It was July - So what happened?

For as long as I can remember, July has been the worst month of the year for floor covering sales. "It's July, you may as well take a vacation," was the phrase most oft used in our industry. In years before the whole town of Dalton, GA shut down. Restaurants, dry cleaners, tire dealers, it did not matter. The whole town was on vacation. There are over 100 carpet outlets here, and the majority closed for the week of July 4th. Sales were miserable and the state of the economy was not a factor.

Dalton Georgia Carpet Outlets have long been famous for floor covering discounts and wholesale carpet prices. So famous in fact that "The Today Show" broadcast live from the area as the place to buy floor coverings. People would drive from 100's of miles away to buy floor covering. But not in July.

Normally when the calender shows July 1, I go into a state of depression. There are only meager sales but the overhead keeps on rolling. This year was no different July came and I made adjustments to expenses to try and minimize the pain. But wait, the first week was good and then the second week was OK. The third week was great and so was the fourth. This was something I had never witnessed, a great month of July! In fact I had to go back 2 years to find any month that American Carpet Wholesalers had more sales. So what happened to make July 2008 such a great month?

Nothing really stands out. No single product really stood out as the reason. No extra large sales. I spent less on advertising. The only thing I see at present is we had a tremendous amount of customer referrals, which relates directly to my previous post about customer reviews and doing the right thing.

Accolades must be given to our whole team. Sales, customer relations and order fulfillment. I have previously stated our team was the best and this just reaffirms my belief. Needless to say, I am a happy camper and so are my creditors!

Don't Be Afraid of Customer Reviews

........... unless you have something to be afraid of.

A customer review system is the single most important way to improve any business. We love to know when we have fulfilled an order in such a way that the customer wants to tell the world. Be it good or bad. We have two separate independent review portals that give us a good barometer of what kind of shopping experience our customers had. On one, our satisfaction rating is 4.6 out of 5 ,and the other it is 4.8 out of 5. I will not be happy until they are both 5 out of 5.

I do not have time to respond to each and every one of them, but I do respond to negative feedback. Not to make excuses, but to make the customer believe we appreciate the feedback and to promise we will do better. We have kept those promises. Since our last negative feedback we have raised those scores from 4.3 out 5 and 4.5 out of 5 respectively. I am proud of my crew that is in charge of maintaining our customer relations. They are Monica Cunningham, LeAnda Seay, Shirin Rana, and Tammy Anderson.

Improving those scores was not just a simple matter of delivering the order on time. It involves staying in touch with the customer all thru the order process. Let them know if there will be any delays, what day to expect the delivery, and make them aware of what to expect and what to do in case there is a problem. One customer gave us a 4 out of 5 for one simple correctable reason. She got the order a day early than she anticipated, she saved a lot of money, the product was beautiful in her home, so what was the reason? We failed to notify her that the order was shipped and it caught her not prepared to receive the order. We acknowledged our shortcomings and promised to do better. She has since placed another order and this time we received a 5 out of 5 from her.

We are not a perfect company. Our team is made up of human beings, computers, and third party vendors and transportation companies. We do our best to keep orders from falling thru the cracks. But when one does, we try to identify the crack and seal it.

Sometimes it hurts the bottom line to do what is right. but as a service company, if we or any other company are not prepared or willing to service a customer's needs, there will soon not be any customers to service.

Southeastern Freight Lines Honors ACWG

SEFL named American Carpet Wholesalers of GA, Inc as one of their top 25 accounts. Considering that we are in Dalton, Ga along with the big names such as Shaw Industries, Mohawk Industries, Beaulieu of America, and about 100 other carpet manufacturers, this is a huge honor. Just think, 6 years ago it was very hard for us to get supplier recognition. My staff and I realize as long as we continue to provide products at a fair price and great customer service we will continue to grow and set sales records. All I can say to my crew is "You've come along way, baby". Thanks to all.