Delivering to pregnant women.

Tailoring your service to fit your customers needs is something you would think quite natural for Mothercare. The chances are if you are having a cot, pram etc delivered that the person signing for the goods will be pregant, quite healiy pregnant in some cases.

This is not the situation to abide by the rules, this is a situation for common sense. Here's what one disgruntled Mothercare customer has to say...

They were delivered on time, but in an appalling state. Some of the boxes and goods (things like a bouncer chair and the blankets) were delivered to me wet and in damaged packaging. The man dumped a heavy box in my hand to carry up the stairs. Im 33 weeks pregnant, and this was totally inapproprite. He refused to let me have the cot, and said the whole order had to be returned.

When I called up to complain the customer service manager was very rude with me, she said I was lucky they were delivered so quickly and was short, unsympathetic and totally unhelpful. she refused to put me through to a manager, or let me know when my goods would be redelivered.

I was made to feel like I was lucky there were there at all, and that my complaints were not taken seriously at all. I was spoken to very ruidely.

Mumsnet Discussions - mothercare are awful (Pregnancy)

Whatever problems there are at the depot, the customer shouldn't be getting wet and damaged deliveries, this is unnecessary damage to the Mothercare brand, it doesn't show any care at all. When choosing your courier, you need to brief them, and the courier driver needs to be aware that they may need extra lifting equipment or a two man team to deliver to pregnant women (this also counts for delivering to the elderly, and the physically disabled).

Mothercare are not the only company to neglect the needs of their customers. A birthing pool company have done the same in the past, refused to help a 38 week pregnant woman take the wooden pool upstairs as it "wasn't his job". When the mum-to-be waddled down, he was overcome with remorse and struggled with it and delivered it safely up two flights of stairs, in this instance a two man team should have been used. If the common had thought about it, they would know the likely recipent of a birthing pool is a heavily pregnant woman.

So if you are a company looking to deliver items to women who are heavily pregnant...

• Do you brief your drivers?
  

• Do you send out two man teams?


• Are you busy trying to save money?


• How much money would you save if you injured a pregnant woman through inconsideration?


• Can you afford the negative publicity?


• Can you sleep at night knowing a few quid off the bottom line, a few more quid in the shareholders pocket is actually causing pain and suffering to the customer base you are targetting?

Sarah

Couriers and delivery, for when your customers welfare actually matters to your business.

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