Truck Bans

[Corzhens]

The truck ban is a given in the metro but not in the rural areas. When a factory located in a distant province is expecting the delivery of their order, the truck ban is already considered since the travel time takes 10 hours so the expected delivery is met when the truck leaves the metro after the truck ban and reaches the destination by early morning. And with the trip back home, the truck leaves the province before midnight and reaches the warehouse before the truck ban. But the real problem caused by the truck ban in the metro is the short distance delivery where clients sometimes are too demanding as to insist on a delivery time of 2 hours regardless of the time of day.

[pwarbi]

Clients that demand a delivery within a certain time no matter what the circumstances are, are the type of clients that can make or break a business. in the past, while most of my clients have been accommodating when it comes to delivery times and they understand what problems can occur, I have had some clients that simply won't change their policy and then when a delivery is late they will underpay what they owe. it just makes business even harder because depending on the client and how much business they put your way, you then have to decide or not whether to just take it on the chin or pull them up and say that you warned them in the first place that the delivery could be late.

[explorerx7]

I am not in favour of been underpaid for the goods in an event that circumstances beyond my control would have caused the goods to be late. What if it was a storm or some other mishap of a similar category which had caused the delay. I could be open to the granting of a discount but would not be in agreement with being arbitrarily underpaid. If the there is a problem with the lateness of the goods, then there is the option of the customer not accepting the goods. Sometimes they are just being dishonest in using the unavoidable mishap to seek to exploit a situation where they would be able to avoid paying the real price for the goods.

[Norm]

And I think where customers are familiar with the truck bans they too will probably be more likely to understand that the supplier isn't to blame in case of delays. It can be inconveniencing that much is true but this is why retailers should be good at predicting when they'll be running out of stock so they can order early, so they'll always have what their customers need even if anything be it truck bans or anything else causes deliveries to be delayed.

I agree but I think it is more the responsibility of the supplier or retailer to set the right tone for expectations of the customer meaning they should just calculate for the worst case scenarios and try to build their deadlines around that as an average because once a customer is promised something no matter what the circumstances are for the delays it will always leave them with a feeling of disappointment and being someone that is paying for a product or service I think it should not be left up to them to be understanding.

[gracer]

I am not in favour of been underpaid for the goods in an event that circumstances beyond my control would have caused the goods to be late. What if it was a storm or some other mishap of a similar category which had caused the delay. I could be open to the granting of a discount but would not be in agreement with being arbitrarily underpaid. If the there is a problem with the lateness of the goods, then there is the option of the customer not accepting the goods. Sometimes they are just being dishonest in using the unavoidable mishap to seek to exploit a situation where they would be able to avoid paying the real price for the goods.

I agree with you. Sometimes there are some customers who could also be so unreasonable to their suppliers, but since there's this policy where the customer is always right, they usually get away with it. It's not fair for the supplier though because as you said, the customer can just choose to cancel his/her order instead of insisting on paying way below the price of the goods.

[pwarbi]

And that's one of the reasons why I don't accept the policy that the customer is always right in the first place. I will of course go out of my way and bend over backwards to accommodate the customer, but I've been in business long enough now to know that sometimes you just have to put your foot down and say enough is enough. Some customers will try and push you as far as they can, and I'm not prepared to be taken for a mug and if there is something a customer want's that isn't acceptable, then they will be told that we aren't prepared to do anything that isn't reasonable.

[gracer]

I totally agree. I really don't understand why and how this term "customer is always right" has been coined, because as far as I can observe this phrase has been frequently abused by customers who want to put a toll on businesses and their owners. There are certain instances when customers ar indeed right but there are also those times when they are plain unreasonable anymore that an intervention needs to be done to stop them already.

[Norm]

And that's one of the reasons why I don't accept the policy that the customer is always right in the first place. I will of course go out of my way and bend over backwards to accommodate the customer, but I've been in business long enough now to know that sometimes you just have to put your foot down and say enough is enough. Some customers will try and push you as far as they can, and I'm not prepared to be taken for a mug and if there is something a customer want's that isn't acceptable, then they will be told that we aren't prepared to do anything that isn't reasonable.

Yup I agree. I think it's up to the company to set the terms that both they and the customer can agree on and as long as those terms are met then the customer should not really have much grounds to complain or demand. It's not imperative for every business to bend over backwards just to please a customer as sometimes it means putting the company at risk and that is just plain irresponsible to their employees and also their other customers to an extent.

[pwarbi]

I think that's exactly my point, and any good business owner is going to have to put their own business at the top of the list of priorities, and while we do try and please the customer as much as we can, there is always going to come a point here we say enough is enough.

Competition is fierce these days, as I'm sure we all know, so the customer is at an advantage as they have a list of companies that they can get to choose from, all doing and offering the same service to the same standard, and while going that extra mile for the customer to make sure you get their custom is good practice, if it's going to be to the detriment of your business in the long term, sometimes it is better to just let that client go.

[Corzhens]

And that's one of the reasons why I don't accept the policy that the customer is always right in the first place. I will of course go out of my way and bend over backwards to accommodate the customer, but I've been in business long enough now to know that sometimes you just have to put your foot down and say enough is enough. Some customers will try and push you as far as they can, and I'm not prepared to be taken for a mug and if there is something a customer want's that isn't acceptable, then they will be told that we aren't prepared to do anything that isn't reasonable.

When the task seems to be insurmountable, the supplier can always decline a delivery. And as per the truck ban that is ongoing in Metro Manila, I'm sure the customers wouldn't be capricious as to demand the impossible of getting a delivery during the day time when the truck ban is in effect. So if the customer threatens to pull out of their contract to deliver then so be it.