We have a new embroidery and screen printing client in the greater Seattle area who came to us in desperation. This junior football team shared with us that their season was about to begin. Three months prior, they had ordered team uniforms, embroidered coaches’ jackets, and other spirit wear from “the cheapest bidder.” Nothing had yet arrived. The team sportswear vendor they had chosen was unresponsive to their pleas for delivery and would not even provide news updates to help them manage the expectations of the increasingly dismayed players and parents.
We were fortunate to have been recommended by two people trusted by the organization’s board. One was a coach who had purchased from us as a business owner. The other was a Past President of the same Rotary Club to which one of our owners is the current President. Both testified about the quality of our work and our integrity as a vendor.
The team representatives met with me and asked what we could do to help them out. They asked anxiously what our turnaround time was. They could not believe that we promised a standard two week delivery window. They immediately ordered embroidered polos, jackets, and hats for the coaches, embroidered duffel bags for the players with added personalization of names and numbers, and an array of screen printed hoodies and t-shirts for spirit wear. Everything was delivered as scheduled, some items even within one week.
At the team’s request, we had also quickly set up a team fan wear virtual store so that parents could order apparel to support the team. We were shocked to learn that the previously selected vendor had demanded that all orders be placed by a specific deadline (months ahead of delivery), and that the vendor’s online spirit wear store actually has a “Closed” sign on its home page.
That led us to contemplate the main point in the headline of this post — who’s there for whom? When you shop for almost anything, is it not your expectation that the vendor should make things relatively easy for you to buy their product or service? Of course it is. Who are these vendors who behave as if their customers are there to support the vendor? Why are they still in business? Who are the customers who tolerate this treatment?
We believe that a vendor is supposed to be there for you, earning your business and trying to earn the right to your repeat business every time. We believe customers expect a quality product, offered at a reasonable price, and delivered in a reasonable time frame. We believe two weeks is a reasonable frame. We believe it is our job to try to meet that expectation. We are not perfect. We mess things up sometimes and sometimes things get delayed a little bit beyond the two week window we prefer, but we do at least try to keep our clients informed about what is going on. We never forget that our clients have other choices when it comes to logo wear providers.