for info politely
Getting in contact with a rep who hasn't had a long day

I decided to take another try at calling customer support recently and was lucky enough to speak with a rep that was more than willing to answer anything I asked. Here's the brief Q&A session I had with her:

Q: "Why doesn't Kraft provide tracking numbers for eShop orders?"

A: "We don't want to give clients the tracking number since Kraft is in charge of tracking the parcels. If a parcel gets lost or damaged and you (the client) action a follow-up request with Canada Post, you (the client) then assume full responsibility for everything. Kraft would waive all responsibility. We can provide tracking numbers if you agree to use them ONLY for tracking purposes and to call Kraft customer service should any problems arise with your order."

Q: "Why doesn't Kraft ship out an order even if 1 item is back-ordered?"

A: "It's to save the client additional costs as we require a minimum of 3 items for an order. As a result, we would need you to buy 2 more items before we could ship you a back-ordered item. You can still call us to remove any back-ordered items from your order as this will allow it to be shipped-out without any further delays."

Q: "Why doesn't Kraft send out an e-mail to warn the client if an item becomes back-ordered?"

A: "Your best option is to call us BEFORE placing an order online. Just ask us about each item you plan to order and we can provide real-time stock information as to how many units of a flavor we have in-stock. This will allow you to judge if an item may potentially become back-ordered by the time your order is processed."

At Tassimo Canada

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Posted by Jay Brewer at May 27, 2008 7:13 AM

Comments

Those responses are deflections at best. I am surprised that in this day and age, they are not providing tracking numbers, no real time stock info on their site (who calls their merchants these days) and minimum order before you even ship??? Outstanding customer service indeed!
Posted by: R2 at May 29, 2008 11:32 AM

I agree that the answers I was provided may not be to everyone's liking, but at least it was better than not getting an answer at all (be it boilerplate or not) Sure, it's annoying that Kraft hasn't bothered providing real-time stock info on their site and that they don't bother automatically e-mailing tracking numbers, but the point of this post was that if you bother to try hard enough, you CAN get that info when you call Kraft Customer Support. It's extra effort on the client's behalf, but at least it's worth it if it allows you to order something which won't be out of stock the morning after or if it allows you to score a tracking number and track your shipment.
Posted by: SH at May 30, 2008 9:38 PM