The scenario of the case study is that within a period of two weeks seven machines belonging to your customers have broken down due to the fault in a particular spare part. This is not a fast moving spare part, so an inventory of only one unit has been maintained by you. This implies that six machines with your customers will remain nonoperational in the present scenario.
As you place the order for the spare part with the principal company, you find out that the spare part has been breaking down across the country, and its availability is zero in the mother warehouse as well. The outlook for availability of the said spare part is after ten days, and add to it the time taken in custom clearance and delivery by courier.
Hence, from the first day of the next month two pieces of the spare part will be available with you and the remaining four will be available after a month.
In such a scenario what is the best strategy to provide the spare part and manage good relations with your customers?
You might be tempted to serve your customers according to first come, first serve basis. Also, share honestly with those customers who are left in the lurch that the spare part has been breaking down across the country, thus is in short supply.
This is an extremely detrimental approach to business and maintaining good customer relations.
A seasoned customer relations executive will adopt a different approach for private enterprises and the customers from the government sector.
As far as customers from the private sector are considered, you should analyse the work volume, output volume and the probability of receiving business in the future from your customers. Those measuring high on this scale are the first two customers who receive the spare part on priority.
When a decision has to be arrived at regarding customers in the government sector, the office where the spare part is required and the volume of work of these offices are considered.
If the machines that need the spare part are in the offices of department heads or ministers then they can be served once availability is sufficient. However, a few department heads like the chief minister or the finance minister are given priority over everyone else in the office.
Furthermore, if the spare part is required for machines operating in the general pool then they are preferred over other offices. In some cases, the spare part can even be removed from other offices where volume of work is low and fitted in machines of such offices/ departments. However, the offices of important department heads, as shared above, always occupy a position of priority over others.
Those customers who missed receiving the spare part at the earliest are not told that there is a problem in the spare part, as it reflects poorly on the quality of product being provided by you and/or by your principal company. Rather, you should shift the responsibility of shortage of availability of the spare part to a condition outside everyone’s control, such as the heavy demand on shipping containers leading to delayed supply from a foreign location to the country of import.
In this manner, you can maintain amicable relations with your customers without hampering your business in situations of strained supply.
You may like to watch a video on this concept here: