We are big believers in taking care of our employees, and in order to make life easier for our customer service team, here's some answers to questions you might have!
Here are some things that Brightbox’s customer service representatives wish that customers knew or understood better.
Common Shipping Questions
We are all for having your packages arrive on time to their intended destination, but we don’t always have the control or ability to guarantee arrival times. Brightbox is closed on weekends and federal holidays to allow employees to spend time with family and friends. Our customer support team recommends that customers place their orders earlier in the week then later to ensure it gets delivered on time or close to it.
Along those same lines, a question Brightbox often gets asked is how long does it take to ship a box from our Utah based warehouse. Since we use USPS, and factoring where your recipient lives, we always recommend a travel period of 2-10 days once USPS receives your order. Neither Brightbox or USPS can guarantee arrival times due to the nature of package delivery.
With that in mind, how do we know where your order is at any given time? Honestly, we know only as much as you! With every box comes a tracking number that allows customers to track where your order is on its transit journey. Always give your order an extra day after it's been processed before shooting us an email asking where your box is. More often than not the tracking number hasn’t been activated yet via USPS! We know how anxious you are to make sure your gift gets to the right place, we are always willing to go the extra mile and help where we can when an order is possibly lost but the best way to resolve where a package may be is through the carrier service if there is a delivery issue.
Sometimes when a recipient hasn’t received a package despite tracking saying it's been delivered because the package has been accidentally placed in an inconspicuous spot near the entryway, delivered to the wrong door, or in the mailbox. Butunfortunately there are those rare situations where a package is stolen or lost. For those instances we recommend filing a carrier claim, and we’ll do the same!
Addresses
Addresses, addresses, addresses! This is probably an area that customer support has to assist with most frequently. From either a mistyped address, last minute updates to automatic address fillers, or accidentally using your own address we’ve seen it all and are all about helping as much as we can.
But to better help limit the amount of emails that get sent, here are some steps to go through before you hit “finalize order” at the end of your Brightbox journey!
- Many of you are so sweet intentioned when you are wanting to send a box or card to a friend or family member who are in hospital or at a hotel, however there have been many instances in which the recipient ends up checking out early and therefore customers often times try to get a full refund or want a new box sent to a different address. We encourage you to double or triple check on how long a recipient will be at that address before sending, or send it to their home address, or to wait until they are home before sending a box. If your box gets to the address and your recipient is no longer there it is not required of us to offer a refund or to redirect/resend the box to a new address. We will do our best to accommodate and help where we can, but stress the importance of verifying where and when to send your box.
- Sometimes it just happens that you forget to double check that the address is correct for the recipient, really we get it! With a million things on your mind it probably slipped that Aunt Mabel’s address changed. That’s why we’ve added an extra reminder to check your address before your order is processed! There's still a chance that if you email us with a need to change the address we can get that edited. But once an order has been shipped there is nothing that can be done on our end to change the address or to redirect it. Customers do have the option to reach out to the carrier through their tracking and reroute their order though.
Insufficient Addresses
Sometimes our warehouse gets returned boxes from the USPS because there was an insufficient address. An insufficient address often has missing pieces of the address whether it's a street name, house number, or even as simple as mixing up your cardinal direction abbreviations. It can be frustrating from a customer’s perspective to have your package not arrive when you wanted it to, so our customer service team goes above and beyond in addressing this issue.
Once your order has been redirected to our warehouse, when we receive it we resubmit the correct address and resend your box for a small shipping label fee. While it can be annoying to have to pay the extra fee, you have to admit it's better than having to repay and send for the price of your whole order! The best way to prevent this is to double check your address with the recipient or enter it into Google Maps (if it's not an apartment number or P.O. box) to see if it goes to the right house.
Delivery
Deliveries are typically very reliable based on our estimation for days until delivered. But there are instances beyond our control where your box may not be delivered as soon as expected. These delays can be caused by weather issues, problems that carriers experience, or because of where the recipient lives it might take longer.
We also understand that your orders are all gifts to show how much you care about your recipient. Whether it's because of a loss within the family or friend group, illness, or for ‘just because’ instances, we want your packages to be delivered on time and in one piece. Trust us, when we hear that your packages haven’t made their destination, we are just as equally frustrated! We care about you and your people, and we will try to make up for these situations as best we can for that reason alone.
Just a reminder, customers do have the option to reach out to the carrier through their tracking to reroute their orders.
Refunds
When it comes to receiving refunds, Brightbox is not liable for lost or damaged orders, nor are we required to issue refunds or replace items in your order. However, we like to offer these services on a case by case basis because we appreciate you and your support, and we want to make sure your people are taken care of too.