Our company has a sensitive instrument that needs yearly calibration oversea. Our vendor Q arrange the logistics to send and receive the calibrated instrument from the manufacturer.

We have engaged the vendor before without issue. On the third time, our instrument came back with a dent on the LCD screen. Coincidently, that was the only time the instrument came back to us in ‘bubble wrap’.

What does this tell us? That despite the exceptional care to ‘bubble wrap’ the instrument this time, we are seeing a damage nonetheless? Or could it be that there was a damage and as an afterthought, they decided to bubble wrap it?

The vendor did not inform us of the damage. Did they not inspect the instrument before handing over to us?

The damage could have been caused by anyone during transits, i.e., it could have been by the vendor, third party logistics provider, or manufacturer’s side.

But this is unimportant. What was more important was the lack of sincerity from the vendor to notify us of the dent when they spotted it (because it was an obvious dent). It is from such experience that we will not consider the vendor in our future purchases.

How do we keep track of this?

The incident had been recorded in a manager’s report. It will describe any follow-up with the vendor and how it was resolved, any action or recommendation.

In addition, the report will be used to include/remove a vendor from our purchases, e.g., open invitation to quote (ITQ) or invitation to tender (ITT). Any decisions will not be relayed to unsuccessful bidders, thus vendors will not know the reason for their unsuccessful bids (despite the competitive pricing).

So, it is very important to have a good CRM to maintain customer trust, else, we will not know why our effort to bid in ITQ/ITT ended unsuccessful with the same entity…