Timeline

When a customer’s timeline is on the line.

It’s not too difficult to keep clients happy. You have their parts in stock and maintain a regular delivery schedule. All is well. But when an emergency situation occurs, a machine goes down and no replacement part is on site, every hour of downtime is costing them money. Not only are they counting on you to source the part for them, but they also needed it yesterday! When the clock is ticking and every minute counts, who can you call with confidence, knowing they’ll not only have the part you need but will also get it to your customer ASAP?

The right Master Distributor can be the ace up your sleeve in a time of crisis and help you shine in the eyes of your customer. Master Distributors are, in essence, sourcing partners for a wide variety of other distributors. However, not all Master Distributors are created equal.

A great Master Distributor will work with you to better understand your business — and more importantly, your customers’ business. They may end up recommending a blanket order or stock-and-release program for those hard-to-find parts or items you sell on a regular basis, allowing them to ship you parts at a moment’s notice, even drop or bli­nd drop ship parts direct to your customer to save time.

When partnering with a Master Distributor, ensure that they have following capabilities:

  • Maintain a high in-stock rate of common inventory items
  • Offer custom shipping options and expedites
  • Ability to drop or blind drop ship direct to your customer
  • Offer stock-and-release programs
  • Ability for you to find what you need 24/7 with online shopping
  • Provide an easy way to cross reference OEM parts with direct replacement stock
  • Have technical staff or an engineer to help with application support

 

Lastly, a quality Master Distributor should provide you some reassurance that they will do what they say they’ll do in the form of a guarantee and stand behind their orders. By following the guidelines above, the emergency call from your client who’s down on the job site will simply be one more opportunity for you to remind them why they chose to work with you in the first place.

Earnest Machine is ready to be the “ace up your sleeve.” With more than 10,000 SKUs of high-strength, large-diameter, and hard-to-find fasteners for the construction and heavy equipment industry, Earnest Machine maintains an average 98.5% in-stock rate of our common “A” items. Ready to ship anywhere, anytime, in any quantity needed. Earnest can drop ship and blind drop ship direct to your customers’ sites and offers a guarantee on their services.

Ask your Earnest Machine Representative how we can help keep you and your customer in stock and up and running this building season and all year long.

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