What happens if something goes wrong?
We love helping our customers look the business with all types of branded clothing and workwear and we like to think that we’re pretty good at what we do, however we are only human and sometimes (thankfully not often) we make a mistake. It’s how you deal with it that really matters…
We recently had an order from one of our long-term school clients for some additional printed hoodies and kids t-shirts and like usual the lead times were tight – once we’d finalised the artwork we only had 2 days to get the order printed and delivered before their new intake of pupils at the weekend.
Naturally we finished the order and the customer came and collected on the Friday thanking us for another job well done…
Saturday morning I received an email to say the artwork was incorrect on the front and we had used the details from a previous order – obviously this concerned me for a number of reasons:
- The customer didn’t receive what they had ordered
- How did this happen despite our visual being correct
- It’s the weekend, how can we fix this
I contacted the customer and apologised and asked if I could collect them that morning. I rushed over and picked them up at 9am and spent the morning correcting the issues with the order (it was around 60 hoodies and 30 t-shirts) and managed to have everything corrected, finished and delivered back to the customer just after lunch. They were delighted that we had taken the time (on a Saturday too when we are usually closed) to ensure they had their order corrected in the time they needed them.
Now obviously we don’t make a habit of getting orders wrong but if and when mistakes do happen we always do everything in our power to fix the issue as quickly and effectively as possible for our customers. The majority of the work we do is time critical – customers need their branded clothing for events, launches, new staff etc so it is vital that we deliver when the customer needs.
Needless to say we have now introduced additional systems and checks to ensure this particular issue won’t happen again. Like your Mum always used to say ‘it’s important to learn from your mistakes’ and we make a point of ensuring we learn how each mistake happens, why it happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening again.
This process helps us build a more effective system to make sure our customers get the best possible service and products each time they order from us.
How do you manage issues and mistakes in your business and overcome them to help your customers and ensure they don’t happen again?
