RELO Roundtable…a gathering place

The thumb lever at the top of the handle on the front entry door to our home broke just before the start of summer. 

It was part of an expensive but popular brand-name replacement we installed several years ago.

A small 1/8 x 3/4 inch round retaining pin secured just behind the top plate of the 18” long handle either failed or became disengaged when my wife pulled it closed on her way to work.

We could open the door normally from the inside but, without the lever mechanism, access from outside was impossible. The small, inexpensive piece probably cost more to ship than it cost to produce. 

The missus found the installation instructions and warranty information and said we were in luck. The well-known hardware manufacturer offered a lifetime guarantee on some of their entryway products. Ours was included.

I removed the inoperative components and took them to the big-box store where we purchased the lock.  Without even looking in the bag, the customer service rep said they didn't carry a kit to repair/replace the missing part.

The guy then showed me on my paperwork where the manufacturer required that customers contact their corporate headquarters for instructions on how to process their warranty. He said they would probably send a brand new handleset. A $199 replacement for a part that cost a few pennies to make. Hmmm ….. this was starting to sound complicated.

Commodity shopping mentality erodes customer service

The phone number listed on the yellowed installation instructions was disconnected. The next morning I found the correct toll-free number online but, because of the time difference, their automated attendant informed me I would have to wait five hours for their corporate customer call center to open. At least it was located in the U.S.

I started calling a 8:00 AM PST. I finally got through to a real, live CSR at 2:43 PM PST – the next day!  As I repeatedly hit the redial button, I wondered why so many customers would be trying to call their same number.

After spending almost 30 hours trying to reach their 'customer service solution', I calmly explained the handleset problem to Randy when he answered, told him what the local retailer said, gave him a description of the part and then  waited … on hold …. for twenty-four minutes will he checked their stock!

When he finally returned, Randy asked me to take several pictures with my cell phone and then email him the jpgs along with the exact measurements of just the lower outside assembly. Said he needed to verify the model type and finish on their product that I claimed was damaged.

My frustration level, which had cooled somewhat while on hold, started rising again. I could feel the heat in my face.

I inquired about what other verification options were available if my phone didn't take pictures. Randy asked if I could borrow one. He also said I could use a digital camera if that worked better for me. I asked him to 'hold' while I got pen and paper so he could explain how to transmit images using the internet. Apparently he missed my point entirely because he quickly volunteered that he could try to email them to me. It was obvious he didn't want to wait.

I then asked if it wouldn't be much quicker and easier if he simply called the store and verified the conversation I had with their local merchandiser's 'Customer Service' department two days earlier. After-all, the guy actually SAW my broken part. His fingerprints are all over it. I gave him the store's phone number and the clerks name and extension.

Randy said he needed to consult his supervisor. I was placed on hold – again! This time, though, it was for just 18 minutes. When he returned, he said they needed the pictures for their claim file. I asked to speak to the supervisor. Unfortunately, he'd just left for lunch … at three in the afternoon. My blood pressure shot up again. Very quickly!

My wife came to my rescue. She took a series of four pictures with our digital camera which I uploaded and transmitted to Randy's email address. I had asked him to call me when he received them. I didn't hear anything … for three days.

Calls to the customer service call center were repeatedly answered by the same annoying recorded voice-attendant. Apparently, like me, lots of other dissatisfied customers were also trying to find service satisfaction using the company's automated CSR processes.
 

Super CSR manages a broom

Finally I got through to another CSR, Elaine, who spent the good part of twenty minutes patiently listening to my angry tirade. Elaine asked that I email her the same very same images I sent Randy. Unlike her absent coworker, she waited pleasantly on the phone until they were received.

Within two minutes of opening the first picture, she had identified my model, confirmed it's availability in the same finish we purchased, and arranged for it to be shipped directly to our home from their manufacturer's warehouse. All she needed to complete the transaction was a credit card number to cover the ground shipping costs. Befuddled, I asked about air-freight and was told that was not an option because she didn't know which of the company's product distribution centers would be shipping the replacement. She did, however, “confirm” it would be shipped that day and should arrive within 1-4 weeks. Not days. WEEKS!

Remember .. this broken handleset is part of the front door – the main entry way into my family's home.

By now I'm so frustrated I'm seething. The wife refused to accompany me (and my bag of disassembled parts) back the big box store to purchase a replacement.

When I got to the hardware aisle I asked the stockboy sweeping the floor which brands of locks this international manufacturer produced. I wanted to avoid them – whatever it cost. He named almost every brand on their shelves. Sensing the frustration in my moan, Bill asked what the problem was. I showed him the missing piece and explained what the lock company told me I needed to do.

He looked at the handle for a minute and then pulled the exact same model off the shelf along with several others that were similar. He asked which I liked. The one that caught my attention was about $40 more than what I paid originally and $16 dollars more than what I had installed on my door years ago.

He then told me to select whichever one I wanted, pay for it by credit card at the front register, and ask the clerk to print me an extra copy of the receipt. He gave me an address to mail the paid receipt to; said I should received a refund in about a week. If I didn't, Bill told me to bring in the replacement product being sent from the manufacturers warehouse along with my receipt and the store would issue the refund. Same day!

Thirty minutes later, my new handle with its properly operating thumb latch were installed.

If you're still reading, did you happen to notice that the stockboy's customer fulfillment efforts took four sentences to document and less than five minutes to complete. The cycle time required to resolve my entry way problem – including lock failure, trip to the hardware store, and installation of the new components – would have taken less than an hour for the entire process. The net cost to the company and the customer is a wash.

The lock manufacturer's shareholders would be smart to hire this conscientious part-time, blue-collar clerk (who, incidentally, only earns minimum wage) to replace the company CEO. Last year the 'brains' of the $9.6 billion, global organization tried to awarded himself at 240% pay raise even though the entire enterprise's revenues plummeted by 34%.  The company slockholders resisted the effort. Now he's gonna have to make do with a paltry $18.7 million to live on each year.

I bet if the handleset company made it possible for Bill to repair my broken lock with an inexpensive, quality replacement part, they might make up a lot of that lost revenue at $200 per customer.
 

OK! But what's the comparison?

What's any of this have to do with DPS, the Department of Defense's new automated personal property procurement system.

Just like my front door, DPS is also broken! Actually, it hasn't worked right since the system's developers began building and installing it. Having a broken or unreliable component at the front end an automated procurement process makes it extremely difficult and needlessly frustrating for military users and authorized, registered visitors trying to gain entry to SDDC's expensive new move management site.

The Defense Personal Property System (DPS) was introduced in 2010 and praised by it's Surface Deployment and Distribution Command's (SDDC) developers as a world-class, state of the art order fulfillment solution for purchasing household goods moving services worldwide.

Unfortunately, since it's rollout, DPS has consistently buckled under the professional expectations and unique, personal demands placed in it by the 600,000 loyal military and civilian service members and their families who are required to depend on it to complete their permanent-change-of-station (PCS) transfers each year.

And it's the same for the 900+ domestic and international moving industry transportation service providers (TSPs) approved by SDDC to participate in their top-heavy, complicated, new reverse auction purchasing model. To exacerbate the problem even further, lately it's been even harder to follow the DPS programs' completely arbitrary and constantly changing 'best value' business rules.

Just like the $9 billion dollar lock manufacturer, the Department of Defense (DOD) requires both of these stakeholder groups to involuntarily interact together using the United States Transportation Command's (TRANCOM) strictly controlled Defense Personal Property Program. The internet based DP3 process was designed to counsel, select; manage; and compensate participating TSPs for handling local, long distance, and international personal property moves. TRANSOM, by the way, owns DPS; the program is managed by SDDC, their executive agent.

Unlike me, however, neither SDDC's military and civilian 'customers' nor their enrolled transportation service suppliers can walk into their local 'store' and talk to Bill about their individual relocation needs or product failure dilemmas.  Why not?

Bill doesn't exist in DPS!

Instead anxious, frustrated and, increasingly, angry users on both sides of the DP3 procurement aisle are forced to interact inside a ridge government controlled order fulfillment framework – just like the lock manufacturer's customers. Both military members and transportation suppliers are required to use TRANCOM's strictly defined 'customer service' protocols to try to find fixed, automated, and very routine 'best value' solutions to their individual relocation projects or service dilemmas.

Essentially that means that if a frustrated PCS user or confused TPS is lucky enough to locate the right 'phone number' in DP3, get past the DPS procurement system's 'automated attendants', and find themselves suddenly connected to some DOD or TSP 'CSR' assigned to help them find a solution to their personal transportation dilemma, they're committed to being stuck dealing with a someone like Randy or Elaine, somewhere in SDDC's or TRANCOM's huge, impersonal logistics network.
 

Taking matters into their own hands…

Faced with the prospect of a long peak season of service failures in both the DIY and full service moving industries, traffic management personnel at several very active Personal Property Shipping Offices (PPSO) operated at large military bases around the country recently side-stepped SDDC's DPS framework to try help their PCSing service personnel.

Apparently their individual military commands felt these type of independent initiatives were necessary to try to resolve some of the local capacity issues that SDDC claimed were created by uncommitted TPS operating under DPS's rigid tonnage “blackout” provisions this summer.

Figuratively, then, many of these creative traffic managers went to their base's 'big box store' and desperately began searching the 'shelves' for moving and storage agents who could (and would!) enroll the support of their local moving and warehouse crews, independent owner-operators, and third party packing, crating, and appliance service contractors to help quickly resolve the capacity service issues that DP3 has failed to meet since early May.

Instead of relying on the rigidly defined procurement protocols required in DPS, however, many PPSO's stepped outside SDDC's 'best value' box and offered to pay overtime wages, and market prices for local packing, storage, and drayage pick up/delivery rates.

Their willingness to negotiate these types extraordinary incentives were broadcast throughout the local moving and storage community. The carrot was dangled in front of any independent mover or van line agent who could provide help servicing any amount of uncommitted local or long distance household goods tonnage for desperate military members during the next three weeks.

Unfortunately, though, just like Bill, local moving and storage agents don't exist under the DPS framework.

Under the current 'best value' business rules, SDDC only acknowledges the enrolled TSP as being authorized capacity providers.

Fortunate for the PCSing service members still trying to move this summer, however, most local military transportation offices already know that Bill is a real, live problem-solver who works in their community. 

They've relied on him and his local competitors professional moving and storage experience, relocation expertise, and professional industry relationships for years under the legacy Transportation Operational Personal Property Standard System (TOPS) system that DPS was designed to replace. 

The folks operating the PPSO's, however, frequently don't find or are able to achieve the same level of satisfaction working with the Randy and Elaines retained by SDDC and their enrolled 'big-box' TSPs to resolve their customer service needs – especially during peak relocation business periods.

Bill, on the other hand, they usually see around town in the local commissary or restaurant. Their kids go to the same schools, participate on the same clubs, and their families attend the same church and community events.

The Bill's of the world can see their relocation dilemma's caused by capacity problems and tonnage imbalances, understand each transferees individual concerns, and frequently are able to provide a more practical, affordable product or service solution to their customer's moving and storage problem a lot quicker than TRANCOM is able to “ship it” from SDDC headquarter at Scott AFB or the Pentagon.

Another “NEW” fix being considered

In June, 2011, the Joint Logistics Board, operating under the direction of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics & Materiel Readiness, announced its support for several new initiatives which included:

• Funding a Business Case Analysis (BCA) to explore a third-party logistics concept for the movement of DOD household goods
• Improving the process related to the methodology for calculating fuel surcharges on Department of Defense shipments
• Improving the process related to the movement of Arms, Ammunition and Explosives within the Continental United States (CONUS) including optional use of security escort vehicles for certain type shipments
• Exploring the modification of First Destination Transportation contract terms from FOB destination to FOB origin
• Using the Departments third party payment system to pay commercial non-temporary storage bills for Departments household goods

According to a discussion included in a recent information paper released by the Secretary of Defense Logistics Efficiencies, “In 2010, due to increasing budget constraints and pressures, the Secretary of Defense required the Department to uncover more than $100 billion in Department of Defense overhead savings over the next five years. In 2011, he revised the savings requirement to $178 billion through the elimination of unnecessary or underperforming practices and the implementation of better business practices.” (emphasis added).

If TRANSCOM really wants to render the fat from their $2.3 billion dollar personal property transportation budget, the last thing that the Defense Secretary's relocating service members and government employees need is yet another ineffective layer of overpriced and underperforming administrative control to manage their transferring families household goods moves. DPS already has too many very expensive but disconnected CEOs and program managers with their hands in the DP3 cookie jar.   

America's armed forces families have already suffered enough with these types of failed process improvement experiments each time their government orders them to complete a PCS transfer.

They and the professionally trained, local blue-collar moving crews they invite into their homes are ultimately the one's who bear the brunt of DOD's mismanagement of the top-heavy relocation products and transportation service programs. And, unfortunately they have been ever since the DOD first stated reengineering their PCS procurement process in 1995 to “make moving easier”.

In every part of it's phased introduction, DPS has routinely failed to meet the individual PCS needs and relocation schedules of hundreds of thousands military service personal forced to operate under DP3's purview.

Still, though, somebody's making a killing somewhere because SDDC still stubbornly forges ahead despite the repeated complaints of their stakeholders.

The International Association of Movers recently announced they will be meeting with staff from the Office of the Secretary of Defense on Monday, June 27, 2011, to further discuss the possible outcomes of the business case analysis (BCA) being considered “to explore a third-party logistics concept” for the movement of DOD household goods.

For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of military service personnel who move each year and millions of U.S. taxpayers who support them, I sure hope they had the good sense to invite Bill to accompany them.

 

 

Related Articles:

Military blames movers for service problems – RELO Roundtable

Military hints at review of problem-ridden DP3 program – RELO Roundtable

‘Defense Personal Property Procurement Program (DP3)’ Category – RELO Roundtable

Popular Defense Personal Property Program (DP3) Forum Discussions – RELO Roundtable

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