18/04/2021
Parcelfomindia
Background
In pandemic times people were looking for a service which is easy to use with absolutely less paperwork and cost effective. One more thing was to make sure all parcels reach to Singapore or India. This is the main reason for us to start parcelfromindia and we have worked hard to deliver more than 500 parcels and connect with more than 45 cities in just last 6 months. Our service is an easy to use no fuss service used by parents, housewives and people stuck up in India or Singapore.
Recently, there are issues at India side, mainly customs issue because the staff is understaff in customs division which cause delays to bring stuff from India . The second issue is that many times, there are goods which get banned to be sent suddenly, for eg. Artificial jewellery is banned and even a small necklace has ended up in our parcels held up in customs. These issues has increased the burden on our team and also affected our SLA guidelines for delivery. The time to receive a return consignment and send it again is very time consuming.
Now some of our competitors have just gone to length of announcing that people should not even send “Sarees” to India, we do not believe that it is fair to stop sending goods which are simple or something essential. In light of it, we have decided to work hard and continue our services. We know we might have some initial struggles but I am sure if we work together as a team and everyone has parcels to come and go to India, we will be able to deliver.
The Hiccup
Communication
While, the initial discussion about parcels happens with me “Amol” and on my what’s app since I am responsible to introduce my company and my services. It is very hard to place another representative from my team to handle the communication and keep sending updates. If anyone wants to send us a message or feel that I am not attending there request or I forget to respond back in time should try to go on our website and use the support link. Its not going to be possible for me to keep updating everyone when there is a delay unless I get a message. I receive about 100+ messages in a working day, some 40-60 calls and I am sorry but it is hard to forward message in what’s app and use what’s app like a complete call centre solution.
Customs
We respect the customs team in India and also in Singapore and we believe they are also human and are doing the job. Now when we send personal cargo, it is very hard to itemised every item and get a proper value of each item since many times we send used goods like clothes and baggages which are stuck up.
The customs team have no manual to get the explanation for the same and they treat it as a new item which actually opens a complicated list of issues for us to resolve. All in all, we have been able to clear all cargo. There have always been clearance issue but they have sometimes even taken 5 months. I know all of you people may think that it is a joke but yes, we have been putting our staff through this pain of contacting everyday with the customs team to get clearance.
Flights Cancellations
Most customers feel that getting a parcel is like booking the parcel and it should be here in 3 days. However, all of you need to understand that the parcel is not coming in any direct flight. All cargo go through a lot of destinations before reaching to Singapore and hence we have setup 15 days as our delivery timeline.
We also get notice of flight cancellations which adds to the delay in the items to come here
The future
We are trying our best to streamline operations, yes we agree there have been delays in March, especially I am myself trying to always ask time because our intension is to still deliver the goods and we are doing a lot of work to make sure that the goods get deliver.
Booking Page
We now have a booking page - www.parcelfromindia.com/booking.html .
Tracking Page
We have started the tracking page, its in beta testing mode and we expect a complete roll out in the next few days.
https://www.parcelfromindia.com/tracking.html
Support Page
Complaints / Lost and Found or Misplaced Items
https://www.parcelfromindia.com/support.html
If you look at the entire industry, every logistic provider has problems and issues and no one is going to talk about it in open. I hope this post helps you all understand our company and our vision and help support us to make this a better system than others.
Thanks
Amol
