I can provide some insight, and I hope it doesn't come off as an 'excuse' since we are always striving to be better. Late December and January present our highest return volumes of the year by far. Not only is the volume high, but many returns are gift items which can bog down the process due to incomplete paperwork/information, etc. Throw in a 5-day warehouse freeze for year-end inventory counting and WHAM, things back up in a real hurry.
I do an in-person check-in with the returns team at our warehouse every day. With our extensive product line these days it takes a well-trained and caring employee to know the products, inspect and re-package every piece that comes in, properly handle the paperwork aspect, and accurately return product to the inventory management system. We currently have 8-10 ladies on this team depending on the day and let me tell you, they care very much about efficiency, accuracy, and the customers in general. For example ALL of them WANTED to work the past few Saturdays in order to catch up. This is just on the warehouse side where returns are delivered and physically handled.
The actual refunds and other clerical steps are then handled by a team in our main office, again by people who care very much about their jobs and the customers. They are hard on themselves about delays, and work pretty much every weekend this time of year. Now that we have all sorts of extra features to wade through like rewards points, gift exchanges, prepaid return labels, extended holiday acceptance windows, etc., processing many refunds isn't as straight-forward as it used to be. They are constantly recruiting help from other departments to help get through the volume, which is the beauty of a teamwork.
Still, as has been the case for quite some time around here now, spurts of volume have a way of out outpacing our ability to fully catch up. It's like when you finally fight a big fish close to the net... and then he takes off again!
Please know that the team is working very hard not only to catch up, but to also implement improvements for better efficiency in the future. You should definitely see us go back to normal processing times here in the next week or two when volume slows back down.
I guess my point is, we'll wear it on the chin for being behind this time of year, but we want you to know it's not for lack of trying or caring. Sincere apologies for the delay, and thank you for providing more motivation for us to be better.
