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WORKROOM OPERATIONS

Leading Your Lead Time
Help your clients through the necessary long wait for completed orders.

by Kitty Stein, CWP, WCAA

Sometimes specifying a lead time can be almost as stressful as pricing. Lead time is not a worrisome thing until someone objects and states they must have the job sooner. We don’t like being challenged, and often self-doubts arise when we are. Pleasing a customer is what a business is all about, but sometimes you have to be like a doctor who must give his patient a shot in order to make him feel better. He may caution the patient that it may stick just a bit, or he might just chitchat to help his patient through it.

So, how do you, a wholesale workroom, help your designer and her client through the weeks of waiting for their draperies? What can you do to reduce their annoyance and your worry? Here are a few stress reducers that might help.

DEFINE LEAD TIME
Unless you have it spelled out well in your terms and conditions (which you should!), your designers very likely may have a different interpretation of when lead time starts. Which of the following possibilities would you say is the beginning of lead time and which would your designers say?

1. When the designer requests a quote.
2. When the designer’s customer writes the down payment check.
3. When the designer writes her down payment check to you.
4. When you receive the purchase order or the work order from the designer.
5. When all the materials, i.e. fabric, trim, hardware, work orders, etc., are received by you.
6. When you have No, 5 and the down payment from the designer.

Either Nos. 5 or 6 would be considered ready orders.

Now, what would you say defines the end of the lead time?
1. The work is bagged and ready for delivery.
2. The work is installed.

Do your designers agree with you?

YOU ARE THE LEADER
It’s up to you to define the lead time. It’s up to you to know what is possible and what isn’t possible within your business set up. Most of us have worked long overtime hours in order not to lose a job, but that should be an exception and not the rule.

You are like the farmer who has 50 acres to plow with only one mule. If he habitually pushes the mule beyond his daily endurance without adequate food and rest, the animal will eventually slow down and will suffer exhaustion. The farmer knows he must take good care of his mule to get the most out of him. However, if foul weather is being called for and the farmer only has a little more to do, he can probably get the mule to work a little longer one day without ill effects.

You must take care of yourself and be fair to all your customers. Sometimes a gentle reminder that you are only one person will help.

COMMUNICATION
First, you must be sure your designers understand what your lead time encompasses. Because you also do the installing, they may think your lead time includes installation when you were only quoting to the fabrication completion. Explain that installation time can’t be quoted because it depends upon the customer’s schedule and the installation schedule at the time of fabrication completion. Then you have to help the designer to communicate to her customer and keep her customer satisfied during the long wait.

A recent discussion in an industry e-mail list brought some great ideas to help this communication process. Remember a well-documented paper trail is invaluable.

1. Draft an explanation of the entire process of a custom window treatment order that would be given to the consumer. Collaborate with your designers to see if and how they would like the document to read.

2. Not only keep the designer informed every step of the way, but keep the consumer updated as well. Many of you do work directly with the designers’ customers and form a business relationship with them as well as their designers. Decide with your designers what communications you need to send to them and which should also be sent to their customers. These are possible items for notification:

• All materials have been ordered
• All materials have been received
• Note the lead time or anticipated completion date when you know it
• Inform of delays, e.g. backorders, etc.
• Fabrication has begun
• Fabrication is finished
• Installation needs to be arranged
• Designer needs also to let you know of any delaying circumstances

3. Possible means of communication are by postcard, fax and/or e-mail.

4. Create a form for the notifications and try to use the same one for as many notifications as possible so that past history is always included.

5. Ask for a receipt acknowledgement. If you fax the designer, ask her to initial and fax back. If you e-mail, set your mail to request a receipt. If you use Outlook Express, open the new message box and click on Tools in its top tool bar. Then click Request Read Receipt. Some people have set their computers not to allow these and the recipient can also ignore the request. But you will have the satisfaction of knowing you tried.

6. Discuss with your designers if you or they will keep their customers informed. Be clear on exactly what you are supposed to send to their customers.

7. Use your Web site for keeping your designers informed. Sydney Hardiman, The Silken Scissor, has a password-protected part of her Web site where she keeps all the updates and progress reports for her designers. They can log-in anytime to get the status of their jobs. What a convenience this is for your designers who are not always able to call you during business hours. Of course it also means you won’t be getting as many calls from them!

8. There are many places on the Internet where you can post photos and allow people to view them. If you are having problems with an order that you would like the designer to see, photograph it with a digital camera. Then post on the Internet and e-mail your designer the password to view it.

COOPERATION SPIRIT
As you consider the above ideas, keep these things in mind. While you must get input from your designers on what will help you both it is not a good idea to have a different process for each designer. You need to determine one way to do things that works for most of your designers. If you don’t meet and work with the customers of all your designers, then it’s best and safer for you not to communicate with any of your designer’s clients. The designers can easily forward your updates to their clients if they chose to.

I once had only one designer of many who did not want weights in her draperies. We would try to remember not to use them, but we forgot so often, she finally accepted them with weights. This was a minor issue but miscommunicating with a designer’s client could be major.

With the real estate boom right now, lead times are getting extended way beyond even your comfort level. Instant gratification has become an accepted attitude that is very difficult to counter, but you can learn to deal with it. Our present society thrives on a constant flow of information and that’s what we are talking about here—a constant flow of updates to your clients. All these ideas presented are not just helping you but also your clients as they deal with their clients. Investing a little more time to keep clients is far cheaper than trying to find new ones.

Go ahead. Call the designer that keeps calling for updates on her orders, and see how you can lead each other through the holiday season.