Really?? The Rant Continues!

We were doing a large quantity of a less expensive camp chair for my client's few hundred employees. For executives, we chose a smaller quantity of a nicer premium chair. The higher-end chairs were on back order and were to be shipped to a different location.

In the rush to meet deadline, one thing we didn't clarify was the shipping costs for the two orders. We knew shipping would be high as these were good size freight shipments. The second, smaller shipment was quoted at about $350.00. There was no discussion about freight costs on the first, larger order. In the client's mind and mine, we were thinking the first order of chairs that were in route cost $350.00 to ship. The problem was that freight cost for the first order was $1,000.00. Whoops! My client would be OK with the $1,000.00 shipping cost for the first order, if he knew it was $1,000.00.

Realizing this was potentially a problem, I discussed this with Grethe. We decided to do some nice rolling cooler bags for him with his logo as a thank you gift and to help compensate for the confusion. Fortunately, I have a great relationship with my client and he is business savvy enough to understand the shipping expenses are part of the cost of doing business. He very much did appreciate the "gift" cooler bags. It helped me to turn a negative into a positive with my client and enabled me to strengthen the relationship between Southern Plus and my distributor company.

My point in relaying these ...Really?? experiences are that we all have a chance to turn lemons into lemonade with quick thinking and extra effort. Being quick to offer a solution will help make a bad situation better, or head off a problem before it takes root. This is the responsibility of both us as a distributors and suppliers.