It’s cold outside, but I’m in luck, being hot under the collar.
I have a problem with a Christian publisher.
Not in the sense of an author having a problem with his own publisher, but in the sense that a bookstore manager has trouble with a supplier.
I deal with a lot of Christian publishers, and a few secular ones, and most of the time I find them professional, helpful and prompt. If there’s a problem, they let me know about it.
I’ve found one exception, though.
I’d love to tell you the name of the company, but I guess it would be prudent and charitable to withhold it.
January is Interterm, or “J-Term” at our schools. All students enroll in their choices out of a small selection of one-month courses.
Back in December, one of our instructors, well ahead of deadline, put in a request for the one book he wanted to use for his class. It’s a large class. I planned to order 100 copies.
The book is published by a small publisher (amazing how often the books our instructors want for mission classes come from little bitty publishers), but I learned that this particular major publisher was acting as their distributor. Great. We have a business account with that publisher. We even have some credit on our account.
I called the order in, and told the salesman I needed the books by January 5. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” were his exact words.
OK.
January 5, the first day of class, arrives, and the books are not here by the end of the day. The next day I call the publisher.
“Oh, we’re not actually distributing for that publisher anymore,” said the woman at the other end of the line. “But we’ll still be filling the order. It’s going out today. It should take about three days to arrive.”
So I told the instructor I expected the books to be here by Monday at the latest, possibly Friday. He was disappointed, but what could we do?
I called later in the week to check on the status of the order. “That one will be going out on Friday,” I was told.
I informed the instructor of this further delay.
I called again on Tuesday (yesterday), because I wanted to check on the full invoice amount, to determine price and have the books on sale as soon as possible. “Oh, that order has been divided into two parts. The first part should be there tomorrow.”
The books came today.
Six books.
I called the publisher again. I was told they had been filling orders out of existing stock, and six were all they had had left to send me. If I wanted the other 94, I’d have to order them from the new distributor.
I called the instructor, who instructed me to just cancel the whole thing. Too late. The class is half over.
I don’t care to accuse a Christian publisher of lying, but at every stage in this process, the information they gave me was false. Although I’d made it clear that I needed to have the books ASAP, they concealed from me the fact that it was likely they couldn’t fill the complete order.
I’m really, really tempted to tell you their name.
I think you should send a respectful letter to the owners of the company, and tell them they need to improve their business processes.
They need to know you’re upset so they’ll have an opportunity to apologize and fix the problem so it won’t occur in the future. Maybe their sales people need to be reminded to check if they can fill orders.
I sent a stiff e-mail to their customer service department, and also expressed my disappointment (politely) to the agent I spoke with today.
That’s surprising. I hope it isn’t a symptom of a large problem in their company–I guess what I’m saying is that I wish them the best in solving the problem whatever it is.
It’s times like this that Mafia connections might be useful.
So sorry, Lars. It reminds me of trying to get needed medicine for a family member when he was in the hospital. It was easier to drive home and pick up our own stock that to get it from the hospital pharmacy
When my wife and I run into poor service, I’m apt to say that this sort of thing is just going to become more common. It is or will be the new normal, or so I expect, and no doubt I will perceive plenty of evidence to confirm my expectations. (Yes, I know, I know…) I think there are various reasons for this. Many young people now out in the work world began working with jobs about which they felt cynical or at least detached from the beginning (in fast food joints and so on). They are used to having their attention dissipated rather than focused on preparing quality work for school.
I also think that we haven’t seen anything yet as regards the hostility towards the elderly that people who, like me, are now middle-aged, are likely to encounter as the tax base shrinks and more people retire and absorb benefits paid for by the relatively young. Manifestations will range from less respect relative to what an elderly person might have expected in former times, to widespread acceptance of withholding medical assistance to sickly or dying oldsters. This is happening already in Britain, if I’m not mistaken.