A little thought solves a lot of potential problems

We have just had a major issue with one of our direct account suppliers, I am not going to say who as the issue has now been resolved but if the problem was handled in a different way then the problem would not have arisen in the first place. I used to work for a major kitchen player and they had an "Operation White Glove" 'If the customer had a problem sought it out straight away and then resolve any who was at fault issues later'

The problem we had was that the company called us to ask for payment up front for goods we had not yet received otherwise our account would be on hold. I went ballistic, our account credit limit was quite high and we had not reached it, so I enquired as to why they were requesting payment, they told me that "my credit limit had been reduced because a credit insurance company told them to". This made me more infuriated as we are extremely good payers to all of our accounts so much so one of them has given us an unlimited credit limit. Even the company concerned acknowledged yesterday that we always pay our account before the due date. I sent lots of emails to various people within the company from the sales director to the sales rep, letting them know that we would not be treated this way. After some argy bargy and a loss of goodwill on my behalf we received another call from the account supervisor apologising and re-instating our credit limit plus some on top.

The lesson is if the company concerned had looked at our account and called us to discuss things instead of just informing me that they wanted prior payment then I would not be writing this blog and they would have got themselves some brownie points because they could have called me and said there has been an issue with a credit insurance company but we have resolved it, but they didn't #lessonlearnt.

Russell