Every distributor knows that terrible sinking feeling when an order is in trouble. The supplier calls to say the products never shipped. Or the end-buyer keeps changing his mind as the deadline looms. The wrong item, a misspelled name, weather delays, a lost package – the potential complications feel like they’re endless.
A rogue snowstorm can be attributed as an act of God. Human error, on the other hand, can’t be explained away so easily. According to the 2019 Counselor State of the Industry, 89% of orders are delivered without any mistakes or errors from a supplier – which means with one out of every 10 orders, you have a potentially angry client and a fire that needs to be put out.
The reasons for this vary, from an increasing reliance on rush orders (37% of all orders have a turnaround time of five days or fewer) to a shortage of available labor for suppliers to the industry’s lag in adopting digital ordering processes. Perhaps it’s endemic to an industry where a single order requires the coordination of dozens of moving parts.
The reality is still the same: snafus are inevitable. And to succeed, the most competitive distributors must handle them with aplomb and figure out how to salvage the order … and the client relationship.
Here’s the cringe-worthy nitty gritty on six nightmare scenarios that really happened, and how these distributors found solutions through persistence, creativity and a determination to come through for their clients.
Emergency Rating:
The Inexperienced Client
- Distributor: Yvette Berke
- Title: Owner
- Company: Adapt Advertising Specialty (asi/105620), Van Nuys, CA
The Situation: “One of my city clients wanted a garbage can-shaped mug for an internal reusable drinkware awareness campaign. I told my contact that there were two sizes, 10 ounces and 14 ounces, and I gave her pricing on both. She asked for samples, I sent them and she placed the order for the 10-ounce and signed the PO.
“The day they arrived at the client’s office, she called me and said it was the wrong item. I asked for a picture of what she received and it was the exact item she ordered, and I told her that. She said, ‘No, I wanted the bigger 10-ounce mug.’ I said that would’ve been the 14-ounce she said she didn’t have the budget for. She replied ‘Well, this 10-ounce mug is too small, and if I put 10 ounces of liquid in it versus the other mug, there’s no room for my lip!’ I wanted to say, ‘Stop the collagen injections.’”
The Solution: “I asked to speak to her supervisor, who thought it was hilarious. They ended up keeping the mugs they ordered. I still have the client, but my contact is no longer there. If someone doesn’t get how this works and doesn’t understand the commitment that a PO represents, I take it to the next level. I never take verbal orders; everything must be in writing.
“Also, you get a feel for if something might become a problem. If they keep saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’ when you’re trying to explain something to them, they’re probably not getting it. I always make sure I send samples beforehand, and I have the supplier label each one with a product number so when the client lets me know they chose one, I tell them to flip it over and tell me the number on it. You do what you can to eliminate risk.”
If a client won’t take ownership of their mistake, take the issue to higher-ups.
Emergency Rating:
The Indifferent Supplier
- Distributor: Mike Hanson
- Title: Senior Account Executive & Solutions Consultant
- Company: American Solutions for Business (asi/455866), Hampton, VA
The Situation: “I ordered custom silk scarves and asked the vendor to provide a specific size box for them. They told me everything was set after several calls to confirm. Then, right before everything was supposed to ship on time, the supplier told us that the boxes wouldn’t be the size we wanted. Next, the art had been changed slightly after a pre-production proof. At first, it was going to ship on time, but as we got closer to the date, I was informed it wouldn’t ship when promised because the change put it at the back of the line. Finally, the supplier was supposed to ship the scarves to me and not to the client, per a phone call I had had with them, and I didn’t think that would ever become a problem because the address was mine as noted on the PO. When I asked them why they shipped to the client, they said, ‘You should’ve emailed us that information.’ Really?!”
The Solution: “They did finally arrive and the client paid for them, but we had to refold all the scarves to fit into the boxes that weren’t the size we wanted. We’ve warned our reps not to work with this supplier, and I’ll never send them another order. It seems like a problem across the board: Many suppliers are either so big or so careless, mistakes happen and problems arise. Then the distributor gets blamed, the end-buyer finds a new one to work with and the cycle continues.”
Have fast action plans in place to quickly mitigate suppliers’ mistakes.
Emergency Rating:
The Demanding Client
- Distributor: Lauren Laschewer
- Title: Senior Branding Executive
- Company: Axis Promotions (asi/128263), New York City
The Situation: “iHeartMedia wanted 1,500 high-quality towels with a three-color imprint for a pool party in Miami, with a turn time of less than a week. I recommended the CT20 from Towel Specialties (asi/91605) and overnighted a sample. The client said she would increase the order to 1,670 pieces if she decided to go with the towel when the sample arrived the next morning. Meanwhile, Shawn Kanak, vice president at Towel Specialties, told me he needed approval by 10:30 a.m. to meet the client’s deadline.
“The next day, the client called and said she didn’t like the CT20 and had another towel sample from Agua Promotions (asi/33205) that she was ready to go with if we couldn’t make something work. This was news because she had technically already placed the order with me. I asked for the product number on that towel and said I’d call her back after I came up with a solution.
“The Agua towel was USA-made, and Shawn said he definitely couldn’t get 1,670 pieces of a USA-made towel in time. But he knew how hard we worked to get the order and didn’t want to give it to our competitor.”
The Solution: “Shawn did the unthinkable – he told me to stay put while he called Agua to explain the situation. He said that if Towel Specialties didn’t get the order and Agua did, he didn’t care as long as Axis got it. He didn’t want our competitor to get the order because then we’d both lose. He was ready to hand Agua a huge order, already proofed and approved, but only if they worked with Axis and not our competitor. Agua agreed. Apparently, my client had been working with us and another distributor at the same time, so Agua had had this towel order lined up until the night before when she selected me. Now that she had changed her mind, Agua didn’t even know if they could salvage the order due to timing. After making a few calls and sweating for a good hour, Agua said the USA factory could bring in a weekend crew to handle the job.
“The whole situation was very stressful, but I can’t say enough good things about Shawn and his team. They went above and beyond for me, and the fact that he handed his competitor a huge order so Axis would benefit shows what a great partner he is. Agua was great too. In the end, iHeartMedia flew us out to the party and put us up at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach to see the towels in action!”
Build relationships with suppliers so they’ll help you out when you’re in a bind.
Emergency Rating:
The Unexpected Weather Events
- Distributor: Thom Loreman Sr.
Loreman (left) attends the Junior Olympics event in Colorado. - Title: Owner
- Company: Loremans’ Embroidery, Engraving & Screenprinting, Keeseville, NY
The Situation: “My customer needed wearables for a Junior Olympics ski team. We’re in upstate New York and their event was in Colorado. They ordered on Monday, and we assumed we’d have no issues getting 75 to 100 items in and printed by Wednesday when they’d be leaving for Colorado. We prepped our art and screens, we were all ready for the shipment of blank items from our supplier … and then there was a snowstorm that delayed it. The goods arrived Wednesday and we couldn’t get everything done before the client left for the airport that same day. We planned to just ship everything by UPS second-day air to get to Colorado just in time on Friday. But then there was a snowstorm in the west, delaying it even further! That was another day lost, and then we had to change it to next-day air. It was challenging, but we were able to track the package late Friday at the airport terminal.”
The Solution: “The concierge at the Colorado hotel where our client was staying happened to know someone in the airport. We passed our information on to the customer and they went to the terminal, banged on the door, got the package and headed back to hand the apparel out at the event, just in the nick of time! Because of our hard work for them, they’ve become loyal customers.”
Take possible shipping hold-ups into account when calculating delivery times.
Emergency Rating:
The Inventory Snafu
- Distributor: Shelley McConnell
- Title: President
- Company: Printpal Promotions & Printing (asi/299946), Arroyo Grande, CA
The Situation: “My customer needed 6,000 boxer shorts with an all-over cow print and logo as a limited gift-with-purchase for a large company. The shorts also had to go to a packaging company to get shrink-wrapped with the client’s product, all with a very firm in-hand date. It was being promoted in publications and the client anticipated she’d sell out the day the items went on the shelves nationally. I lined up a blank boxer shorts vendor that said it had stock, and a screen printer that said he could print them. Awesome, right?
“But then the vendor starts sending 1,000 shorts a day, and on day three we start to receive different styles of shorts from various parts of the country without any warning! I had been expecting a shipment of 6,000 shorts at one time, in one style. Turns out the supplier didn’t quite have the stock it said it had. My screen printer was having a fit, because the layout was different for the last 4,000 shorts that came in and it set him way back on time. Meanwhile, my customer told me he didn’t really care if the shorts were 6,000 different styles, but that I had better make my in-hand date or he’d be told never to use me again and the promotion would be ruined.”
Shelley McConnell, president of Printpal Promotions & Printing, shares the details of her recent nightmare order scenario and how she saved the sale.
The Solution: “I had the supplier overnight the last 3,000 pairs of shorts, and the screen printer, his staff and I started breaking down the styles into separate piles. The designer had to create a new layout for all of the different styles (eight total) so the shorts were grouped together with the correct screens. The decorator worked all night to get them printed. I used a freight company with a great lead time, and we got them to the packaging vendor on time. I ultimately made about 5% on that order, but I kept my reputation with the customer, and I found out what a really great guy my screen printer is.”
Build solid relationships with decorators so they’re willing to work overtime to finish late shipments.
Emergency Rating:
The Shady Supplier
- Distributor: Howard Potter
- Title: Owner
- Company: A&P Master Images (asi/102019), Utica, NY
The Situation: “We worked with a supplier to order flashlight lanterns. Our customer ordered 500 of them, for a total order of around $5,500, almost two months before they needed them for Employee Appreciation Day. The order came in around three weeks later and it was the wrong item. The supplier tried to get us to keep the lights for a discount, but we refused. We did get the supplier to reorder the correct lanterns on its dime and take the others back, but it took two months and it missed our customer’s deadline. During that time, the supplier told us several times the products had shipped when they hadn’t. We found out the items were coming directly from China, and this highly rated supplier was actually a shell company. It changed names during this time too.”
The Solution: “Knowing we couldn’t trust this company, we ordered 500 sling bags from another supplier with the same value as the lanterns and printed them for free to hold the customer over and meet their deadline. They were very thankful. When the product they originally wanted finally came in, we gave them a $1,000 discount and they gave those out to their staff too. In the end we kept our customer happy and we never used that supplier again!”
When things go south, do whatever you can to salvage the order and satisfy the client.