Asking Customer to Accept Deferred Delivery

We have a very large account in our portfolio and this particular customer is BIG. When I meant big, I really meant BIG.

In size of the organization itself in term of employees, in term of business values it generated every year, in term of market capitalization. We often compare that for every 8 hours of sales it generated, most companies will take months to have!

Yup, you may guess this customer that we have have turnover in the billions of dollars per year. Not one not two but slightly exceeding hundred billion per year.

When you have such a customer in your list, you will love it and at times feel threatened by them as well. Imagine the sales person who handle this account lost it? This could meant a potential lost of high amount of revenue and worst case, a closure of a plant as well, depending how much they purchase.

In our case, they purchased up to >50 million dollar of goods per year from us.

In supply chain, you always want to be extremely careful with this type of account and ensure your capacity for production, inventory and quality and bottom line delivery performance is always on the top of it.

Negotiation power, they will be on the top of you as competitors will be fighting tooth and nails with you to gain such an account and you need to be efficient.

What will you handle a situation where you are caught with your pant down in term of supply chain performance? Example would be a raw material delay to your production and after confirming delivery date to the orders, you found yourself in a quandary that a particular shipping week will be delayed?

Imagine that this customer do not like been delayed even 1% of their order.

How do you deal with it?

Frankly irrespective of customer profile, it is always negative to delay an order after confirmation of delivery date. Most companies will not think twice about delaying an order but there also many companies who dislike even to think about delaying customers deliveries.

Think about industry like automotive or avionics or even electronics parts where thousands of employees waiting for parts to be delivered for production and you failed them. Think about the penalties involved and even the reputation of your organization in the market place......

I have to deal with this situation recently and the most important think when writing emails to inform delays is the pressure you felt even before you lift your little fingers to tap the keys. However, it is always to my mind to inform a delay well in advance and provide alternative solutions and counter measures to the client rather then having to inform them when it is too late.

So i did inform them.

Blah blah blah the reason and how important is the business to your organization and the best ship date you can handle and the date always to my mind be reasonable. Not more then three days delays and the plan for improvement.

Press the send button... and then pray hard that they will accept without complaint.

Guess what?

They did accept it and i do not feel elated or happy but the thoughts that we need to be better and get on top of the issue in future.

Key reason customer accept delay is be honest with them about the REAL issue, no BULLSHIT and give them time to plan. Do not give them last minutes information on delays, this is truly unprofessional at all and create much problem on both ends.

Create the trust between you as a supplier and they as a customer, just like a good lover who trust each other.

That how we should manage matter and your organization will gain the respect it deserve and your clients are comfortable with you. No broken heart later.