Hi Mark,
I strongly agree with your line of reasoning.
Customer complaints should be taken as areas for improvement and being part
of delighting the customer.
Cheers
Noel Descalzo
Quality Assurance Co-ordinator
Sanford Timaru
Hall St., North Mole
Timaru, New Zealand
ph 03 6888054 local 742
fax 03 6889268
ndescalzo@sanford.co.nz
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Neely [mailto:surefish@az.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 5 February 2003 14:40
To: philhoule@bozzutos.com; seafood@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: Seafood Returns
Phil,
Your customers are retail sales outlets?
Regardless, as a customer of any item, I would not want to buy a product
unless there is a guarantee that if I am not happy with the item, I can
return it. I think that is good business. I don't pay for a meal until
after I have eaten it.
Buying seafood is not like buying a product like, say toothpaste. I imagine
that toothpaste ingredients are always the same and the final product is
always the same. You know what you are buying when you buy a tube of
toothpaste. But with seafood, there are so many variables that affect
quality: from day to day, season to season, boat to boat, pond to pond,
processor to processor, and so on. You just don't know what you are getting
until you take a good look at it. How can you say, once the trucker leaves
the premises, the sale is final? What trucker would wait long enough for
the buyer to slack out frozen samples to verify that they are getting what
was represented as "the product"? What buyer is at the warehouse to receive
a truck load? No wonder you have had some very angry customers.
As a former inspector for a large buyer of seafood, I saw many instances of
beautiful samples presented to us, only to find that upon inspection of the
delivered product, it was not the same thing.
So to answer your question, yes, I think you are being too hard nosed on
this issue, especially for frozen product and if the complaint is due to
quality issues. You may have a case for fresh product, but there still
should be recourse for complaints due to poor quality. Your customer should
be liable for how they handle the product before returning it though.
What about your suppliers of seafood? Do they consider the sale final when
their truck leaves your premises?
Mark D. Neely
Surefish, Inc.
.
---- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Houle" <philhoule@bozzutos.com>
To: <seafood@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:23 PM
Subject: Seafood Returns
> Since joining the seafood group I have found the responses to questions by
> members of the group to be very helpful and informative. I'm looking for
> some guidance in whether to accept or reject seafood items as a returned
> item from a retail customer.
>
> Recently I have had a few meetings with our company's seafood buyers and
> customer service departments to affirm my position that no seafood item,
> fresh or frozen, is to be returned from any of our retail customers once
the
> shipment has been accepted by the retailer and our truck driver has left
> their property. This has caused a few angry customers. Sometimes the
reason
> for the requested return of product is due to the wrong item delivered.
> Other times it was the retailer that ordered the wrong item or order too
> much. The reasons are many but my stance has been that once the retail
> customer accepts the shipment and our driver has left their property to
> return to our warehouse we cannot accept any seafood product to be
returned.
> I view the retailer as a supplier to us once custody of product control
has
> taken place and therefore would require them to have a Seafood HACCP
> Program.
>
> Am I too hard nosed with this issue? You response would be very much
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
>
>
> Phil Houle
> HACCP Manager
>
>
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