A while back, I wrote about how valuable a good relationship with your vendors can be. I recently had living proof of that, yet again.

Over the past month, I’ve been dealing with one of those orders that nothing goes right on: I had trouble getting the layout for the artwork just right. When I received the payment notice, the online payment system get glitching. When I tried to call them, the phone just kept ringing forever (weather issues affected phone lines at their location).

Luckily, it was actually an order for my own promotional needs. While I was on a deadline for a specific event, better me than a client.

I finally got all those issues straightened out and got through to my vendor. I was clearly unhappy with the delays, but not angry. My factory rep, on her own, put this order on a rush at no charge to me so that it wouldn't be delayed.

At 5 am today, I got a call from someone in Connecticut (I’m in California) asking me why she had a box of mints with the Lev Promotions logo and information on them? Aside from the fact that I didn’t know my own name at that hour, I also didn’t have an answer for her – just questions of my own. Once I was awake, I called my trusty factory rep.

Turns out my order (yes, the one with all the other problems) somehow had a note placed in the file that it was to be shipped to this Connecticut address. So my hand sanitizers, which I needed for this week, are now across the country needing to be picked back up by UPS (that can take up to a week) and shipped out to me.

Oh, one more thing, the box broke when this woman picked it up, so now the little bottles are everywhere.

My factory rep called me to tell me all about the broken box and to apologize for all the mishaps. In order to not have to worry about the broken box and any damaged or missing sanitizers, the factory is re-running my order and will ship it out overnight UPS delivery. Everything at their expense.

I truly appreciate the effort my factory rep is going to to make this as right as possible. Thanks to my relationship with this vendor, they jumped through hoops to make this right – I never even had to make a request or a demand or get angry.

Moral of the story: treat your vendors right and they will have your back when things go wrong.