2 replies to this topic

[Murmur]

Nothing like looking forward to the holidays and having a dead turkey fall in your lap.

My client (of about 10 years) has a holiday party for their employees every year, and this year they had chosen a wireless weather station. So....we place our order with supplier A and, a week later, we are contacted by the supplier that they are currently on backorder, and won't be able to fulfill our order. They were holding half of what we ordered and needed to know how to proceed. Sooo....after a few days of hectic research, I found another weather station, from supplier B, that was similar. The main difference was that the display of the weather station from supplier A was color, compare to the gray-scale look of supplier B.

Sooo....our client asked if we could do whatever we had from supplier A and the rest from supplier B. I contacted A and verified, several times that we had no issues - and was repeatedly told they were holding the stock and could fulfill this part of the order. So, we ordered from A and did the remaining with supplier B.

Over the next few weeks I would call and check to make sure all was ok and on schedule - and everything was good to go. I called both suppliers yesterday, and all was good to go - yeah!

Today...I get back from lunch and have a message from supplier A. Of the 100 pieces, 61 get messed up and they will only have 39 to ship. They were willing to provide 100 pcs of a less expensive weather station at no charge, and fulfill the order when the rest of the pieces come in the beginning of next year. Now, knowing my client, and the fact that this is the second issue with supplier A, I know how they will react to my call. "We ordered 100 weather stations and don't want to have to give one to our employees now and then have to give the proper one again next year. We ordered 100 from them, and they need to ship us 100."

I have a call in to supplier B to see if they still have availability and could get these rushed out for us. As my wife would say, I have a bad habit of trying to make everyone happy...and this is just eating at me. I know this will pass and the world will move on...but in the meantime this is just eating at me.

I think I might have forgotten to mention that these are all needed for a holiday party on December 4th.

Any words of wisdom or thoughts on the best way to handle this would be greatly appreciated.

[djoctagone]

It sounds like the recipients gathering on 4 December are employees and therefore, it can be assumed that they all work at the same location.

Go to Supplier A and work out an agreement for them to ship the backorder ASAP on their dime. If the recipients are scattered, demand that the supplier drop ship on their dime.

Develop a campaign that revolves around how unpredictable the weather can be, and despite one's best efforts, things don't always go as predicted. Give away some branded product ideal for coping with winter weather . . . an ice scraper, some gloves, hand warmers, hot cocoa packets, etc. that ties into this "unpredictability" and give assurances that the weather stations will be delivered to them ASAP.

You could even take a humorous approach and admit you really screwed up with predicting the weather and give out sunglasses, flying discs, sunscreen, etc. (Of course, Midwesterners know that at least two of those items come in handy in winter.)

[3Koi Maui]

I LOVE Scott's solution, and recommend the same.

While this may be frustrating for you now, it will diminish once you have a solution for your client. They may get a little bent, hopefully temporarily, but will also probably be mollified when you propose a solution.

And the best solution isn't necessarily to get them a lesser product fast. Sure, it's a change of plan to get them the original weather stations later, but if that is what they wanted, then they may NEVER be really happy with a different one. They might accept it, but every time they look at it they will remember that they had originally selected the color version.

Instead, if you do as Scott suggests, they will soon have their colorful weather station, along with a story about how you went out of your way to minimize the wait time by providing such fun diversions.

It sounds to me like Supplier A made some errors, but is quite willing to make it as right as they can - by providing BOTH a replacement product AND the original. That's a very good offer. Do they have products other than weather stations? Because I don't think your client would want two. Maybe give them something else now, from Supplier A, and then the remainder of the order as soon as it is available.