buyerblog

Customer complaints

I can’t put them off any longer. The pile of customer queries (or complaints) has been sitting in my in-tray waving at me for a couple of days now. And I’m running out of excuses It’s time to grab the bull by the horns, pick up the phone, get the e-mail going and start working through them. Repeat after me the customer is always right….

And don’t get me wrong, I know that they’re always right it’s just that they also don’t care that the reason you delisted that product was because it was selling one unit per week and the company producing it went bust. That doesn’t really feature – they just want it! And fair enough really.

I think I’m still mentally scarred from the last customer complaints clean-up session we had which resulted in a 47 minute telephone conversation with a lady running an animal sanctuary where one of the rescued possums there had an insatiable appetite for this particular product (god knows how they ever discovered this predilection but anyway – I didn’t even know that this formed part of a possums staple diet). The rest of the team by this point had packed up their desks and left the office in fits of laughter as I was left discussing the finer points of the range and suggesting alternative brands the possum might like to try. I kid you not!

Store visits

I’ve promised to take the team out of the office for the morning to visit some of the stores so they can hear and see first hand what it’s like at the coalface of retailing. I must admit, I do have a secondary reason for suggesting the visits and that’s so they can appreciate the implications at store of what happens when a mistake is made.

It’s one of those things, I don’t reckon you can really understand until you’ve been on the wrong side of a customers wrath in store when they can’t find brand X which they’ve been buying for years – they don’t care that there was only them and one other person in Toowoomba who was buying the product and that’s why it’s no longer on the shelf.

We go into the first store and within 2 minutes of being there it becomes evident that there’s a bit of a question mark from the store as to exactly what we’re doing there, what we’re spying on and why we’re invading their environment. I wouldn’t say the atmosphere was exactly unfriendly but I don’t imagine we were top of the list of popular visitors for the morning.

Having a look down our aisle it quickly becomes evident that the most recent layout hasn’t been implemented yet although it was despatched to stores 5 weeks ago. I’m just wondering how to broach this potentially thorny subject with the manager when I’m interrupted by a lovely old lady demanding to know why she can no longer buy her favourite brand of corn plaster in the store. I hastily explain that while I don’t buy the category I will take her query back to the relevant buyer. This then sparks a long discussion on all aspects of the store covering everything from general range to the size of the bbq chickens. I surreptitiously look around for back-up only to catch sight of the rest of the team hiding behind a pillar laughing. I resolve immediately to offer their services to assist in cleaning the stores chiller cabinets. Nothing like a bit of hands on experience…

A promotional slotting

Walking into the office this morning mentally prepared for a day of promotional planning. I sit down at my desk and immediately get the suggestion of a headache as the pile of returned supplier promotional timings catch my eye. Decide that this calls for an emergency breakfast run to the café before these can be sensibly tackled. Feeling suitably fortified after a bacon roll I begin to wade through the pile. The early suggestion of a headache rapidly escalates into throb behind the eyes as it becomes immediately evident there is an absence of one of our key suppliers plans. This could make the plan a little difficult to complete.

I phone up the supplier concerned and am met with a long silence after I suggest that plans must have got lost in the network somewhere on their way to us. This is never a good sign. I can almost hear the account manager wondering whether it’s possible to pull together the plan in 30 minutes or to ‘fess up that they’ve been forgotten and then wondering which of his team he can legitimately kick. Honesty wins out – he goes off to kick someone then begin work urgently and I go off to quietly head-butt the wall in desperation. Not overly helpful for the development of my fledgling migraine.

I decide that rather then wait for the absent plans to turn up before starting I’ll take an educated guess as to when his preferable timings are so the process of slotting the rest of the program can commence. Not ideal but that’s promotional slotting for you. Time, or slotting for that matter, waits for no man.

By the end of the day my fingers are worn to the bone from making calls to people about what can and can’t be moved to avoid clashes. It’s a small consolation to know that they too are suffering similarly. It’ll still take a few more days of phoning, cajoling and just moving stuff before everyone’s happy, but hell, it’s not a bad start and we’ll get a least a couple of months off before we have to put everyone through this again. In the meantime I might just reissue those key promotional due dates again to ensure that the next time is relatively headache free…

An NPD meeting

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all high drama – it’s just that the more interesting times (to read about anyway) are when the proverbial hits the fan. At least life is never dull.  On today’s agenda is an NPD meeting with a supplier. These are always good as you get to see what’s coming up over the next 12 to 18 months. It’s also a nice opportunity for the stress levels to return to something approaching normal, at least for a couple of hours anyway.

Anyway, we all grab a coffee and settle down to peruse the upcoming developments across the suppliers brand portfolio for the next 18 months. The first marketer trawls in looking distinctly under whelmed at having to present their brand plans for the boring old trade. I can’t honestly say that I blame her – the actual execution of how a product gets to shelf is totally necessary but even I recognise, rather unsexy.

In addition to the unsexy issue there’s also the whole secrecy and confidentiality thing - marketers aren’t always really that keen on sharing their brands future (all very secret squirrel). We make a solemn promise that nothing mentioned over the next 2 hours will go any further then the confines of the room, sign it in blood and then get underway.

Some great executional ideas come out for some of the upcoming launches. Unfortunately, we also uncover a few potential stumbling blocks such as the brand plan that required a complete category relay at store to accommodate a me-too type product. I’m forced to explain (albeit gently so we stand a chance of being invited again) to the brand manager that a complete relay is highly unlikely under normal circumstances but in the absence of a really compelling category story I can almost guarantee it won’t be happening. This doesn’t go down well but it’s always better to honest at an early stage when there’s half a chance of damage limitation then wait until 6 weeks before launch to deliver the good news. Ummm – perhaps we won’t be getting a second invite after all…

An interesting start to the week

A truly horrendous start to the week. Mondays are lousy at the best of times but this one started off worse then usual. Staggering in from the carpark, desperately trying to remember what the week holds I was met by that buyer/account manager nightmare – The Clash. And I’m not talking the rock band here.

Yes, due to either a genuine oversight or a wish to give me a heart attack first thing on a Monday morning we’d been clashed with the competition on one of our main brochure lines. I dump my things at my desk and walk over to face the music in the bosses office, my impending sense of doom deepening as I recall how I’d begged, borrowed and cried to get that major catalogue slot.

One discussion later and a resounding promise – something to do with “heads” and “rolling” – following me down the corridor I limp back to my desk to help start the damage limitation. Oh joy!!

Two hours, several strong coffees and some heart palpitations (not sure whether that was a as result of the clash or the strong coffees) and there’s a chink of light at the end of the tunnel as the damage limitation exercise reaches its end. Now all that’s left to do is have the conversation with the incumbent supplier. Wonder if they fancy a high adrenaline start to their week as well?? Can’t honestly recommend it…

Making a planogram

I approach the office this morning questioning my sanity. The reason being, in a mad moment some time ago (and after some fairly compelling reasoning from various accounts), I decided we needed to completely re-engineer the space apportionment and flow in one of the categories. After much discussion between the various main stakeholders, countless recommendations as to what it should look and the fielding of several phone calls from slightly hysterical smaller suppliers who had caught wind that something was afoot we’re finally ready to do the hard part – agreeing the layout.

In principal, a simple enough task. The reality however is proving slightly different. The reason for this was, in my infinite wisdom, I decided that three heads were better then one in achieving an optimum layout. We would provide one of the heads and two of the more progressive account managers would provide the other two. That way everyone could have a say and hopefully, by combining the best of what each party could bring to the table we’ll end up with something fantastic for the category.

Well, we started off pretty well. Everyone was being very polite and accommodating and we were making some real progress. Great. I then make the first mistake of the day – I leave the meeting for a short period. When I return a short time later World War 3 has broken out, there’s blood on the walls, the planogram has gone up in flames and no one is speaking. A bit of investigation reveals it’s all over who gets an extra facing. The problem is instantly solved by allotting it to private label.

The rest of the meeting goes a bit more smoothly and everyone seems really pleased with the results although several have complained about sore mouths as a result of constantly having to bite their tongue. A small sacrifice in the pursuit of the perfect planogram!

A retail Christmas elf

Hurrah!! It’s Christmas! Well, actually, it’s not really. It’s March. But having just managed to finish sorting out the left over stock issues from the Christmas that’s just gone it’s time to start thinking about the next one. It’s just wrong if you ask me but that’s retail for you.

I start off by making a short list of the top lines from last year that we’ll definitely use again this year. These were dream products – they went into store, they all sold through by the time the stores closed on 24 December and there were no nasty surprises accompanying them such as the odd stack of pallets being “found” in the warehouse the day before Christmas Eve or display or quality issues. The customers loved them, therefore the buying team and account team loved them and the stores loved them. Everyone’s happy. Bliss!

Shaking myself out of my blissful reminisces, I start reviewing some of the mid performers. These were the steady achievers – nothing really startling performance wise and likewise nothing really terrifying in the post Christmas wash-up. We’ll probably look at repeating the majority of these again this year but with a fair bit of tweaking quantity wise. Still in safe territory.

I decide to get a strong cup of coffee to help face the third part of the exercise. The dog lines. God, even now, 3 months on from when the last jingle bell jingled and the last slice of Christmas cake was eaten I can feel myself breaking out into a cold sweat. These were the lines that kept me awake at night. They were the  lines that kept the Account Managers awake as they could feel vast portions of their January trade spend being swallowed up helping clear and collect excess stock. They were the lines that cluttered up the aisles in the stores looking sadly out of place in the wake of all that Christmas cheer. They were the lines the store managers swore they never wanted to see darkening the doors of their stores ever again. By the end of this I’m feeling slightly hysterical and briefly consider a sacrificial burning of the bad line list but notice it’s raining outside and don’t fancy risking 30 minutes standing in the carpark as a result of a fire alarm. I decide lunch may the safer option.

We’re going live!

We’re here. We’ve made it to go live day. After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing between warehouses, suppliers, the planogram department, etc etc the day has finally come for the planogram to go down to the stores and for the stock to start filtering out of the warehouses. All we’ve got to do now is make sure it actually happens…easier said then done!

First drama of the day is the mail room loses the Queensland store planograms. Back to the printer we go. Three hours of printing and stapling later, Queensland is ready to go (again). Phew! The team’s stress levels have just started to subside when the warehouse co-ordinator informs us that one of the new products going into the range review has failed to show up. Rather embarrassingly, this is the first we’ve heard of this. Stifling the overwhelming urge to immediately contact the perpetrator of the crime and point out the error of their ways we’re forced into making a snap decision to either withdraw the planogram and postpone it or remove the absent product and overface. Whilst considering this I’m thinking of all the extra work for the stores and all the disruption to their planogram schedules that this would causes. Umm –  removing the offending product might be the smartest move all things considered!  The necessary arrangements are made and I make a mental note to treat any future promises by this company with extreme caution.

Thankfully, apart from these two incidents, the rest of the rollout is relatively straightforward. By the time hometime rolls around everyone is suffering mental exhaustion and half the team are carrying an RSI from repetitive use of the stapler from the mailroom glitch. Thank goodness we’ve only got to do 10 of these a year…..

Range Review Meetings - day 1

After what seems to be days worth of preparation, data pulling, diary bookings and fielding the potential deletion phone calls in between running the day to day category and conducting a few supplier strategy meetings we’ve made it to the first round of actual range review meetings. Back-to-back meetings for eight hours straight to be exact – I’m just hoping against hope that everyone tries to stick to the time frame….

We get off to a reasonable start then just as I’m starting to think things are going pretty smoothly, it happens. Not one, but two of the biggest suitcases on wheels I think I’ve ever seen turn up, accompanied by Mr X who delightedly informs me that they contain all the 157 products in his entire range. Help! I try and explain that we may not quite manage to get through all 157 of them in our 45 minutes. He gamely cuts them down to the top 53 (?!) and we gallop through them. Feeling ill after ‘sampling’ what feels like the majority of the 53 priorities. He kindly leaves the remaining 104 to get through in my own time. Aghh!

I’m not sure who was more confused by the whole thing – me, Mr X or the poor security guard who had to help him out of the taxi with the scary suitcases. He looked like he was moving in to the office for a few weeks holiday.

Range Review Preparation

I could say it’s that time again but, lets face it, whether you’re buying or selling it’s almost always range review time!  Sometimes I feel a bit like a hamster running non stop on one of those wheels.

Anyway, on with the show… First things first.  I undertake a bit of general category analysis – at least that way I have an idea of what the true story is which discourages some of the more creative ‘interpretations’ of market data.  I find range reviews time consuming enough without adding in a “my data’s better then yours” discussion as I try and reconcile the information from the last meeting with what I’m being told in the current one – both telling wildly different stories, of course.

Once I’m feeling suitably cross eyed from staring at all the facts and figures I decide to start on the potential deletes list. Those poor, underperforming lines which, for whatever reason, customers have decided they no longer want to buy. Well not in significant enough quantities anyway. And then, one of my least favourite tasks (second only to delivering the news of definite deletes) – informing the affected parties. Talk about depressing! The phone continues to ring non stop for the rest of the day with various follow up calls involving anything from “please keep it in – my cat died this morning” to the threat of “I’m going to tell your boss!”. Strange how, at times like these, the rest of the team suddenly becomes extremely busy and therefore unable to pick up my phone regardless of where I might be.

By the end of the day I’m in danger of developing a cauliflower ear from constant phone use and finally stagger out of the office resolving to do some further work developing some elastic shelves…