SINGAPORE — Online grocery merchant RedMart has apologised for service lapses, after it found itself in hot soup, with irate customers taking to social media to express their frustration. Some have said their orders were cancelled, while others said they were unable to reach RedMart to find out what happened after their orders were not fulfilled.

Other RedMart customers have said their orders were refunded to their RedMart accounts instead of their payment sources without any notification, or had delivered orders that were missing certain items.

One customer Emily Peh, who left a comment on RedMart’s Facebook page on Feb 27, said: “Not only was I informed after I paid for the items that some were out of stock, the order also did not arrive at the appointed timeslot (8-10pm). In fact it never came. I did not receive any phone calls or notifications of this delayed order. I tried calling your helpline twice earlier and I got cut off after waiting for more than five minutes each time. Could you provide me an explanation for this drastic drop in service?”

Some customers also took to Twitter to get in touch with the company.

Other customers have left comments on RedMart’s Facebook page saying they will report this issue to the police, as well as to the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE).

A check with CASE revealed that no complaints have been made against RedMart thus far.

ISSUES WITH “NEW PROCESSES” CAUSE OF SERVICE LAPSE: FOUNDERS

The grocery company has apologised on both Facebook and Twitter. It also sent an email apology to its customers this morning (March 6).

“Due to issues in transitioning to our new warehouse, we had numerous late or cancelled orders during the period Feb 25-28 as well as very limited delivery slot availability since then, which will likely continue through March 15 or until we are fully confident in the service,” the email read.

“We know this has caused a lot of difficulties and frustration for those affected. We’d like to apologise and explain what we’re doing to resolve the problems.”

In the email, RedMart’s founders said the problems occurred during the move to its new warehouse, where the company implemented “new processes” in order to accommodate more orders.

“Unfortunately, we struck issues with these new processes and, as a result, were unable to fulfil many customer orders during Feb 25 to 28. This, in turn, created an extremely high number of customer enquiries, overwhelming our customer support systems, which understandably has caused even more frustration,” they said.

To rectify the issue, the founders said they are taking “several immediate actions”, by changing some key processes which caused the initial problems, hiring more customer support staff and improving response procedures, and revising the process for cancelled or incomplete orders such that refunds are credited to payment sources.

NO POLICE REPORTS FILED SO FAR: REDMART

RedMart’s Vice-President of Marketing Todd Kurie told Channel NewsAsia that the company discovered the lapses on Feb 25. He noted that most deliveries between Feb 25 to 28 were completed successfully, but “a number of customers experienced issues with their orders”.

“All issues were resolved by March 1,” he said.

Mr Kurie said the company had reduced its delivery capacity during the transition to its new warehouse and in the week to follow, but issues occurred when RedMart tried to increase its capacity back to normal levels. He also said that the company’s systems are designed to automatically provide refunds in RedMart credits for any goods that are undelivered on that day, but in light of the broader delivery issues, the company has manually converted those credits to refunds paid to their original payment source.

“We are also giving all affected customers an additional S$50 refund as a token of apology for the service issues,” he said.

He added that RedMart is unaware of any police reports that have been filed.

“All affected customers have now been refunded in full for any unfulfilled deliveries. We value our customers and take these issues very seriously, and have done everything possible to resolve the problems and compensate affected customers as quickly as possible,” Mr Kurie said. CHANNEL NEWSASIA