Actually to say “disappointment” would be an understatement. I was flaming mad with them. I catered some food from Lee Wee & Brothers, and delivery was supposed to be from 3pm to 5pm. There was no sight of them at 5pm, or 5:30pm, or 6pm, or even 6:30pm. I called their office numbers repeatedly umpteenth times, every single time the call went unanswered until it was diverted to their voice mail, which was full.
I was already preparing to call a fast-food delivery to make up for Lee Wee’s no-show, when their truck finally pulled up to my apartment at 6:50pm. They were nearly 2 hours late, without so much as a simple phone call from them to let me know their delivery schedule was screwed up.
Sure, I understand there was some rain earlier. But if you know you are going to be late, surely you jolly well call ahead to advise your customers? This is catering you know, it is not like furniture delivery. What if some customers actually planned to start their party at 5pm? We’re all busy too you know, we don’t need the stress from a no-show.
The delivery guy apologized, of course. But I’m sure it hardly appeased any of their customers. He explained that there was rain. Why can’t he simply call ahead to waiting customers? His explanation was that he was too busy, and there were too many to call. Well, then why can’t the back-end people in the office help to call? Worse, why wasn’t anyone answering phone calls in the office?! Yes it was a Saturday night… even if the office is officially closed on Saturday night, then activate someone to come back to man the phones! Or just have the phone lines diverted somewhere to be answered!
Guess what… this delivery guy still had 5 more deliveries after mine, and this is for the 3pm to 5pm delivery slot!
Rain can no doubt have impact on delivery schedules. But rain is not an uncommon “problem”, and surely it is expected this time of the year. If Lee Wee & Brothers cannot even properly manage a rather trivial issue of rain, I just wonder how will they ever handle bigger challenges.
Let’s compare with Sakae Sushi. I made a small delivery order from them too. A full one hour before the promised delivery time, they called to advise that they may be running a little late and will instead make delivery 15 minutes later. Was it OK with me? Sure I was fine with it. The call was much appreciated.
Lee Wee & Brothers: Com’on… a simple phone call. You can’t even make a simple phone call?! What kind of service attitude is this?
Part 2: Calm after the Storm
17th Dec: Ok, just to follow up. I wrote in to complain to Lee Wee and Brothers this afternoon. They were quite prompt to call me within 15 mins.
The nice lady who called offered her sincere apologies and tried to explain what went wrong. Basically they screwed up, they did not try to make any excuses of that. Admittedly, how well you run a company, someone somewhere can still screw things up and spoil the image of the company. I’m just happy to hear they are paying attention to this problem and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.