by Serguey Shinder
In the spring of 2023 one of our branches in East Yorkshire was issuing credit notes at about twice the rate of any other. Wrong items keyed, wrong quantities, deliveries sent to last month's site address. Each one meant a correction, an apology and sometimes a second lorry. I looked after the systems the branches ran on, the figures came to me every month, and I had decided what the problem was before I reached the bottom of the page. The branch had a relaxed manager and a reputation for being a bit loose. They were careless.
I said so in a regional meeting, more politely than that, and proposed a refresher on order entry. The regional manager, who knew the branch far better than I did, said nothing in the meeting and afterwards asked me to spend a day behind its counter before I booked any training.
I went on a Thursday. The staff were not careless. In 2022, to save rent, the branch had taken over the tool hire counter from a site that closed, and the same two people now ran both. Hire customers need a safety briefing on every machine, which takes ten minutes and cannot be interrupted. So when the phone rang during a briefing, which between seven and ten it did constantly, whoever was free wrote the order on a pad, and the orders were keyed in later from the pad, often hours later and sometimes by the other person. Most of the mistakes I had been reading about were handwriting.
Nobody had hidden it. The manager had mentioned the hire counter in two quarterly reviews. I had read both and filed them as excuses, because I had already explained the numbers with the kind of people I believed worked there. When something went wrong in my own team, I always looked for what had happened that week. When it went wrong in theirs, I looked at who they were.
The fix took a month. Between seven and ten, phone orders to that branch now go to our central sales team, who key them directly while the customer is on the line. A third person covers the hire counter on the two busiest mornings. The credit note rate fell below the regional average by the summer, with the same manager and the same staff.
I still catch myself doing it. What has changed is the order of the questions. When people I do not know well make mistakes, I go and look at what their day is like before I decide what kind of people they are.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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