Return to Sender
I received a bounced mail today.
It was a traditional Lunar New Year greeting card sent to an overseas associate. I had written only the street address, without the city nor postal code. This is perfectly fine in a small country in Singapore, where the city is the same as the country.
In my rush, I even omitted the country, which you could see was hastily scribbled in right before I popped it in the post:
It took 3 months to be sent back to me.
This is an incredibly slow and inefficient way of telling me that I’ve written an incomplete mailing address. With email, it will take less than a minute.
Then it struck me how much I’ve come to rely on the Internet.
Star Bamboo is based in Singapore, with our factory in China, and we sell to customers around the globe.
I rely heavily on the following to communicate with my clients and business associates:
- Email (
) - Web site (www.starbamboo.com)
- Blog (you’re reading it now)
- Various B2B trade web sites
All these would have been impossible without the Internet. It is vastly more efficient than letters, faxes and phone calls.
Just think about how you found Star Bamboo, and chances are it’s through the Internet.
So I will be emailing my associate above to wish him a terribly belated Happy Lunar New Year instead.
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Christina said,
May 30, 2007 at 3:44 pm
As a Singaporean living in Norway, I have yet to experience undelivered post due to incomplete or inaccurate address. In fact mail from Singapore addressed to my maiden name (unfamiliar to the locals) still manages to reach me even though the address is incomplete (eg. omission of street/unit number). I have been told that the postal code is vital as this gives the local post office a clue to the addressee. But I have received letters sans postal code before; albeit domestically. I guess it’s an advantage of living in a small town where the postal staff knows everybody personally.
Still, I agree with Hun Boon that it’s absolutely amazing the returned mail took three whole months. Talk about ‘snail’ mail!
Hun Boon said,
May 30, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Hi Christina, thanks for dropping by.
Singapore is a small place and has about the same population as Norway, but I can’t imagine the postman ever knowing who we are!
Interestingly, DHL assigns a fixed zone to each of their courier staff, so I always deal with the same person. That’s one effective way to build a one-to-one relationship.