Providing distributors with accurate product information helps to improve communication and build trust with customers.
As a Customer Service Advisor for Dormer Pramet USA, I am one of the team members which support our national accounts, including a leading industrial supplier which has 2,700 stores across the country.
This particular distributor places its orders through our Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system, which offers minimal ‘touch points’ between ourselves and the customer.
I noticed that in the past month there were three returns coming from a specific store and so I dived a bit deeper to find the reason for this.
I called the store in question, spoke with the representative there and found out that their product description for our Precision Twist Drill TS41N40 said ‘Short Series’. However, it was actually ‘Stub Length’. The short series is the TS18N40.
The customer had the product descriptions reversed on their internal system. This was leading to their inside sales team recommending the incorrect product to their customers on several occasions, resulting in the returns.
I then called on Miriam Metcalfe, our marketing manager at Dormer Pramet North America, to help us go an extra step further and seek the root cause of this problem.
Miriam started working with the Product Manager at the distributor and got her to correct the product descriptions for these products, but also to place them in the correct product category. Not only that, the error with the descriptions and category was fixed for the complete family of drills.
The end result - no repeat returns, accurate information in the customers’ digital system and a happy end user.
Carrie Miller
Customer support advisor
Dormer Pramet USA