OxiMedical Respiratory

Review: On September 20, I made arrangements with [redacted] of OxiMedical Respiratory to provide a Respironics Simply Go portable concentrator set-up for my mother, [redacted].

Mr. [redacted] told me the unit would ship on 10/17 for delivery on 10/22 and that I would receive notice of shipment and a tracking number. I later confirmed that with Mr. [redacted] on 10/15.

There was no shipping confirmation on 10/17 and so I both phoned and emailed Mr. [redacted]. Still no confirmation on 10/18 so I phoned and emailed him again. There was no response from him and there was no out-of-office reply from his email address.

This morning (10/21) I called the main OxiMedical number and spoke to [redacted], who told me Mr. [redacted] had experienced a death in his family. [redacted] said, “I’m sure Leo took care of you but someone will definitely call you this morning.”

That didn’t happen either, so a little before 2:00 CT I called again and a young woman said she was working on the order at that moment and I would have confirmation within 10 minutes.

It is now 2:50 CT, more than hour after I was told I would have confirmation within 10 minutes, and I have heard nothing.Desired Settlement: I want the item shipped by whatever means necessary to arrive on the promised date (10/22). My mother's trip is dependent upon OxiMedical keeping its promise. I also want this information posted so that other customers know that nonshipment is a possibility and that OxiMedical is not responsive to calls and emails.

Business

Response:

I received a personal email from Ms. [redacted] at the time this complaint was filed. Upon reviewing her concerns, I promptly telephoned Ms. [redacted] with our apologies, acknowledged our error, and explained how the error occurred. The day Ms. [redacted]'s order was to be shipped, our salesperson received notice of a sudden death in the family. In his haste to be with family and his subsequent absence, we overlooked the order. Ms. [redacted]'s initial calls were to the direct number of our salesperson, so her messages were in his voice mailbox. Again, the suddenness of his being called away precipitated the failure to update phone and email statuses with "out-of-office" messages. We certainly regret the oversight since it is not characteristic of normal business operations and I expressed this to Ms. [redacted].

I immediately recognized the urgency of shipping the order for delivery on Wednesday, 10/23 (the date the order would have been delivered) and explained to Ms. [redacted] that we were processing the order for 2-day air delivery. While on the phone, Ms. [redacted] expressed appreciation for my attention to this matter. I later received a follow-up email from her stating, "Thank you for yr call, Ms. [redacted] ~ I appreciate your attention to this. I will hope that it arrives on Wednesday. Thank you. [redacted]"

Later, upon pick-up of the order by UPS, I sent the following email to Ms. [redacted]: "I see your package has been scanned by UPS and shows scheduled delivery for Wednesday. Please note that it requires a signature for delivery. I want to again express my regret that we caused you so much concern. We certainly do not take it lightly when we fail to meet our customers' expectations. Hopefully, we are working to restore the confidence you originally placed in us. Please contact me if you need any further assistance."

The order has since been delivered, and to the best of my knowledge, to Ms. [redacted]'s satisfaction.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

[Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]

This is not a matter of resolution so much as it is a cautionary tale.

What Ms. [redacted] writes is correct: The shipment was ultimately delivered. Unfortunately, it was incomplete. And because of the delayed shipment, I did not know that it was incomplete until the evening before our planned departure.

Neither the mobile cart nor the instruction manual were included. I notified Ms. [redacted] of that and she has shipped those items to our destination. We will have to travel without them, but if our bad luck changes, they will be available to us when we arrive. At this point, it is the best possible resolution one could expect. But it leaves us trusting that the cart arrives and that the user's guide I found online is accurately instructive about how this particular machine functions in order to use it safely en route. I am fearful that we will get to western Kansas and discover that I have misunderstood something, which will put my mother at jeopardy.

None of that should have been necessary, though.

Ms. [redacted] has responded to each error and has done her best to make it right. However, these errors are anxiety-producing for people who are dependent upon the portable O2 concentrator for a trip. There were at least 3 occasions in this process when it looked as if we would have to cancel our trip, first b/c we were not getting any response from OxiMedical when the shipment was not sent, then b/c the shipment date was later than anticipated, and now b/c all of the necessary items were not included.

And these were unnecessary errors prompted first by failing to have an order fulfillment system that is not dependent upon a single person and becomes untenable when that person experiences a family emergency is out of the picture; and then by carelessly excluding necessary items (which may be related to the first rather than to carelessness ~ maybe the order fulfillment person did not know which bundle I ordered)

Mr. [redacted] did her best to correct these things and she was universally polite, kind, and apologetic. Indeed, the service recovery was excellent. Nevertheless, it has been a nerve-wracking business transaction that still awaits completion.

I do not ask Ms. [redacted] to do anything more. I am trusting that this latest resolution will be error-free and we will find the omitted items when we arrive at our hotel.

Unless that does not happen, which I will not know until Sunday, I consider this complaint closed.

Thank you.

Regards,

Business

Response:

I only wish to clarify one statement before addressing Ms. [redacted]s primary concern. The order was sent by rush delivery and was scheduled for delivery two business days prior to Ms. [redacted]s planned departure. There was an additional delivery delay of one day because UPS could not make the delivery at the first attempt because there was no one available to sign for the package. As soon as we were notified of this by UPS, we contacted Ms. [redacted] and she acknowledged that she was aware of this. Thus, the reason she did not know about the missing items until the evening before her departure was due to a reason out of our control. However, we promptly addressed the error by shipping the items to Ms. [redacted]s destination via Next Day Air Saturday delivery. The items were delivered on Saturday and were waiting for her arrival at the hotel.

As Ms. [redacted] has attested, we have provided excellent service to correct the prior oversights. Nonetheless, I realize Ms. [redacted]s primary concern is the anxiety that she felt due to the uncertainty of her order situation. As

previously stated, this situation arose out of a sudden death in an employee's family. This was obviously quite unexpected, and as a small company (which allows us to provide personal attention), it caught us off guard. It took us two business days to recover (from Thursday to Monday) and fully step in for the employee who was called out of the office to attend to family matters. Ms. [redacted] is correct in pointing out that our order fulfillment system was too dependent on the knowledge of one person. We have since examined our order processing and have made several changes to improve our systems. While we wish we could go back in time and recover the anxiety Ms. [redacted] experienced, it is impossible to do so. However, we have learned from this unfortunate situation and are actively seeking to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. We hope this gives Ms. [redacted] some satisfaction, knowing that her concerns have not been ignored, both personally and corporately.

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] I requested no resolution and only wished to inform others of the issue. As I stated, the attempt at service recovery was excellent but the errors themselves were nerve-wracking and avoidable. I consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,