In today's business environment, the adage, "It's not the problem, it's how you solve it," is more important than ever.

Distributors should be empowered to solve problems so the customer has the quickest response. And to that end, as manufacturers, we should communicate that we stand behind our distributors when they make a decision…even if it's a wrong decision, we'll always back them.

Let's face it: the distributor is on the spot, and manufacturers are far away; the distributor is the one who has to act if we're going to fix the customer's problem, with little or no delay in his schedule.

If you get caught up in pointing fingers — whose fault is it, who's going to pay for it, how will this be backcharged — you lose valuable time; possibly so much time that the distributor (and then the manufacturer) may end up losing business. You have to ask yourself, is this $1,000 problem really worth the risk of losing $100,000 in business?

Distributors are stuck in the middle between their customers and suppliers; if there are problems, they can be powerless. Distributors should know that when this happens, their manufacturers will work with them to solve the problem first, then figure out why it happened. This approach pays off for them and their customers, and enhances the manufacturer's own reputation for great service and an "easy to do business with" attitude, contributing to everyone's success.

At Toronto Gear, we manufactured a special metric pulley to spec for a Canadian packaging manufacturer, who, upon receiving it, said the parts were incorrect. Rather than wasting time accusing us of making them wrong, the distributor went to the job site and discovered that the customer actually had made an error in designing the drive. He called us in and together we designed a new drive, made new parts and got the customer up and running.

The distributor's willingness to move quickly to pinpoint the problem, and work with us to find a solution, meant that the customer received the needed parts right way, and we both were rewarded with additional business.

We once manufactured parts with a very tight tolerance for a distributor's OEM customer on a rush basis. Immediately after they arrived, we received a call from the distributor advising us that the OEM had rejected the parts for being out of tolerance. We sent the extra parts we'd put into inventory to our own QC department to be re-inspected, only to discover that every dimension tested to tolerance.

We were baffled. How could the parts on our shelf be manufactured to tolerance, but those at the customer not be?

A brainstorming session turned up a possible answer: the parts had been flown to Chicago in December. We suggested that the distributor ask his OEM to wait until the parts were at room temperature and check them again. The parts passed their inspection with flying colors. Our solution enhanced both the distributor's reputation and our own…and only the weather was blamed for the problem.

Remember: Customers never remember the error—everyone makes mistakes. What they remember is how you fix them, as long as you fix them right.