I got all the good jobs. When I was selling carpet tiles
internationally my focus was occasionally taken away to help out some of my UK
colleagues whose product specialisms occasionally took them into foreign lands.
And at times I had a great time doing it as a distraction from square things
and office interiors. But sorting out problems that others had either not
wanted, or not been able to resolve, soon became a large part of the
distraction!
Our sister company manufactured sports surfaces, and one of
their main product lines was fibre-bonded textile surfaces for indoor bowls,
with their main customers being bowls clubs in the Netherlands who we sold to
via a very capable distributor. Our Special Products Manager, a good friend and
first class sales person took me to meet the distributor and some of the bowls
surface customers, and on that visit it became evident that there was a
possible technical problem with one of the recently delivered ‘mats’ (a ‘mat’
being about 4 metres wide and the length of a sports hall!). It was ‘pilling’,
meaning that some of the fibres were coming away from the backing, so we agreed
that we would look into the production for that batch and if necessary replace
the affected mat.
To cut a long and boring story necessarily short, a
replacement mat was despatched some weeks later after the Technical Manager and
his team had investigated the problem in-house and checked previous production
parameters. Shortly after that there were a number of calls from different
Dutch bowling clubs to report both a similar, and a different problem with the
new surfaces. As ‘Muggins’ here travelled regularly through the Netherlands, I
was sent to assess their complaints. There were three main complaints: pilling,
dimensional instability, and the deposit of a glue-like substance on the
bowling woods and shoes of the club members. And I don’t know if you have ever
been confronted with a squad of septuagenarian and octogenarian bowling club
members whose days and weeks are completely dedicated to bowling perfection,
cups of tea, and little else, but I can tell you it is neither a pretty, nor a
quick experience!
My first ‘solo’ return visit seemed to go quite well. It was
obvious to me (and to everyone apart from our Technical Manager) that there was
too much latex holding the fibres into the backing, hence the glue-like deposit
(“…and are you going to replace my shoes Mr. Reed?”said one lady in a hat
brandishing a stick), and that the latex was not of sufficient consistency to
hold all of the fibres in place on the mat. However, I had no explanation to
offer for the dimensional instability. Surrounded by then by a group of
increasingly happy if intimidating amateur sports boffins, I was pleased and
relieved to be offered a cup of tea and a tour of the trophy room. Bizarrely, above
the exit door to the club room was an autographed cricket bat, signed by the
Nottinghamshire cricket team. They didn’t play cricket at the bowling club and
none of them had ever seen a game, but they were nevertheless very proud of
their bat!
Following my visit two further batches of bowls mats were
despatched, both with similar and different problems! And as someone who likes
to live up to my promises I took it upon myself to stand at the end of the
production line when the further replacements were being manufactured, checking
the job sheets and weighing and measuring the rolls after they had been off the
machines for a period of time. But even that sterling effort failed to prevent
a recurrence, and the bowlers were rightly beginning to demand their money
back.
I was due a further sales visit into France and Belgium so I
asked the Technical Manager to fly into Schiphol Airport where I would collect
him and take him to some of the complaint sites. Time for him to take some flak
for a change. He finally admitted that with the old production machinery we
used it was impossible to achieve the level of consistency that was required by
the bowling clubs, and eventually the product ceased to be. I left it for him
to resolve outstanding matters with the Dutch bowling community. So on a Friday
in the middle of a hot, late Spring afternoon, we started our journey (or
escape) towards the Channel Tunnel, only then to find that every route we tried
out of the Netherlands was gridlocked. It turned out that the following day was
Queens Day and that the good people of Holland were all aiming for the places
where they normally celebrate this public holiday.
Even though Queen Beatrix was born in January, the official
Queen’s birthday had remained on 30th April which her Mother Juliana
had established even though her birthday is in September. And now that Queen
Beatrix has abdicated in favour of her son Willem-Alexander, it may be the
Queens Day has had its day or maybe needs to be renamed! That aside, it took us
four and a half hours to find our way out of the country en route to the
Channel Tunnel and a long drive back to Accrington. So as well as learning that
putting right a complaint from an international customer can be a time
consuming and costly process, I also learned that travelling on public holidays
can be both frustrating and unproductive.
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