How to lose an account.....

[drcollie]

I am fit to be tied with Home Delivery Service out of Hudson, NC. I have a low tolerance for poor performance and apathy, so effective today I will no longer use or recommend them unless a customer specifically requests I use them. They're FIRED.

I have kept HDS in the chain because their prices are very good. One of the least expensive of the delivery services I have found, and they delivery damage free for the most part. Two major pluses on their behalf. However, their customer service is atrocious and this last incident was the deal breaker.

I have a customer in Missouri who ordered two H&M sofas. HDS picked them up from H&M on 03.15. The HDS facility is a whole 5 miles from Hancock and Moore so its easy for them to get the pieces. Normal service lane time from pickup is 14 to 21 days in the blanket wrap business, so that meant this customer should have had their furniture by end of March, to first week of April at the latest.

Today, April 27th, at about 3 p.m. my customer calls and says she hasn't heard from HDS, do I know whats going on? WHAA? I figured she already had it in her home three weeks past....

I call HDS. They say "Well, we haven't had anything else to go to Missouri so its sitting here in the warehouse."

Me: "You've got to be kidding me".

HDS: "Nope, and we still don't have anything else to go out there so it might be another two or three weeks before it gets loaded. We don't send trucks out that way unless they're full."

Me: "Unacceptable! You can't do this to my customers and not call anyone to let us know. If you can't handle the business, then you need to hand off orders like this to someone who can. Let me speak to David, the owner."

I get Davids voice mail and no call back within the next two hours, so I'm pretty furious about this and want a resolution before 5 p.m. this evening, this will not drag on into another day. Another phone call to HDS at 4:58 p.m. and no one answers, so now I know what I have to do. I call Amanda at Sun Delivery and Amanda says she can have a truck over to HDS tomorrow to get the pieces and packed out on a truck this coming Monday to Missouri. They'll put a Hot Rush on it for me, and the customer should have by end of next week.

Perfect. Amanda at Sun knows how to do it. So I told them to do it, I'll pay the extra charges. She assures me she will take care of it - and I believe her.

HDS's apparent lack of concern of delivering or even informing us of this order cost them my business. I'm still cranked up over this as of this evening....grrrrrrrrrr. To make a mistake is one thing, to ignore things and be complacent is unacceptable.

[ta_billy]

Sounds like this company lacks:

1. A quality assurance process...evident by the guys response about "it might be a couple more weeks before it loaded and is sent to Missouri". That's not a process, that's ad hoc situational management.

2. A priority on customer satisfaction...evident by the lack of communication.

Don't worry Duane, you did the right thing. You sell top notch furniture, so your customer base isn't going to be affected by a $40-$50 bump in delivery costs when your average customer order is in the thousands of dollars. It's moot IMO.

At least that's why I chose Sun Delivery.

[puhmuckel]

They were rude to me on the phone every time I called. I was surprised you used them in the first place. I felt lucky to get my furniture.

[johnstonamerica]

hmm, I have a pending delivery next week w/ HDS.. hope this doesn't affect service or performance..

[drcollie]

I used them for several years because of their rates. Many customers price shop and want the overall lowest price, as long as their pieces did not get damaged, that was ok that service was poor. But too many of these timliness issues have occured, so the best delivery price is meaningless when you can't get them to roll the truck.