Logistics Customer Service: The Story of the Wilson Ham Company

Culture and tradition are sustained by stories.  Here’s one from the KANE archives.

Back in 1957, KANE Freight Lines was still in the early stages of growth, with a very small fleet serving the valley cities of Northeast Pennsylvania.  But KANE was slowly adding new customers and one of them was The Wilson Ham Company.

That company had made a decision to change delivery partners.  But Wilson’s shipping clerk had a strong relationship with the displaced trucking company and did not support the shift to KANE.  Early on in the new relationship, he purposely shorted the inventory on an inbound truck, contending that the goods received did not match the paperwork.

Despite his certainty that the products that were loaded were the products delivered, Gene Kane, Sr. covered the cost of the “lost” inventory and absorbed a significant loss.  He followed the simple logistics customer service axiom: “the customer is always right.”

Nothing more was ever said about the incident.  Eventually, that shipping clerk became one of KANE’s biggest supporters.