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What's so good about online ordering

09/30/2008 15:48

You see more product ideas. It's faster for most customers. What's probably best though is that you don't have problems with your orders. Because Africa Imports has so many different products that have similar descriptions, placing an order with an item number is really important in making sure that you get what you want. When you write down your order or place it online; it stops a lot of problems. Almost all of the problems with orders go away when there is a written order instead of a spoken order. Sometimes we hear things different than people say them (or mean to say them), It happens for a lot of reasons. "J-B" sounds like "J-E"; some people have accents; we have accents; some people are used to talking faster or slower or something else-er. Larger companies write down all of their orders; and spend lots of money making sure everything is written down right. They have figured out that the time for this pays itself back over and over again. I order lots and lots of products. I almost always write down the order. After I tell someone what I need, I write it down and email it, fax it, or hand it to the person who I am buying things from. It's not that I like taking time to write a bunch of stuff down; but it keeps so many problems from happening. Even with African traders, I always write down what is agreed to (with all the prices, quantities, sizes and descriptions) and make sure that he and I each have a copy. I didn't always do this. It seemed kind of out of place at first. It makes our orders so much better though; and there are a lot fewer problems with people because of it. Most of the problem orders that happen are from poor communication at this point. Our problem order rate is below 1/2 of 1%. We used to have problems from putting the wrong item in a box or missing a product. We scan everything now, so this almost never comes up any more. We love talking with our customers; and getting to know you better. It would be sad for us if people never called. But if your order is written down, we can be so much more sure to send you exactly what you want.