Vendor Karma

[susandennis]

Before 10 a.m. today I had had three excellent encounters with vendors and it's left me cynical... what's going on? Why is everyone all of a sudden so helpful? hmmmmmm

I sent an email to a vendor I had never ever dealt with - the AmazingMail post card people I talked about before. I had about 5 questions - business/bulk pricing, technical issues, etc. Within 15 minutes of my email I got a call from Michelle who was fabulous. She gave me a great price quote, answered every question with answers that were better than I expected and left me feeling really good about our next direct mail campaign.

Then I sent an email to my giveaway vendor who supposed to be bringing me a sample of a fleece blanket. He hadn't said when he'd bring it but I really need it tomorrow or Wednesday. He sent a note right back saying that he'd drop it by today.

Last week we did an event at the SunCoast hotel in Las Vegas. We had had Kinkos make up signs and ship them to the hotel. They got there and the hotel lost them. On Friday I called to either get them found or get a check for their cost. I got a great woman who was all over the problem and very appologetic and instantly obviously understood she was going to find them or pay for them. I told her on Friday not to worry about it until Tuesday when I could get her everything - receipts, details from Federal Exress, size of package, etc. This morning she called to ask if I could at least tell her the size because she had a guy on the day shift to day who was really good at finding stuff. So I called Kinkos and got a really nice woman who dug out all the info. Faxed it to Vegas.

Some days I feel like I waste a lot of time screwing around with vendors and get really frustrated when they won't act like I think they should.

Today is not one of those days. I am appreciative.