Sending a balikbayan box to the Philippines? Who would you call? NOT AMJ Campbell, I hope. Unfortunately their service is not world class and needs lots of upgrading. Here's a case in point: We called to have a box picked up last Tuesday. Our apartment fire alarm sounded so naturally we could not bring the box down to the lobby to be picked up (we had other more pressing concerns) so we asked the driver to come back and he said he'll be back in the morning two days later. A world class company would say "...oh I'm sorry that we weren't able to pick up your box today but as you've indicated to our driver, Louie, we will work with you to have this picked up on Thursday morning as you've requested." That would be an ideal call from Fe A., their Philippine representative. But NO. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No Calls, No Follow Ups, No Return Messages even after more than four times of calling and reminding them about the pickup. The driver's cell does not even have any voicemail! Is that how you run a supposedly country-wide business?
We searched the net and found that there were two complaints to AMJ Campbell in the last 36 months to the BBB for their Mississauga office! Was there a lack of complaint happening or was it directed to us alone? Or was it just this particular driver?
A call to the receptionist to get this cleared proved to be useless. She would just forward your call to Fe without care to listen to the issues. When another person was requested (a manager or a complaint officer), she would ignore you. This lack of concern proved to be another layer of ineffective check and ended up with rating of not world class from us.
You might say that this is just a one time event? Unfortunately not. This is not the first time. Two other times that we've used this service, there were multiple delays in responses (days on average) and many excuses from both Fe and the drivers. Is there a lack of competition in this area that they are still in business? Is their larger transportation arm in a good financial position so this particular department is ignored? What is going on here? Somehow we think that having an LBC in Toronto would make AMJ rethink its processes. What is interesting is that this company was recommended by friends but unfortunately the company's more reliable driver is not there anymore. So with this experience, we were thinking what exactly is the cause of the wrong business practise? Is it the initiation of the call? Is it the delivery of the message to the driver? Is it the driver's fault? Is it the actual truck not maintained properly? Something is happening and it is not being communicated to the client who in turn will have to wait without knowing what is going on and only to be disappointed with the lack of service.
Have you used another service to send a balikbayan box to the Philippines? Please post your experience and recommendations since we still have a box here waiting to be sent home.
If you are reading this and not exactly understand why all the ruckus? Ask a Filipino friend to explain all of this. Any immigrant Filipino would know exactly what this about.
