Confirmation, tracking, and transparency

If you’ve done this, you know that sinking feeling after you click the mouse.

Last week I booked tickets to The FABRICATOR’s Leadership Summit, the 6^th Annual Metal Matters, to take place in sunny Orlando, Fla. These days I’m probably not the only one who likes to think about warmer climates. Thing is, the event’s March 2-4, and I inadvertently booked a ticket for an extended stay, Feb. 2 to March 4.

What had I done?



I immediately called the airline and listened to Muzak® for 10 minutes before a human being picked up. She laughed, told me it happens often, and changed the tickets to the correct dates for no charge. Before I hung up, I nervously asked, “You’re going to be sending me a confirmation e-mail, right?” She said no problem, and that was that.

But no e-mail came for a few hours. On the airline Web site, my booked ticket confirmation just sat there unchanged Feb. 2 to March 4. Every half hour, I would check back, and there it was, staring back at me: Feb. 2 to March 4. And no e-mail came. Four hours later I picked up the phone, started to dial, and then that familiar Microsoft Outlook bell chimed, and there it was--the new ticket. I hung up, sat back, and breathed easier.

OK, admittedly, I’m a bit of a control freak (alright, more than a bit). But still, it is odd how little we trust people these days, but how much we trust the computer, at least when it comes to business transactions. If “the computer says it” and the company doesn’t deliver, we have a leg to stand on when contesting the order.

A company Web page showing an order confirmation number (and that cryptic number always makes it seem even more official) is black-and-white proof that a transaction occurred and such-and-such product or service is promised. It’s a little disconcerting that I didn’t trust the ticket agent, but I suppose that’s the age we live in. We need to see it in writing, and if we don’t, it’s amazing the drama that can ensue.

Tracking and transparency does wonders for trust, and FedEx and UPS are evidence of that. Thanks to confirmation, tracking, and transparency, the two private companies took market share away from the postal service, a government-backed organization.

Having it in writing means there’s less confusion. Everyone is on the same page within the company and between companies. I recall sitting in a company conference room and talking with a president of a metal fabrication company in the Midwest. As I started to ask a question, the operations manager rushed in to discuss a part that wasn’t made and, according to company records, was never ordered--obviously the result of some communication mishap.

Other fabricators have told me that communication is a big issue. In fact, as long as the drawing is correct and clean, the actual fabrication is somewhat straightforward. But getting the drawing, cleaning it up, and communicating part details with customers remain hurdles. For instance, one fabricator told me how his company lost work to China, only to find out later that the Chinese manufacturer was making the part to looser tolerances. If the U.S. fabricator had known about those looser tolerances, the company could have quoted a more competitive price, which would have meant keeping the business.

These days, when it comes to nuts-and-bolts communication--part details, dates, times, quotes, schedules--most of it can be done effectively online, and that’s where software has come into play. They have fancy names that make a mouthful of acronyms, but they’re all really just about communication.

The acronym list seems ever-growing. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and the even broader manufacturing execution systems (MES) ensure constant communication among everyone in the enterprise, from job tracking on the floor to financial tracking in the front office. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems track sales and marketing strategies, including the timing of calls, e-mails, and direct marketing material. E-commerce systems build on this, opening the communication between companies in a supply chain. There’s product lifecycle management (PLM) software for product designers and maintenance personnel.

ERP, MES, CRM, PLM….the list goes on. All of them work (at least ideally) to attaining the most efficient level of transparency between departments and between different levels of the supply chain.

Deciding how much to share can be a conundrum, but at least some level of job tracking would seem to make sense. Customers can log in to their account and see where jobs stand, ensure the job has the correct drawings attached to it (with the correct tolerances), and check the scheduled completion date. It doesn’t replace one-on-one customer conversation, but augments it. Such transparency, at least ideally, would prevent miscommunication. And communication is becoming more critical than ever as shops deal with smaller, more frequent orders.

That written confirmation arriving in the e-mail inbox may do wonders for a customer’s peace of mind. And with those confirmations in writing, customer conversations don’t need to start with, “Where’s my stuff?” They can start with something that could offer a bit more intelligence about what’s going on in the marketplace.

Something like, “How’s business?”