A retailer has promised a customer that something will be there on Thursday. He placed the order on Monday and has heard nothing since the confirmation.
On Wednesday morning he telephones the distributor. He waits, explains who he is, gives an order number and is told it went out yesterday. That is four minutes of two people's time to transfer one sentence.
He does this several times a week. So does everybody else, which is why the telephone is always busy when somebody has a genuinely complicated problem.
The first failure: the status is not visible to the customer
It is in a system, it is accurate, and the only way a buyer can see it is to ask somebody to look at it for them.
The second failure: the despatch confirmation is not sent
A message when an order leaves removes most of these calls at source and is not sent by a great many distributors.
The third failure: the tracking is not passed on
Carrier and reference, which the distributor receives and the customer needs, and which frequently stops at the distributor.
The fourth failure: the partial despatch is not explained
An order shipped incomplete with no note produces a call from a buyer who thinks the rest is missing rather than following.
The fifth failure: the backorder position is unclear
What is outstanding, when it is expected and whether it will ship separately, which is the ground in minimum order and pricing questions from trade buyers.
The sixth failure: the cut off is not confirmed at ordering
A buyer who does not know whether an order made the despatch cut off will telephone the next morning to find out.
The seventh failure: the delay is not communicated
The distributor frequently knows an order will not make a date and lets the buyer discover it, which destroys the buyer's own promise.
The eighth failure: the enquiry arrives before opening
Trade buyers start early, and a question at half past six waits three hours for an answer the system could have given instantly.
The ninth failure: the account manager is the route
Which is the fragility described in account manager and contact questions from buyers.
The tenth failure: the same buyer asks repeatedly
Weekly, for years, about orders that all followed the same process, which is entirely avoidable volume.
The eleventh failure: the calls crowd out the complicated ones
Somebody with a genuine problem waits behind four status enquiries, which is the worst possible allocation of a trade desk.
The twelfth failure: the consumer experience is better
Which buyers notice, since a personal parcel is tracked in detail and a trade order worth considerably more is not, as in where is my order questions that flood dtc inboxes.
The thirteenth failure: the proof of delivery is not available
A buyer whose own customer disputes receiving something needs the signature and the delivery record, which the distributor holds and which currently requires a request, a wait and a forwarded email.
The fix: expose the status and send the confirmation
An assistant that answers the cut off, carrier and delivery time questions from your published trade terms at any hour, explains how partial shipments and backorders are handled, and takes the order number for the trade desk when a buyer needs a specific order checked removes much of the four minute call that happens several times a week from two businesses at once. It cannot see your order system or send despatch confirmations, so those still have to come from your own systems, and the assistant answers everything around them. The mechanics are set out in how to use a chatbot for order tracking. Start at try, see features, and the sector view sits under wholesale distribution.