With many furniture retailers facing an uncertain future due to shrinking cash reserves and delayed shipments, now is the time to take extra precaution to ensure a perfect first-time delivery experience for your customers. Because service calls have an immediate negative effect on your bottom line, an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure…or more!
It’s worth taking the time now to foolproof your loadouts. Spending a bit of time now to properly plan for a successful delivery can save you time, money, and frustration in the long run.
Here are some tips we recommend to foolproof your delivery process:
- Inspect, don’t expect. We recommend at least two and preferably three layers of inspection for everything going out the door, including things you might not normally inspect like bedding, upholstery and accessories. Rub-throughs are the most common upholstery damage, and broken frames are hidden by bags. Bedding occasionally has oil spots from the machines they manufacture them with, so a cursory inspection (bag on) is a good idea. Accessories like lamps are prone to breakage and crushed shades. Casegoods should be checked for packing marks, open joints, and crushed corners.
- Forewarned is forearmed. Here’s the warning…damages occur on trucks! Arm yourself with a cursory line-up of touch-up materials, like a light/medium/dark marker set, a furniture cleaner like Mohawk’s Wax Wash, and a clear fill stick to fill in minor dents.
- Bring the tools for success. Your drivers know exactly what they need to properly assemble furniture, so make sure they have it. An easy way to account for tools daily is to assign tool bags that are inventoried at the beginning and end of each day.
- Use proper padding. Properly padding the furniture is essential to a clean delivery. Draping is a fast way (but not a proper way) to protect the contents. Proactively protecting tops with cardboard on top of the pads is a “free” way to get a lot of extra protection.
Common sense tells us that service calls can be considered death by a thousand cuts to your bottom line. There’s no mystery to it. Take the time, have the discipline, and enforce the policies to make sure your customers are treated to a wonderful experience.
Need help managing your delivery procedure to ensure success? We can help you with that and so much more! We specialize in making your business work for you. Contact us for details and a free consultation. 404-432-2137
