Rush to Wait, Wait to Rush
3 January 2022 at 10:00 am, an important time for our customer. It is the day we launch the online store to allow customers to buy Bak Kwa or Pork Jerky for Lunar New Year. We put in effort in multiple aspects to give a great customer experience.
- We ensure that we have multiple safety measures to prevent the site from crashing due to a sudden surge, learning from our mistake from the previous year.
- To prevent the last-minute rush, the customer sent out an email to remind all existing customers to register for an account early.
- To ensure that we can resolve the customer’s issue, the customer conducted a briefing to everyone on what will happen and how to help customers if they have any problems.
Many customers decided to sign up at the very last minute, which resulted in a delay in getting their verification email. This group of customers are complaining and commenting on how it can be better. On the other aspect, those who signed up early have bought their products and had a great experience, leaving good comments for the team.
Such is not an isolated incident. For example, Singapore issued an online tourism credit to encourage Singaporeans to tour within the country and boost tourism. The dateline to redeem the credit falls on 31 December 2021. However, there are months where one can redeem and use the credit before it expires. There are multiple reminders and extensions before this dateline, yet many choose not to take action.
On the very day, many people rushed to the website to make a last-minute effort to redeem the credit. Unfortunately, the site crashed due to the sudden surge within a short span. Many ended up going to social media to give feedback on their disappointment.
Can you see a similar pattern from the two recent incidents? Unfortunately, there will be times when we might need to rush to complete a particular milestone. However, we can mitigate these incidents by planning and taking proactive actions. So let’s plan and take proactive steps to prevent getting into this “Rush to Wait, Wait to Rush” trap.
