Business Irresponsability | Teen Ink

Business Irresponsability

November 10, 2009
By alligatoraxe BRONZE, Quito, Other
alligatoraxe BRONZE, Quito, Other
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I’ve been in the soap business since February 2009; and only twice I’ve been late with an order because I was out of supplies and I could’t get them on time….
Ms. Pepa Andrade (a.k.a. The Costumer) came to my house because my family invited her family and another family to a barbecue in my house. I offered her my products to see if she could buy them, as a marketing strategy. She agreed, she seemed happy about it. She ordered 20 soaps, Ovals to be exact.

I started doing a few soaps that day. The next day another few soaps and then was when I realized I had little supplies left. I got worried, I could not finish the order. Over the next 2 days I did nothing. On the 3rd Day I called my supplier3, Ninacuro, and they were out of stock on supplies. I had to wait…. When I finally got the supplies, about a week later, I started doing other orders, and kind’a forgot about this order. I sold the soaps I had made for the costumer, because I forgot about the order.




The supply delay forced me to delay the order for a week more than the established date, but I forgot about this order in 2 days. (How irresponsible of me!) After the first 2 weeks passed, I had completely forgot about the order, until I receive a call1 from my aunt (who was a very close friend of her) asking about the order status.

I replied “The order is in process.”


She replied “ok.”

I then, remembered that I had that order pending. I raced to do a bit more of that order, but I stopped working on it for that day because I needed to do some other things. It was about mid-April. I was already 1 month late.





Then, another big 20 soap order fell on me. I started working on it. I had 2/3 of it done, and I put it on hold for the day.












I finished this order in the next 4 weeks (and was 2 and 2/3 of a week late, and costumer did not mind, again, how irresponsible of me!) Over the next couple of weeks I got more orders (small orders) which I did finish on time, and delivered on time. But those orders made me forget about the BIG order I had, which was one and half months late! But then, a call1 from the costumer asking for the order status put me up and running again.






“Hello, I wish to know the status of my order,


It’s been almost 3 months now” the costumer asked.
I replied “Yes ma’am your order is almost done.
Let me file a Support Ticket2 to keep you updated,”


So, I filed the Support Ticket to keep her updated on her order. (Something I should have done earlier.) I usually file Support Tickets for Product Feedback I receive, Costumer Support, and other stuff. (I use Zendesk2 – Help Desk to file tickets, and keep costumer in the “loop”) But I still didn’t have enough supplies to process that order, just enough supplies to process smaller orders, and I kept forgetting to order supplies.
(I’m very disorganized and irresponsible?, and I can’t fix it)

After summer break, around the end of August, I was told that my costumer was going to attend my cousin’s party, which was going to be on September 18. So I ordered supplies that day, but the supplies3 did not arrive until 2 days later.
Since it was a big order; It took me time, because there were 20 soaps BUT, 5 red, 5 blue, 5 yellow and 5 green.; so I had to change the formula each time, for each color, and that took me time. I did half the order in a week and the other half two weeks later.

The week I finished the second half of the order, was the birthday week. The party was on Saturday in my farm in Puembo. I couldn’t finish packing up (sealing, packaging, that stuff) on my house, so I took the soaps and my packing materials/utilities to my farm to pack them up there.

Its Saturday, the big day, I had to finish packing up some 7-10 soaps and I’m good to go. The costumer will arrive at around 11am-12:30pm.
When the costumer arrived, she immediately asked for her soaps.

“Do you have my soaps, by any chance?” she asked

I replied “Yes! at last; I have them for you.”
She was happy and thanked me, and I was relieved


I brought the soaps to her; she opened the bag and examined the contents of the order with her 4 year old daughter. She was pleased! ?
I finally completed a mission. The 6 month delay; I hope, and I assure you this won’t happen again. Or I’ll lose costumers and reputation and this would harm my business very much. I still don’t know what to do to be more responsible in my daily life.






This essay features products of Yentec Ecuador5.
For more info on the products or on how to order them;
Please Visit http://yentec.itgo.com


The author's comments:
I own a company, I make hand made soaps, this tells the story of my first VERY LATE order.

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.