When You have had Enough

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Originally uploaded by mama_lentz.

February 1. 2007.

Paint, I love paint. I can never have enough of it. I can never throw it away either. I have paint from our first home, just in case (used it to paint the office wall this past fall in fact) I decide to use it again. My boxes of paint continue to grow to different boxes, to cabinets, to dressers - a girl can NOT have enough paint.

Unfortunately paint is not like channel partners. I mean, I don't know if I will ever have enough sales channels, always growing, expanding to different parts of the country maybe the world! However, when do you know you have had enough? When do you decide or let them decide that.....the relationship is over? Who gets to be the dumper? Is it mutual?  Who is ending the partnership?

Which brings me what happened today to my company, I um, think I was dumped....sorry, let me back up and tell the story the way it really happened:

Being February 1, 2007 we had to make some changes, we had to raise some shipping charges (Fed Ex does this every year, I do not make a penny off of shipping) and we wanted to make sure our 150+ products got named correct when the sales channel ordered them.  So we sent out emails and faxes to our 150+ sales channels. I hate, I mean it, I hate getting an order wrong, even if it is the channel's mistake. I like happy customers, I want them to love me...er, I mean Jamie's Painting & Design products.

So, I get an email from an e-tailer stating that they have never had any problems and will keep the naming conventions just the way they are, thank you very much.

I start to respond in a nice email, stating okay you are doing this at your own risk, we warned you....then I decide to look at the website, it's been like a year or more and I should see, there naming conventions may be perfect (husband has warned me of this in the past, I need to check things out before firing back, or even sending a skud missile). So, guess what? Not only did they call one product the total wrong thing (um the name of another one of our products actually), a second product was still on the site that was discontinued TWO, yes two years ago!

So I make a call in to state my case, did not want the email to sound mean. Go through the whole, "Hi, sorry to bug, I know you don't want to change the naming conventions, however, this one is wrong, and this one was discontinued two years ago....." I get cut off and the owner gets on....I go through the same rig-a-ma-roll, state my case, blah, blah, blah........

Silence.

"Ya, you have spoken to my employees before and we just can't keep up with all your changes.. (did I mention that the product was discontinued two years ago and the other CHANGE she is referring to is the ONE, I repeat ONE time we raised our Name Tile prices in the four years we have sold them?)...so we are going to pull your products."

"Uh, I was just stating (this is me talking) and telling you the reason we have had problems is your naming conventions have been wrong and you have a product on your site that we no longer carry.....I take customer service very seriously and would hate for your customer to purchase something and get the wrong product."

Silence.

"Ya, you have spoken to my employees before and we just can't keep up with all your changes...so we are going to pull your products."

This conversation went on for ten minutes, I kid you not, same thing over and over.

So I said, fine...

Now, yes, yes, YES, I know there are two sides to every story. And this channel did not do more than $1,500 in sales for us last year. However, I do not know why you would not want to 'fix' an error on your site, and I do not know why you would complain when you have a product that is two years old....or you are calling another product the wrong thing all together - I mean really, customer service?  Sending wrong product out?  Anyone??

So, good news is that I picked up another new website today, I guess today I am just status quo.  And I really wish things had not ended....thank god they did not end bad (been there...another blog).  So at least I followed my rules with this 'relationship' that ended:

• Do not get Nasty
• Do not get Personal
• It's just Business

The more I think about it, there were lots of phone calls, lots of 'mistakes' on there orders, communication was not perfect, some lost orders that they lost and some incorrect prices, shipping costs, addresses...maybe the relationship really was over.  So, I guess I did get dumped...however I am taking some of the credit.

Comments

[LondonE]

Well, you can call it getting dumped if you want. I call it getting saved! You were born again!! So to speak. She saved you a lot of hassle with incorrect orders and ultimately a lot of money. Not all business relationships are healthy relationships and the smartest decision you made was not to give in to her and let things continue as they were. So really, who let who go here? I think you let her go by demanding that she name the products correctly. Did you say, "You can't break up with me, cause I'm breaking up with you first!!!!"