In previous months I shared how we could not depend on established tests or standards for selecting our product offering. You also discovered why brands are not necessarily a reliable guide to quality and pricing. And last month I let you know that there is a final piece to our product selection process that I’d like to share with you.     

So you might be wondering, “What’s the point and what does it matter to me and my business?” Our goal as a distributor has three parts:

One, offer products that customers actually want, 

Two, not offer products that don’t perform, and 

Three, to have reliable vendors.  

In other words, we wanted to totally satisfy our customers’ needs and furthermore, we want to be able to guarantee their satisfaction. We later condensed this to the idea of “Offering the highest quality products, at the lowest possible price, shipped the same day.” Then we took it a step further by standing behind a promise that if the customers were not totally satisfied with their purchase, that is, if they did not get the best value for their money, Braxton-Bragg would offer to buy it back.

How can we make such a promise and confidently stand behind it? We can do so because several years ago we invested in a very sophisticated information system. We loaded the system with all of the previous history about customers, vendors, and products that we could gather. After all, we do have 20 years of data.  So we decided to use this data to answer three questions:

  • Popularity: Does it sell? More importantly what is the frequency of a second or a third purchase? As Lincoln said, “…you can’t fool all the people all of the time.”
  • Quality: Is the product returned? More importantly, what is the frequency of return?
  • Vendor Performance: Does the vendor deliver on time? Is the paperwork correct or are there errors? Is the product correctly labeled? Is the packaging adequate? Most importantly, does the vendor take responsibility for the inevitable problems that do occur? 

Using a little programming, some simple math that I learned while I worked at Proctor & Gamble, and a powerful computer, we discovered that it wasn’t hard to answer the three questions. What the data told us is that if the product sold well, especially if the repeat orders were strong, the returns were low, then the vendor performance was also good more often than not.  In other words, good vendors provide us with good products. Score one for the good guys.

With a little more programming, we were able to rank every product every day against competitive products within the same category. For instance, within the turbo blade category we asked how does the product compare with other turbo blades? What we discovered is that sometimes we had to tell vendors that while their product is pretty good, it clearly isn’t as good as other products. That’s why more than three years ago we began providing this data to our vendors every month in the form of a report card so that they could improve. Some stepped up to the challenge and some did not. With hard data we could begin pruning the obvious losers so you don’t have to.  

Two years ago we felt that we had made enough progress to offer a 30-day, unconditional, money-back total satisfaction guarantee. Immediately, we had vendors tell us that we were crazy. And maybe we were because no competitor has seen fit to copy us. We’ve even had customers express shock that we would stand behind everything we sell. So since we were all alone in this thinking, we knew we must be on the right track and we pressed ahead.

After two more years of hard work, we now feel more confident than ever in offering our 30-Day Total Satisfaction Guarantee to you. We proudly stand behind every product you see on our website at www.Braxton-Bragg.com. Period. 

Here is the official wording of our 30-Day Total Satisfaction Guarantee:

Braxton-Bragg's 30-Day Total Satisfaction Guarantee

Some of our vendors may still think we are crazy. Most of our competitors are convinced we’re crazy. In fact, I don’t expect any of our competitors to follow us and offer a meaningful guarantee.  

Here’s the bottom line: 

Carrying the items that sell well and make our customers happy and is a great way to reduce returns which then reduces costs. And by reducing costs, we can pass those savings on to you.

Therefore, if you want to remove one element of risk from your business, give us a call because we will stand behind every product we offer. And as you begin to choose to get more and more of your supplies through Braxton Bragg you’ll find yourself feeling reassured and saving money which means you increase your profits. As a business owner, it simply doesn’t get much better than that. 

Have a good read.

Rich Hassert

Email responses to:publisher@slipperyrockgazette.net

P.S. - There is an exception clause—We do not offer any guarantee on any product that we special order for a customer. If it is not on our website, we do not have data to prove to ourselves that it meets the standards of all of our other products. As a customer courtesy we will still do special orders, we just can’t guarantee them.