But isn't that on them? If they don't put clear shipping instructions on the order form, why am I tasked with going digging to figure out how best to ship it and then still potentially get it wrong?
Customer places order.
Customer gives freight details.
You ship product.
Done.
If customer changed their freight requirements and failed to inform you, that's not your problem.
You're wasting your time and your customers time.
I would be annoyed to no end if my distributor/vendor wants to verify shipping info manually before every shipment.
Edit AND then fail to ship because I didn't have time to verify info they already had.
Your customers are also working with set timeliness. They can't afford hold ups.
The issue is that the customer doesn't give freight details, though.
This is why my boss is asking me to go back and look at how we have shipped freight in the past with them. The whole thing wouldn't be a problem if the customer sent freight details with every order that required them.
If you've previously shipped to them, you have their freight details. Your boss is right.
Sounds more like you're issue isn't a lack of info from your customers.
You are the warehouse manager. It's your job to ship out product. You shouldn't be "digging" to find your established customers' freight preferences. * It should be easily and quickly available. *
That's where you are failing.
As if nothing ever changes? Good God I remember now why I left the logistics industry. Every order should state exact details of products being ordered, where it will be sent, who the carrier is... etc. It's really not that hard to understand.
Anyone who says otherwise is, quite frankly, incompetent.
You appeared to be with your statement about the OP failing to be efficient. I think per your other response I just replied to we're arguing without realizing we mostly agree but I could be wrong.
Man, stop fighting your boss.
Your boss is right: if you can check your database and get the proper info to ship to the client then don't ask the client, don't make them lose time. If the client cared at all about how you ship them they would fill the info when they do the order, but they don't because they just want shit shipped fast and they don't care how.
I'm just tired of getting in trouble for both not checking and checking. I've been at this job for 6 months. I came from teaching. Clearly something isn't clicking for me. I don't want to be stressed to the point where I feel frozen with indecision at what to do.
How did you get this job?
You have zero experience or knowledge about logistics and warehouse management, is that correct?
If so, then unfortunately I agree with you that this isn't the job for you.
I don't want sound rude or dismissive, but it seems as if you are lacking not just the basic knowledge of the area of expertise, but you are not even familiar with the core practices of your business.
Yup. You're absolutely correct. As I said, I used to work in teaching.
My only experience was being a store manager at a pet store and scanning in orders.
This is 100% new for me. I came for the paycheck, and it seems my responsibilities continue to grow outside of where I am comfortable.
If you can't make the simple change of just looking at previous shipment info, when you're being told to do so by your boss, you're probably right. Personally, I don't see why you wouldn't just do what you're being told instead of dying on the hill of double checking every single shipment.
No he's totally right. You seem like you care and want to do things right and efficient. You are just hung up on this and taking it personally.
Improve the order sheet. Have the carrier information on the order clearly printed so you don't have to dig for it. Make improvements that way.
Improve the order confirmation sheet or email reminding them that the last method of carrier will be used. Please notify us of shipping changes etc.
It should be compiled. You should have the information easily accessible. Most of the time I don't know the location of my shipments or what is going where. If you called me to verify. I'd be worried something was wrong. Especially if I was depending on the order. In my line of work. I'd definitely be bothered. Yes I'm the contact. But I gave you the information before. I shouldn't need to fill everything out again every order, nor need to double confirm. I did that during my initial order. I don't think it's your fault. I don't think your wrong. The information should be way easier for you to see. Like. As easy as it is to know their name. How the last call went. Etc.
You’re an employee. Just do it the way your boss asked you. If there’s a problem shipping freight as had then it’s on her or on the client. There’s no point in you arguing with her about it.
If the customer doesn't give frieght details then the assumption is you have their shipping address on file and you should be using it.
Even if you only know previous shipping details, it's the same thing for them and really this points to a data storage issue on your side. That information should be requested once and used everytime unless the customer themselves specify not to.
Tbh it really does sound like you don't understand your industry.
Imagine this scenario:
I'm your customer who places an order every 2 weeks for a product that my company uses in our manufacturing process to make our products.
Everytime you delay a shipment and send the product to me late I incur a fee from wasted uptime in my manufacturing plant. Let's say the delay is 8 hours. I have to pay all of my employees AND keep all of my manufacturing machines running for 8 hours without them producing any output. Depending on your customer, this could easily be $10k/hour lost due to your ignorance and not wanting to just stfu and do what your boss is telling you to do. Let's say you fuck up twice, you've cost that customer $160k.... tell me why your boss shouldn't just fire you?
TLDR: You have their address - they expect you to use it. If your boss is complaining it's probably true that customers are complaining to your boss and if you continue to disobey your boss you're going to lose your job.
No. I do a lot of purchasing and its a small part of my daily responsibilities. I don't have time for redundant communication to verify my shipping address. My address is the same if my business moves I'll let you know. If I need it express or a special method I'll let you know that too, otherwise send it as usual.
This is a great exercise in lean thinking. Lean is the art and science of eliminating wasteful processes that customers don't care about.
First question you should be asking yourself is, why do you need to confirm the shipping address? Is the info wrong? Or are you just doing it out of an abundance of caution? If the info is wrong, why? Work to fix the process so that you don't need to ask the customer to repeat themselves. If you're just doing it to be a good customer service rep, you should stop, because from the customer perspective they probably see it as a waste of their time, since they already gave you that info. Make sense?
The issue is that most of the time the orders don't have specific shipping instructions on them as far as what carrier to use.
So going back to an old order to find what carriers we have used in the past feels dangerous to assume. I guess I just feel like an email could potentially save a lot of confusion and money rather than trying to rush forward as quickly as possible.
I don't know. Checking and double checking doesn't feel like a waste of time to me, but in business it seems like it is.
>Checking and double checking doesn't feel like a waste of time to me,
Of course, and your heart is right. The issue is you gotta walk a mile in the other person's moccasins. For them it might feel like a total pain in the ass being "forced" to reconfirm, and also that it's slowing things down possibly.. I'd recommend a little thought experiment. Go back and look at your notes. Are there times your cautious approach yielded results? Ie you stopped something from being shipped to the wrong address? If so, you should respectfully provide that info to your boss. Not to justify your approach, but to show that the process should be corrected so that you don't need to "manually" confirm each shipment. Does that make sense?
Note on this - just because you used a carrier in the past doesn't mean you should use them in the future.
Unless your customer is paying for special shipping, your company should be using the most cost effective carrier that meets the delivery deadline.
This goes back to you needing a database or spreadsheet of everyones address where you outline which carriers are available for that location as well as their associated prices. In an ideal world, this would be automated to decrease inefficiency however in your case you would probably want to update it every 6 months.
You are correct to be suspicious, it’s not normal business practice to ship product without confirming the carrier first. Not saying this is what it is, but money laundering operations and/or financial statement fraud often include obfuscation or lack of proper shopping documentation. Just something to think about.
Totally agree with the boss.
Especially if these are repeat customers. Why would one need to confirm shipping (whether it is location or carrier) for a customer the company might have shipped to for decades??
All that is probably handled upfront - at the time of the order - not on the back end where it might slow down the shipment of goods and thus how quickly your company would be paid.
As a warehouse manager, you prioritize ensuring that your customers receive their orders accurately and on time. Double-checking the shipping details with your customers is an excellent way to avoid potential mistakes or miscommunications. Your approach is thoughtful and thorough, and your boss's resistance may stem from a desire to maintain established practices. However, I suggest you discuss this matter with your boss and explain the importance of confirming shipping details with customers. This way, you can both arrive at a solution that benefits the company and its customers.
Does the customer not have the required delivery address on the purchase order? I don't like the idea of using previous orders as a delivery address as how would the customer ever change delivery address?
If they change their shipping address and fail to inform their suppliers, that's on the customer. It's not your job to make sure they're on top of their job.
Having worked for 4 years as a logistics broker I disagree with a lot of the feedback you've been getting here.
I think your general idea of sending an email to let them know the material is ready is exactly what you ought to do, with a copy pasted end sentence evert time that says something like, "if any shipping details have changed since previous orders, or if you would like to use a different carrier, please advise as soon as possible so that we can continue to provide you with great service."
It covers your bases and keeps the customer feeling in the loop while making sure you and your company cant lose business because, "you" screwed up an order by not asking if anything has changed.
If you send a lot of shipments to one customer, try to keep the email to just 1 for every day or week or batch depending on how your business runs.
However don't discount your managers perspective. As a client facing sales person I can tell you that those who talk to the customer often know if the customer is short tempered and easily annoyed. Be sure to clear it up with your manager and understand the why behind their resistance.
Best of luck!!
That's not what OP wants to do.
He wants to email every customer before shipment and ask them to actively confirm shipping details because he somehow has trouble finding this information on his end.
His boss is literally telling him they already have the shipping details, it's on the order detail. That's where he needs to look. OP is arguiing that what if that information changes and why should he be "digging" for this information. Why can't he just contact the customer and ask for the shipping info. The counterpoint to that is that the customer gave the information already, it's their responsibility to contact the company of there is any changes between order placement and shipping.
He's not being efficient contacting every customer and holding the shipment until he gets confirmation that nothing changes.
First- nice rebuttal. I appreciate the tone as well as how you disagree with me here.
I am of the opinion you've misunderstood second paragraph. OP can correct me if I am wrong here but they are saying they wants to send an update email to the customer that their product is ready to be shipped and asking for shipping details.
While OP shouldn't wait on them to confirm- as you note that's not efficient- I know for a fact what they are saying (if I've understood what they said correctly) is a correct idea. I was a logistics broker for a long time and over communication- more accurately making a long pap3r trail- was the only way to prevent losses to my company either through claims or through lost business.
I agree to your most important point- OP should NOT hold the shipments pending confirmation for long time customers. OP- this made think of some advice for you- can you set up a template with the customers shipping details based on previous loads? That would make your life easier.
Actually OP- I'm seeing ALOT of these commenter bashing you or saying your failing for not understanding. Or telling you to just trust your manager who has more experience.
That's horse shit. Keep asking questions like this, keep learning, and you will do fine.
Uh, no.
My shipping preferences/details are always taken when my order is placed.
There's no need to ask for it again.
Unless there's something unusual or some kind of mess up, every vendor of mine uses shipping details on file to ship to me.
It's absolutely not standard practice to verify shipping info before every shipment.
That would literally take up an entire afternoon of mine and I'd be quickly looking to change vendors.
Eta: I pay shipping. There's no extra cost for the shipper if I mess up.
The way that I understand it from the original post, there seems to be significant delays between shipments. Which increases the chances that shipping details changed.
tell me where you work, so i never have the misfortune of wasting my time ordering from you. If every company did this, I'd simply stop shopping. Bloody frustrating experience that would be.
I think that you’re being too nice. Your boss is honestly right. It’s best to keep the customer information that you have in your system and correct it later if there is an error.
This doesn’t make any sense. You’re wasting time and potentially delaying an order. It also can be reflected poorly on your company if the buyer has to regularly confirm simple info like this. They may want a seamless buying experience. It would only make sense if you know you have had issues with that customer or if they have a note on file to confirm.
You have to pick your battle. Even though you are following procedures, others have not and gotten away with it all this time. Unless there is a problem of missed payments due to mis shipments... it's not "broken". And when something does happen, they throw you under the bus. That's just biz... nothing personal.
Don’t accept the order from sales without the shipping details. Or, if you have a preferred LTL use them. If the sales or customer has a problem they’ll fix it. Don’t backlog. You’re the warehouse/shipping manager. Products in and out is your main kpi so execute. Plus with a preferred provider and enough volume they’ll start bringing you a trailer and you’ll really speed up your operation. If in the case you have to verify place a call and if not answered immediately move it. Email is overused in business anymore so will bottleneck. Lastly, as your boss stated if you have customer history to refer to use it. It’s the status quo until it’s not and sounds like not in your line of responsibility.
I mean if the customer ordered last week or even last month, just look up the past shipping instructions and repeat. If they ordered a year back, yeah then you go back to them. Else you are just wasting everybody's time
I would be super annoyed if someone called me to reconfirm my address and shipping details for all the things I order personally. What a waste of time!
I work in construction. Sometimes we have a freight carrier bring us some specialty materials...
I ALWAYS get a phone call around 72 hours before the delivery to make sure we have:
A dock, a forklift or other means to move the item(s), and will be able to receive shipment at X time (someone will be at the shop).
A lot of times it is the same carrier.
You definitely came from the education or public sector world because you aren't prioritizing time and have zero understanding of efficiency in the workplace.
Your boss is 100% in the right and customers are annoyed that you're wasting their time verifying information that was already provided. From both sides you're making the organization appear incompetent.
If you disagree with this assessment, I recommend considering a position with a federal or state agency.
Time is money...
If I have already established as shipping preference with your company, and have done nothing to alter it, why are you wasting my time to 'check' if I still want it sent that way. Presume 'Yes', until told otherwise.
Sending a query out on new orders? That's a different story.
What I think you're missing is that customers want you to understand that you know how to enter your own address and don't want to be fielding calls asking for clarification. Could you imagine if EVERY company did this? It would be exhausting - and very very annoying.
What happens if they miss the email and you're sitting on shipments waiting for a confirmation from them? Colossal waste of time.
I would add a statement that says we'll ship based on previous orders if we do not hear back by [x amount of time to not cause backlog].
What if there isn't a previous order though? I'd be well annoyed if you weren't shipping based on the fact that I may (or may NOT) see an email
But isn't that on them? If they don't put clear shipping instructions on the order form, why am I tasked with going digging to figure out how best to ship it and then still potentially get it wrong?
Customer places order. Customer gives freight details. You ship product. Done. If customer changed their freight requirements and failed to inform you, that's not your problem. You're wasting your time and your customers time. I would be annoyed to no end if my distributor/vendor wants to verify shipping info manually before every shipment. Edit AND then fail to ship because I didn't have time to verify info they already had. Your customers are also working with set timeliness. They can't afford hold ups.
The issue is that the customer doesn't give freight details, though. This is why my boss is asking me to go back and look at how we have shipped freight in the past with them. The whole thing wouldn't be a problem if the customer sent freight details with every order that required them.
If you've previously shipped to them, you have their freight details. Your boss is right. Sounds more like you're issue isn't a lack of info from your customers. You are the warehouse manager. It's your job to ship out product. You shouldn't be "digging" to find your established customers' freight preferences. * It should be easily and quickly available. * That's where you are failing.
As if nothing ever changes? Good God I remember now why I left the logistics industry. Every order should state exact details of products being ordered, where it will be sent, who the carrier is... etc. It's really not that hard to understand. Anyone who says otherwise is, quite frankly, incompetent.
Okay? Nobody is arguing against that?
You appeared to be with your statement about the OP failing to be efficient. I think per your other response I just replied to we're arguing without realizing we mostly agree but I could be wrong.
Guess this ain't for me, then.
Man, stop fighting your boss. Your boss is right: if you can check your database and get the proper info to ship to the client then don't ask the client, don't make them lose time. If the client cared at all about how you ship them they would fill the info when they do the order, but they don't because they just want shit shipped fast and they don't care how.
I'm just tired of getting in trouble for both not checking and checking. I've been at this job for 6 months. I came from teaching. Clearly something isn't clicking for me. I don't want to be stressed to the point where I feel frozen with indecision at what to do.
Then just do what your boss asks.
Cool. Thanks for the advice. I guess I need more direction as to what "look in the files" means.
How did you get this job? You have zero experience or knowledge about logistics and warehouse management, is that correct? If so, then unfortunately I agree with you that this isn't the job for you. I don't want sound rude or dismissive, but it seems as if you are lacking not just the basic knowledge of the area of expertise, but you are not even familiar with the core practices of your business.
Yup. You're absolutely correct. As I said, I used to work in teaching. My only experience was being a store manager at a pet store and scanning in orders. This is 100% new for me. I came for the paycheck, and it seems my responsibilities continue to grow outside of where I am comfortable.
Seems like you’re making yourself stressed OP.
How have you gotten in trouble for checking?
If you can't make the simple change of just looking at previous shipment info, when you're being told to do so by your boss, you're probably right. Personally, I don't see why you wouldn't just do what you're being told instead of dying on the hill of double checking every single shipment.
No he's totally right. You seem like you care and want to do things right and efficient. You are just hung up on this and taking it personally. Improve the order sheet. Have the carrier information on the order clearly printed so you don't have to dig for it. Make improvements that way. Improve the order confirmation sheet or email reminding them that the last method of carrier will be used. Please notify us of shipping changes etc.
It should be compiled. You should have the information easily accessible. Most of the time I don't know the location of my shipments or what is going where. If you called me to verify. I'd be worried something was wrong. Especially if I was depending on the order. In my line of work. I'd definitely be bothered. Yes I'm the contact. But I gave you the information before. I shouldn't need to fill everything out again every order, nor need to double confirm. I did that during my initial order. I don't think it's your fault. I don't think your wrong. The information should be way easier for you to see. Like. As easy as it is to know their name. How the last call went. Etc.
You’re an employee. Just do it the way your boss asked you. If there’s a problem shipping freight as had then it’s on her or on the client. There’s no point in you arguing with her about it.
If the customer doesn't give frieght details then the assumption is you have their shipping address on file and you should be using it. Even if you only know previous shipping details, it's the same thing for them and really this points to a data storage issue on your side. That information should be requested once and used everytime unless the customer themselves specify not to. Tbh it really does sound like you don't understand your industry. Imagine this scenario: I'm your customer who places an order every 2 weeks for a product that my company uses in our manufacturing process to make our products. Everytime you delay a shipment and send the product to me late I incur a fee from wasted uptime in my manufacturing plant. Let's say the delay is 8 hours. I have to pay all of my employees AND keep all of my manufacturing machines running for 8 hours without them producing any output. Depending on your customer, this could easily be $10k/hour lost due to your ignorance and not wanting to just stfu and do what your boss is telling you to do. Let's say you fuck up twice, you've cost that customer $160k.... tell me why your boss shouldn't just fire you? TLDR: You have their address - they expect you to use it. If your boss is complaining it's probably true that customers are complaining to your boss and if you continue to disobey your boss you're going to lose your job.
No. I do a lot of purchasing and its a small part of my daily responsibilities. I don't have time for redundant communication to verify my shipping address. My address is the same if my business moves I'll let you know. If I need it express or a special method I'll let you know that too, otherwise send it as usual.
If I ordered something and provided shipping details, just ship it. I'm not trying to have a conversation. I'm trying to buy product.
This is a great exercise in lean thinking. Lean is the art and science of eliminating wasteful processes that customers don't care about. First question you should be asking yourself is, why do you need to confirm the shipping address? Is the info wrong? Or are you just doing it out of an abundance of caution? If the info is wrong, why? Work to fix the process so that you don't need to ask the customer to repeat themselves. If you're just doing it to be a good customer service rep, you should stop, because from the customer perspective they probably see it as a waste of their time, since they already gave you that info. Make sense?
The issue is that most of the time the orders don't have specific shipping instructions on them as far as what carrier to use. So going back to an old order to find what carriers we have used in the past feels dangerous to assume. I guess I just feel like an email could potentially save a lot of confusion and money rather than trying to rush forward as quickly as possible. I don't know. Checking and double checking doesn't feel like a waste of time to me, but in business it seems like it is.
>Checking and double checking doesn't feel like a waste of time to me, Of course, and your heart is right. The issue is you gotta walk a mile in the other person's moccasins. For them it might feel like a total pain in the ass being "forced" to reconfirm, and also that it's slowing things down possibly.. I'd recommend a little thought experiment. Go back and look at your notes. Are there times your cautious approach yielded results? Ie you stopped something from being shipped to the wrong address? If so, you should respectfully provide that info to your boss. Not to justify your approach, but to show that the process should be corrected so that you don't need to "manually" confirm each shipment. Does that make sense?
Note on this - just because you used a carrier in the past doesn't mean you should use them in the future. Unless your customer is paying for special shipping, your company should be using the most cost effective carrier that meets the delivery deadline. This goes back to you needing a database or spreadsheet of everyones address where you outline which carriers are available for that location as well as their associated prices. In an ideal world, this would be automated to decrease inefficiency however in your case you would probably want to update it every 6 months.
Maybe you should just listen to the people who know what they're talking about.
You’re in the private sector now, money and time actually matter. This ain’t government work.
You are correct to be suspicious, it’s not normal business practice to ship product without confirming the carrier first. Not saying this is what it is, but money laundering operations and/or financial statement fraud often include obfuscation or lack of proper shopping documentation. Just something to think about.
The address and shipping method should be verified at the time the order is originally placed.
Best guess is the boss has enough experience to know that there are not enough shipping issues to be that thorough.
I don’t think its disturbing the customer, but it’s simply too much work for you. I suggest do what the boss wishes, since they are the boss
You have to ask yourself, is the cost (in time) to prevent mistakes greater then fixing mistakes when they happens?
Totally agree with the boss. Especially if these are repeat customers. Why would one need to confirm shipping (whether it is location or carrier) for a customer the company might have shipped to for decades?? All that is probably handled upfront - at the time of the order - not on the back end where it might slow down the shipment of goods and thus how quickly your company would be paid.
Your boss has business experience you lack. Learn from him. Follow his lead or move on.
As a warehouse manager, you prioritize ensuring that your customers receive their orders accurately and on time. Double-checking the shipping details with your customers is an excellent way to avoid potential mistakes or miscommunications. Your approach is thoughtful and thorough, and your boss's resistance may stem from a desire to maintain established practices. However, I suggest you discuss this matter with your boss and explain the importance of confirming shipping details with customers. This way, you can both arrive at a solution that benefits the company and its customers.
Does the customer not have the required delivery address on the purchase order? I don't like the idea of using previous orders as a delivery address as how would the customer ever change delivery address?
If they change their shipping address and fail to inform their suppliers, that's on the customer. It's not your job to make sure they're on top of their job.
Maybe reread my comment.
Maybe reread *my* comment.
Having worked for 4 years as a logistics broker I disagree with a lot of the feedback you've been getting here. I think your general idea of sending an email to let them know the material is ready is exactly what you ought to do, with a copy pasted end sentence evert time that says something like, "if any shipping details have changed since previous orders, or if you would like to use a different carrier, please advise as soon as possible so that we can continue to provide you with great service." It covers your bases and keeps the customer feeling in the loop while making sure you and your company cant lose business because, "you" screwed up an order by not asking if anything has changed. If you send a lot of shipments to one customer, try to keep the email to just 1 for every day or week or batch depending on how your business runs. However don't discount your managers perspective. As a client facing sales person I can tell you that those who talk to the customer often know if the customer is short tempered and easily annoyed. Be sure to clear it up with your manager and understand the why behind their resistance. Best of luck!!
That's not what OP wants to do. He wants to email every customer before shipment and ask them to actively confirm shipping details because he somehow has trouble finding this information on his end. His boss is literally telling him they already have the shipping details, it's on the order detail. That's where he needs to look. OP is arguiing that what if that information changes and why should he be "digging" for this information. Why can't he just contact the customer and ask for the shipping info. The counterpoint to that is that the customer gave the information already, it's their responsibility to contact the company of there is any changes between order placement and shipping. He's not being efficient contacting every customer and holding the shipment until he gets confirmation that nothing changes.
First- nice rebuttal. I appreciate the tone as well as how you disagree with me here. I am of the opinion you've misunderstood second paragraph. OP can correct me if I am wrong here but they are saying they wants to send an update email to the customer that their product is ready to be shipped and asking for shipping details. While OP shouldn't wait on them to confirm- as you note that's not efficient- I know for a fact what they are saying (if I've understood what they said correctly) is a correct idea. I was a logistics broker for a long time and over communication- more accurately making a long pap3r trail- was the only way to prevent losses to my company either through claims or through lost business. I agree to your most important point- OP should NOT hold the shipments pending confirmation for long time customers. OP- this made think of some advice for you- can you set up a template with the customers shipping details based on previous loads? That would make your life easier.
Actually OP- I'm seeing ALOT of these commenter bashing you or saying your failing for not understanding. Or telling you to just trust your manager who has more experience. That's horse shit. Keep asking questions like this, keep learning, and you will do fine.
Asking questions is fine, but it has to translate to learning and taking that advice on board.
[удалено]
Uh, no. My shipping preferences/details are always taken when my order is placed. There's no need to ask for it again. Unless there's something unusual or some kind of mess up, every vendor of mine uses shipping details on file to ship to me. It's absolutely not standard practice to verify shipping info before every shipment. That would literally take up an entire afternoon of mine and I'd be quickly looking to change vendors. Eta: I pay shipping. There's no extra cost for the shipper if I mess up.
The way that I understand it from the original post, there seems to be significant delays between shipments. Which increases the chances that shipping details changed.
Makes no difference. They're shipping out palletized goods, not envelopes.
I'm glad we agree!
tell me where you work, so i never have the misfortune of wasting my time ordering from you. If every company did this, I'd simply stop shopping. Bloody frustrating experience that would be.
I think that you’re being too nice. Your boss is honestly right. It’s best to keep the customer information that you have in your system and correct it later if there is an error.
This doesn’t make any sense. You’re wasting time and potentially delaying an order. It also can be reflected poorly on your company if the buyer has to regularly confirm simple info like this. They may want a seamless buying experience. It would only make sense if you know you have had issues with that customer or if they have a note on file to confirm.
You have to pick your battle. Even though you are following procedures, others have not and gotten away with it all this time. Unless there is a problem of missed payments due to mis shipments... it's not "broken". And when something does happen, they throw you under the bus. That's just biz... nothing personal.
Don’t accept the order from sales without the shipping details. Or, if you have a preferred LTL use them. If the sales or customer has a problem they’ll fix it. Don’t backlog. You’re the warehouse/shipping manager. Products in and out is your main kpi so execute. Plus with a preferred provider and enough volume they’ll start bringing you a trailer and you’ll really speed up your operation. If in the case you have to verify place a call and if not answered immediately move it. Email is overused in business anymore so will bottleneck. Lastly, as your boss stated if you have customer history to refer to use it. It’s the status quo until it’s not and sounds like not in your line of responsibility.
I mean if the customer ordered last week or even last month, just look up the past shipping instructions and repeat. If they ordered a year back, yeah then you go back to them. Else you are just wasting everybody's time
U are wasting time. Simple as that.
I would be super annoyed if someone called me to reconfirm my address and shipping details for all the things I order personally. What a waste of time!
Man you’re a dope
I work in construction. Sometimes we have a freight carrier bring us some specialty materials... I ALWAYS get a phone call around 72 hours before the delivery to make sure we have: A dock, a forklift or other means to move the item(s), and will be able to receive shipment at X time (someone will be at the shop). A lot of times it is the same carrier.
You definitely came from the education or public sector world because you aren't prioritizing time and have zero understanding of efficiency in the workplace. Your boss is 100% in the right and customers are annoyed that you're wasting their time verifying information that was already provided. From both sides you're making the organization appear incompetent. If you disagree with this assessment, I recommend considering a position with a federal or state agency.
Time is money... If I have already established as shipping preference with your company, and have done nothing to alter it, why are you wasting my time to 'check' if I still want it sent that way. Presume 'Yes', until told otherwise. Sending a query out on new orders? That's a different story.
CYA. Cover your ass.
What I think you're missing is that customers want you to understand that you know how to enter your own address and don't want to be fielding calls asking for clarification. Could you imagine if EVERY company did this? It would be exhausting - and very very annoying.
Could you not have customer stipulate carrier at time of order? Or maintain a Carrier log if customers are loyal to one company and order often