After sales care from your bell tent supplier will need to be outstanding. Will your supplier be there for you in your hour of need?

Reviews, reviews, reviews! Good suppliers will be using a third party platform to handle their reviews such as Trustpilot. Reviews that are ‘home grown’ (appearing only on their website) can’t always be trusted.

Here is what Trustpilot has to say about their own platform:

“We’re a digital platform that brings businesses and consumers together to foster trust and inspire collaboration. We’re free to use, open to everybody, and built on transparency.

Trustpilot hosts reviews to help consumers shop with confidence, and deliver rich insights to help businesses improve the experiences they offer. The more consumers use our platform and share their own opinions, the richer the insights we offer businesses, and the more opportunities they have to earn the trust of consumers from all around the world.”

The Manufacturer

All bell tent retailers/manufacturers will choose to present themselves and their product in a certain positive light on-line through their websites and various other platforms. You’ll get a good feel for each supplier by comparing their on-line presence. 

However, there is a lot more to manufacturing bell tents than is presented on-line. All of which have an affect on the quality and longevity of your tent. Here follows a deeper question to ask your supplier, the reason why this question is important, what to make of their response and follow up questions to ask.

Q: What Can I Expect in Terms of After Sales Care?

Why This Question is So Important

Inevitably, things can go wrong and you need to know ahead of time if your chosen manufacturer will support you through darker moments.

Let’s say one of your tents is crushed in a storm. The central pole has reached its upper limit and eventually failed. You need a fast replacement. Does your supplier carry a good stock of spare parts? Can they deliver on week-ends?

The Response

Most (if not all) suppliers will tell you their after sales care is the best, that their reviews reflect this, that they’ll go above and beyond to assist.

The key is to get your supplier to commit to you and your new venture before you purchase. Here’s how. 

Ask;

• for out of hours emergency contact details (an emergency is any failing of the product that is affecting the day-to-day running of your venture).
• to be assigned a specific member of their team, an Account Manager.
• if you must pay full price for any spares or maintenance products required, and the level of discount you can expect.
• how quickly they can get out of stock items to you, particularly replacement tents.
• if they have an Area Sales Manager in your area.
• to be put in touch with others using their products in a similar way.
• how they will support you with free advertising. Get them to commit to the type of support you will receive and agree a schedule for it (eg 4x facebook posts a year of 50+ words with 5 images).

The Follow Up

Be sure to get any pre-sale promises in writing (this includes emails). Any commitments promised to you in advance will support and often override the supplier’s terms & conditions of sale. It’s great to talk with suppliers over the phone, but be sure to follow up any phone calls with an email that summarises the main points of discussion, with an invitation for your supplier to correct anything that has been misunderstood.

Consider also these further questions you might like to ask your supplier.