BizCoachDeb’s Blog

It’s funny what a difference a day or two can make. After posting my horrific experience with my satellite radio service, a few days later I had an experience that went from bad to good in one short call. This week I ordered paper - a lot of paper. I print a lot. Any way, I had a morning meeting, so wasn’t around when the delivery arrived, otherwise who knows how things might have gone. When I get back, I find two large boxes waiting for me, clearly my order. One of them, no joke, looks like it’s been hit by a car: taped up, scraped like it had been dragged down the road. I haul both boxes in and unpack them; the first box was fine, everything was intact and the paper was nicely tucked in the reams. The other box, well, all I can say is “they tried”; the first couple reams were split open, which would have been okay, until I got about halfway down the box and found dirty, ruined paper -a few reams were split open completely, I’m not even sure all 500 sheets were in their respective reams. They taped it in so it wouldn’t move. Nice…not.

Alright, I know things can happen, but this was a bad patch job and I wasn’t going to just leave things alone and put these sheets in the recycle bin without a fight. I called the supplier, which happens to also be a very successful overnight shipper. I told them what happened and she actually apologized profusely and gave me several options; they could replace the damaged reams, they could credit me for them, which did I prefer? It was refreshing to be given options, it was refreshing to have a supplier accept responsibility for a mistake, then willingly and without argument, correct it.

Because of the way they handled this situation, they will have my business again. BTW, the order was placed the previous afternoon and arrived overnight, no extra shipping charges. With gas prices as they are, that was a nice little bonus. And before you say “they passed it on in the deal”, actually, the price was more affordable than any supplier I’ve worked with in 6 months.