Keeping in touch with buyers when winter cuts you off

Suppose that from late December the highway shuts for days at a time and the couriers stop giving dates. Delhi buyers may then hear nothing until March, and some may not come back. Nobody can beat the snow. What you can do is agree a dispatch plan before winter and tell every buyer what it is before the first heavy snow. Then send short updates through the winter, so that silence never looks like closure. A delay the buyer was warned about is easier to forgive than a supplier who went quiet.

Why a quiet January costs more than a late order

A shawl showroom in Delhi or a gift shop in Jaipur has its best weeks exactly when your road is at its worst. Winter wear sells from November, then come Christmas and New Year gifting and the wedding season. The buyer there does not follow the Jammu to Srinagar highway. To the buyer, a phone that goes unanswered during Chillai Kalan looks like a workshop that has shut. The shelf is filled from someone who can be reached, and once that supplier is on it, you are competing for the space again in spring.

Many buyers outside Jammu and Kashmir who depend on Valley sellers never see the snow. They see the silence. The early signs that one of them is drifting away are set out in how to identify customers at risk of leaving.

Agree the dispatch plan before the snow

Write it on one page in October, while the road is open and you can still move stock:

• Last dispatch date from the Valley that you will commit to, with a margin.
• Stock below the snow: what you will hold in Jammu or with a partner in Delhi, and for which buyers. Buyers who reorder in winter come first.
• A person outside the Valley, a relative or an agent in Jammu or Delhi, who can answer the phone and send stock from there if your network and road are both down.
• Winter terms: advances, part dispatches, and what happens to an order a closure catches.
• What is being made: weaving and carving carry on through the winter, so you can tell buyers what will be ready when the road opens.

Holding stock in Jammu or Delhi costs rent and ties up money. Do it for the buyers who reorder in winter and have somewhere else to go, not for everyone.

The winter message plan

Five moments matter. Here is what goes out at each.

1. Before the first heavy snow. A call, not a text, to the buyers who matter most, then the plan in writing to all: "Our last dispatch from Srinagar this winter is [date]. After that, [items] ship from our Jammu stock as normal. If you cannot reach me, call [name] in Delhi on [number]."
2. The day the highway first closes for long. Two lines. "The highway has been closed since [day]. Orders from our Jammu stock are moving normally; Valley orders leave when the road opens, and I will message you that day."
3. Through the winter, as work is finished. A text, not a call: a photograph of new work on the loom or the bench, and anything ready to ship from below the snow. Here is a sample: "Walnut trays for the spring are drying now; 30 are ready to ship from Jammu if you want them for February."
4. When the road opens. A call to each buyer with a stuck order, then a text listing every pending order with its dispatch date, listed in the order you will send them.
5. In spring. Thanks to the buyers who waited, and the new range.

New enquiries keep arriving while the road is shut, so someone outside the Valley should answer those on time too.

When an order is stuck on the highway

Tell the buyer before the buyer asks. Then give a choice rather than an apology alone:

Your order of 20 shawls left Srinagar on [date] and is held at [place] because the highway is closed. You can wait for it, and I will message you the day it moves. Or I can send 10 from our Delhi stock tomorrow and the rest when the road opens. Tell me which suits you better.

Never give a date the road controls; give the date you control. "Weather issue" with no date and no choice is the message that loses accounts. Keep a note of every stuck order, what you offered and what the buyer chose, so next winter's plan starts from what really happened.

For example: a woodcarving workshop and a Christmas order

For example, imagine a walnut-wood and papier-mache workshop in Srinagar that supplies gift shops in Delhi and Jaipur. One winter the owner says nothing from mid-December. Power and network fail for days in a heavy snow, a Delhi shop's Christmas order is still in the workshop, and when the shop calls, nobody answers. The shop assumes the workshop has closed and fills the shelf from woodcarvers in Saharanpur.

The next year the owner changes the order of things. In October the owner calls the regular shops and asks what they will need for Christmas and New Year, and that stock goes to a cousin's godown in Jammu before the snow. Every shop gets the plan in writing, with a nephew's Delhi number on it. When the highway closes in January, the shops hear from the workshop the same day. Some orders still arrive late. The shops waiting for them know what they are waiting for, and who to call.

Skip all but the first message if your trade is summer-only or your buyers stock up in autumn and never reorder before spring.

Call the winter buyers while the road is open

Go through last winter's invoices and list every buyer who ordered between December and February. Ring the ones who matter most before the first snow and agree what they will need. Then write the one-page plan, and send the first message while the couriers still give dates. Doing this when an order has already gone wrong is service recovery programmes work; if you want help with the buyer list or the messages, tell us what you need.