Black Salmon / Shutterstock.com compiled by Danielle Renda Poor Customer Service Caused Me To Cancel A Large Order. Should I Tell The Sales Manager? Q A Distributor Asks: I was recently working with a supplier on a $15,000 order, but poor customer service resulted in me canceling this order with the supplier and taking my business elsewhere. If you owned the company, or if you were the sales manager, would you want to know the reasons behind my decision? Yes. I would absolutely want to know so that we can correct the situation. Actually, if there is an issue, other than a minor one, I always tell my customer service folks to let me handle it. I amnuts for excellent customer service. MARIA LAFICHI Vice President of Sales and Marketing MAC Specialties Ltd. Oceanside, New York PPAI 112420, S6 If I were a supplier, I would want to know, and I would appreciate it if you toldme directly so I could decide how to deal with it. DAVID HOLDEN President, Ideas Plus Promotions Sales Partner, Geiger Clovis, California A not-so-successful experience with a supplier’s customer service caused me to cancel a $15,000 order. Do I have a responsibility to the supplier to explain what prompted this decision? If I had a problem that was so bad that a customer had to call me personally, I would take the information and ask to call him/ her back. On the second phone call, I would havemy entire order management team in my office on the call listening firsthand to the customer. This shows the customer how important they are to us, how important it was for our management team to hear the information from the customer, and then we were all together, so we could educate, train andmake systemchanges, so we can prevent this fromhappening in the future. The culture of caring starts at the top. All companies screw up. The good ones “wow” you with how they handle the problem. BOB BICKERT Owner and President Bickert Investments, LLC Mobile, Alabama As a supplier, I would want to knowwhy we didn’t live up to your expectations. We want to improve and ensure that our company expectations and company vision are what we execute to our customers. Sure, it may hurt to hear that, 30 | JANUARY 2022 | INNOVATE
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