COVID Disruptions Announcement 10th Jan 2022

Hello friends! We hope you've all been keeping well, despite the circumstances.

As many of you are probably experiencing right now, COVID is spiking Australia-wide and causing significant supply chain issues at various stages of production.

In this update, we'll outline a few measures we're taking to predict and compensate for the impacts of this outbreak.

Be Kind

Firstly, we'd like to kindly ask for your patience and understanding during this time. Many supply chain businesses are experiencing significant difficulties and challenges right now and all of us are working extremely long hours to keep everyone happy.

Please be nice to your service providers and work together to help solve these challenges. Nobody is setting out to upset anyone, so we ask that you stay polite when dealing with our customer service team. Many issues we experience are beyond our control, so being rude or making threats won't improve any of these situations. It's a time for positivity and patience.

Staffing Impacts

Every business that doesn't operate in a remote environment will experience a lot of disruption. Most production facilities and logistics services rely on workplaces that involve people working close to each other. As such, any COVID symptoms in these workplaces are treated very seriously to prevent contamination and viral infection. Team members are immediately isolated and kept away from their colleagues until a negative test result is confirmed.

Some workplaces, including our commercial kitchen have staff shortages of up to 60%. You can imagine how difficult is can be to maintain a growing business with these resources. Those who are healthy are working very long hours and working overtime to keep our customers happy.

That being said, overworked and tired workers will inevitably make mistakes. Please take this in your stride at the moment and understand that we'll always resolve any issues you might have if you contact us showing patience and understanding.

Delivery Delays

Our courier network relies on a very complex and time-sensitive routine to deliver thousands of boxes every week. Their accuracy rate is 99.6%, which is the best in the business.

At the moment, there will be last-minute driver absences and route changes. It's inevitable. We're working on making timely updates to customers who will be impacted by these changes to inform them and keep track of the corrections.

We understand that you may be inconvenienced here and we absolutely empathise. Your pets will need food. We'll do everything in our power to get products to you as fast as humanly possible.

Stock Shortages

Some products will go out of stock, sometimes at the last minute. In many cases, we only find out when we start our production week, that a supplier didn't deliver a product we rely on. We've rolled with this each week, but please be aware that if we don't receive delivery of a product, we may have to refund you or replace the product with something else. We order the absolute maximum available of every product we sell right now, so we try as best we can to plan ahead.

We have multiple suppliers and many backups, but everyone is struggling to keep up with our demand right now.

What Can We Do?

From our end, we're extending all of our customer service hours, production team hours and staying closely in touch with our couriers day and night to correct any issues. Stay with us while we work overtime to help you out.

From your side, we kindly ask the following:

• Be Patient: Everyone is struggling to keep up. We feel your stress if you have an issue and it's our intent to fix it as quickly as we can. Please stay focused on the solution instead of being angry or looking for someone to blame.
• Order Extra: If you really rely on the delivery to be on time and risk running out of food, consider ordering extra and leaving an extra week's worth of food in your freezer in case there's a delay or a mistake. This will reduce the stress on everyone and means you won't need to rush out into the public to find a backup source. Stay safe inside and plan ahead.
• Check Your Subscription Regularly: If you're on a subscription, make sure you check the charge schedule ahead of time to ensure the charge dates are correct. We always deliver the week after you are charged, with the weekly cut-off taking place at Sunday midnight.
• Read Your Notifications: We send regular updates about your order, which you should read carefully to avoid any confusion. These include: Order Confirmation Email, Shipping Confirmation Email with Tracking Code, Delivery SMS.

Your tracking code is your point of truth. Please keep an eye on this link when you receive it. It confirms your shipping address, your ETA, your delivery status and your proof of delivery. It'll save you a lot of headaches if you keep an eye on these details.

Thank You!

We appreciate you taking the time to get to the end of this message and most of all, we appreciate you trusting us to take care of your beloved family pets.

Our customer service is our pride and joy and we get rave reviews. We want to keep you just as happy during a challenging time and appreciate your understanding throughout.

If you need us, please email theden@rawandfresh.com.au and we'll get back to you ASAP.