The delivery was promised for Friday. On Wednesday afternoon the supplier calls: the parts arrive on Monday. Everyone in the office now knows the order will be late, and everyone hopes it will somehow work out. On Friday at noon the customer writes, "Where is my order?" and the conversation starts from the worst possible position.
Delays happen in every company. What the customer remembers is not the delay but how they found out. This article describes a short routine for telling a customer, so that the message goes out on Wednesday and not on Friday.
Say it the day you know
The rule is simple: the person who learns about the delay informs the customer the same working day. Do not wait until you have a perfect solution, and do not wait for the date to pass in the hope of catching up.
A customer who hears on Wednesday can still move their own plans: tell their client, change a schedule, order a temporary alternative. A customer who hears on Friday cannot, and the delay becomes their problem as well as yours. For the wider question of promising realistic dates in the first place, see giving customers a realistic delivery date.
Use the channel the customer normally uses. For an important order or a larger customer, call first and follow with a short written message, so that there is a record of what was said.
Four lines in the message
A good message is short. It has four lines and nothing more:
- What happened. One plain sentence: "The parts from our supplier arrive on Monday instead of Wednesday."
- The new date. One date, not a range: "We will deliver on Tuesday the 3rd."
- What we do about it. "We will ship the first half on Friday" or "We will deliver free of charge."
- Who to call. A name and a phone number of a person who knows the order.
Leave out the long story of who is to blame. The customer does not need your supplier's problems. Do not start with "unfortunately" three times, and do not promise "as soon as possible"; that phrase is not a date.
A new date you can keep
The most damaging thing is a second delay. When you set the new date, add a safety margin and check it with the person who actually does the work or ships the goods. If the supplier says Monday, promise Tuesday.
It is better to give a later date and deliver early than to give an optimistic date and write a second apology. If you honestly do not know yet, say so and name the day you will know: "We will confirm the date by Thursday at noon." Then do it.
Choose a small, real offer
Not every delay needs compensation, but the customer should see that you take it seriously. Match the offer to the damage:
- Small delay, low impact: the new date and a thank-you for understanding is enough.
- Delay that costs the customer time: a partial delivery, free shipping or delivery to a second address.
- Delay that breaks the customer's plan: a discount on this order or a solution that helps, such as a loan of a substitute item.
Decide in advance who may offer what. A simple rule works: the person handling the order may offer free shipping or a partial delivery; anything with a discount goes to the owner or manager the same day. Then nobody improvises under pressure and the customer is not told one thing by one colleague and another by the next.
Keep the new date
After the message the work is not finished. Put the new date in the order, not only in the email, so that everyone sees it. On the day before the new date, check once that everything is on track and tell the customer: "Your order ships tomorrow." If something changes again, repeat the routine at once.
When the order arrives, a short follow-up helps: "Did everything arrive as expected?" It takes a minute and shows the delay was handled, not forgotten.
Learn from the case
Write down each delay in one line: date, order, reason, how long, what was offered. After a quarter, look at the list. If the same supplier or the same product type appears repeatedly, change the promised lead time for it instead of apologising every time. If an apology was needed because of your own mistake, the routine in apologising to a customer after our mistake applies, and repeated complaints can go into a customer complaint log.
What to avoid
- Hoping the delay will disappear before the customer notices.
- Sending the message only to a general company address nobody reads.
- Giving a new date that depends on everything going perfectly.
- Offering a discount in the first line, before saying what happens and when.
- Letting each colleague decide separately what to offer.
A simple start
- Agree that whoever learns of a delay informs the customer the same day.
- Save the four-line message as a template in your email.
- Write down who may offer free shipping, a partial delivery or a discount.
- Add a "new date" field to your orders, and check it the day before.
- After a month, review the list of delays and the customers' reactions, and adjust.
Sources
- This article describes a working routine and makes no statistical claims. The related WVI articles linked above cover realistic delivery dates, apologising after a mistake and the complaint log.