We have a regular delivery from one of our suppliers on Wednesday mornings. Usually their truck is parked in front of the store by the time I arrive to open up. They bring the stuff in, I fill in the amount from the invoice on the check, we say our thank yous and goodbyes, and then I start my prep work for the day.
Today was different. As I was filling out the check the driver asks me if my boss is a late sleeper.
Yeah he can be. Especially on his days off.
The driver then tells me how he’s been parked out front since 8:45 am. How he’s been waiting for someone to arrive.
I tell him (and he knows) that we open at 11am.
He then proceeds to tell me that this is not the first time he’s had to wait for so long. That he even tried calling my boss twice on his cell phone. He even suggested we make a key for him. (Yeah)
Now is this a routing problem for this supplier or should my boss roll out of bed at some ungodly hour (for him) just to make a special trip to the store on his day off? (I know it’s a loaded question)
There have been times in the past where we’ve had door drops from our other suppliers. Once we made it clear that no one arrived at the store until at the earliest, 15 or 20 minutes before 11. The door drops stopped. But this particular supplier seems to think that we should work around his schedule and not the other way around.
Call your rep. The driver is out of line. Would you allow your delivery drivers or wait staff to tall customers they were inconvenient to do business with?
You are a pizza place not a breakfast place and they need to meet your needs not the other way around.
routing is an issue…we had a college store that didn’t open up till 3…we used a key system for both SYSCO & VISTAR…leary @ 1st, but painless…never had 2 wait for last minute deliveries like I’ve had 2 in the past…
Routing was such an issue with us, that we went from two suppliers to one for months. It is definitely not ok for the driver to do this. I have set up a delivery "window’ and still had the driver go upstairs to my tenant, knock on her door, ask her to CALL ME AT HOME, at 830 am, knowing full well that my “window” was 1-3pm. I came down and let him deliver. It was the last delivery from them for two months.
Remember you are the customer. It is not ok to have that attitude from them.
As my store that did not open until 4pm food deliveries meant waiting for a phone call and meeting the truck…After a few weeks of that I asked if there was another system…The supplier said if I gave them a key and left a direct deposit authorization they would simply leave my order in my absense…This worked more or less flawlessly…The only issue was sometimes the invoice was short and the payment that went through was the estimated order amount…And they put our cold and frozen groceries in the right place…This worked for both because even if the driver saved a few minutes on a stop they were way ahead of the game…
Tell them that your hours are so and so, and if they can’t deliver to you in that time frame, you’ll find someone else that will. These guys should all know what your hours are. Once, i had a driver with an attitude, and the company lost the account.
all of are delivery drivers have keys or i leave key hidden no problems yet my ice cream guy gets to our shop before 6:00 am no way im gettin up that early to let him in other drivers usally get there when im open and they know they can grab a soda they appreciate it. heck we even feed them if there hungry.
In my store this would also include giving them the access code to the security system and the pass word for the system if they were not able to remember the access code. It would also mean they would need to activate the system when leaving if theyremembered. NO WAY would that be an option for me. If they are not able to deliver in the window that I have established when I set up the account then I would(and have) close the account.
I would never give them the key. I want my staff checking the order what if there is a short or they forgot something? When this happens I call my rep right aways and they can then fix it immediatly. I would also worry about rotation and also sometimes I have such a big order that I dont have room for everything in the regular place so I have to move things around to make room. When I get into an agrement with a suplier I tell them when they can bring it if they cant do it I move on to someone else. We also have a lot of turnover with these drivers so it would be a nightmare to try to teach a new person every 5-6 weeks
I think this is a common occurence in our industry…if key drops are not an option - than you need to meet the rep at your store for the next delivery and have a 3 person discussion
you are all grown ups - you obviously are purchasing groceries from the supplier that you chose
you can make it work
good luck
As a former delivery driver I can tell you it’s not any fun because you get it stuck to you from both ends, you get crap from your manager and from the customers. Drivers are usually kept in the dark as far as actual delivery instructions usually all they know is they have a stop they want to get off of their truck so they can go to the next stop, believe me it’s frustrating to say the least being stuck in between.
More than likely it is a routing problem if their prices are good enough to warrant going in early on Wednesdays why not deal with it until they can change routing to your convenience.
Drivers shouldn’t really be in the dark if you think about it. All of the suppliers I’ve dealt with always have an instruction box at the top of their invoices telling what the required delivery times are and their usually pretty good about it.