Why Consistently Communicating With Manufacturers Helps Your Customers

MCS Influencer Haley Iselin says having a follow-up system with manufacturers can help ensure a timely delivery. 

Editor’s note: The following consists of a conversation between MCS Multimedia Manager Megan Ellsworth, and Metal Roof Specialties’ Vice President Haley Iselin. 

Megan Ellsworth: All right. This is for July, and it is, how do you work with your metal manufacturers for timely deliveries? 

Haley Iselin: So for us, and we're in distribution, so we work closely with contractors and also do-it-yourselfers to get the metal that they need for their customers or their own projects. And something that we do with all of our orders is we have a system in place of regularly following up with the manufacturers, checking in on orders, and making sure they're on time, they're still on schedule, and then getting updates as we get closer to that anticipated delivery date on exactly when people can expect their order to deliver or to arrive. Because sometimes it's hard to demand of others to provide information, we take it upon ourselves to do that follow-up. 

And sometimes we feel like we might be somebody's pain in the butt, but we feel like it's worth it for our customers and the people that we're working with to be able to provide that information. So we follow up with that. Particularly with some of the contractor customers that we work with, who on a regular basis are placing orders, and especially some of the ones that are newer to the metal offering, one of the things that we like to work with them on upfront and we're happy to help people with as they are entering that market is helping them learn the difference in ordering metal versus ordering composition. Because metal, most of it is being produced for that order and it's not something sitting on a shelf. And so being really accurate upfront and making sure we have enough supplies, so that when they get their delivery, it's complete, they have what they need is so important. 

And then we're not having to place another bunch of orders and delaying their project more and more and more. So there is this piece upfront that we really like to be able to sit down and work closely with those installers and contractors, making sure we understand their project. We can help them make sure, again, they have the extras that they need. But we don't want them to have tons of extra. That doesn't make sense on a cost standpoint for anybody. But making sure they have enough, so they're not running out and delaying that project. So that's that other piece to the deliveries is making sure they have what they need upfront because that stuff isn't going to be available in an hour to go pick up at your local store. So that preparation part is also huge in metal, especially compared to some of the other products out there. 

Haley Iselin is the vice president at Metal Roof Specialties. See her full bio here.