The Job Isn't Over Until The Order Is Fulfilled

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Let’s take a look at how Fulfillment companies are chosen.  Usually, an account manager in Telemarketing or Production refers a friend in the industry, or a company they have worked with in the past. Sometimes they just provide contact info for a company they have heard does a good job. This seems like a sound option initially, due to that manager’s niche experience and knowing a lot of people in the industry. However, they are involved in a completely different service and probably know very little of the nuances of fulfillment when making that recommendation.

As a marketing company, ad agency, manufacturer or Fortune 500 company, what is the best way to choose a Direct Response Fulfillment company? How can you be assured that they offer the services your project demands? 

Before even considering one of a long list of fulfillment providers that may be appropriate, analyzing your own campaign and coming up with a list of issues and needs is a first step.  A few critical ones that will impact your fulfillment decision are:

• Is your product made domestically or overseas and how far away from its domestic origination point will the fulfillment house be?
• Is continuity in either the main offer or on an upsell planned?
• Will your product have more than 3% return rate?
• Is your product sold nation-wide or will there be regions that have more sales?
• Will you have many customer service calls and will those calls have a disposition concerning order shipment or an inquiry into the product its usage, assembly of effectiveness?
• Will you create your website in-house, have your own team of web developers or completely out-source your web strategy?

Of course there are many more internal needs that should be considered but this will help in the early planning stages. 

Too often, marketers boil down their fulfillment choice on tangible issues like price.  Interestingly enough, there are many hidden costs fulfillment companies charge which  can be surprising to a marketer after the first invoice is sent.  Everything from pallet charges to post office box pick up charges can increase the fulfillment costs per order. This is usually beyond the original expectation.  When quarters count in maximizing a campaign, pricing needs to be analyzed very carefully.

But the non-tangible issues of trust, reputation, reporting, IT infra-structure and human resources, are every bit as important as the costs involved when making the decision of which fulfillment company is right for a project. 

Understanding how each fulfillment company under consideration got into the DRTV business is critical.  How do they run their company?  How many Account Managers do they have and who will be the assigned account manager?  How many IT people are on staff in the event of a computer melt down? What measures have they taken to protect security, data back-up and eliminate redundancy?