Right now, nobody is overseeing this: the salesperson considers the order closed, while the buyer keeps sending requests. The money has come in. Why does the owner have to work out again what was promised to whom and who should pay for the rework?
Imagine an office furniture manufacturer. A customer paid for a counter, then sent the salesperson a new drawing — now it is longer. The salesperson forwarded the file to the workshop. The parts had already been cut to the previous drawing. The buyer expects the new counter by the original deadline, production is trying to salvage what has been made, and the salesperson is sure they let everyone know in time.
A simple solution suggests itself: ban changes after payment. I would not rush into that yet. We have not established whether the buyer changed their mind or finally noticed something the company had intended to do incorrectly from the start.
A late email does not in itself mean the work is additional.
First, find the measurement that started it all
In this situation, I would ask the head of sales to open the buyer’s original requirement, the confirmed order and the instructions held by production. Alongside them, the new email. We want to know at which handover the measurement first changed.
If the customer specified the required length before paying, but the salesperson missed it in the calculation, you need to examine the sale. How did the requirement disappear? Did they check the order details with the buyer, or agree only the total amount? The head of sales tells the salesperson to restore the correct order details and checks subsequent orders prepared in the same way. Demanding an extra payment because the email came late will leave the original mistake in place.
If the buyer confirmed the correct measurement and production received that same measurement but cut the parts differently, you can train the salesperson all you like. The head of production decides how to put it right and by when; the salesperson tells the buyer the decision and checks that they have received it.
If the previous measurement was agreed and passed on correctly, and the buyer requested a different one after paying, there is new work to assess. In our example, some of the material has already been cut. So before answering the customer, you need to understand which parts can be used, which will have to be made again and what will happen to the deadline.
And if there is no confirmed version, I do not yet know who changed the order. A confident explanation from the head of sales about a demanding customer does not tell me who changed it. We will have to piece together what was agreed from the correspondence and with the people involved, then agree a way out of the dispute.
The file arrived. The decision was skipped
Let us say we have established that the buyer really did decide to make the counter longer. Now let us look at what happened between their request and the rework.
The salesperson sent the drawing so production could assess whether the change was possible. The person doing the work may have understood this as a replacement for the existing instructions. The buyer received confirmation that the file had been accepted and assumed the company had agreed. Yet nobody discussed either the additional work or the new date with them.
Everyone reacted quickly. The order is already changing on terms no one chose.
An old habit from a small company can survive this way: the person who made the sale knew what had been made and could immediately decide whether to make a concession. When selling and doing the work were separated, forwarding a file remained just as easy. But connecting the request with the finished parts and the promised deadline now requires an answer from someone else.
If the head of sales only checks that the money has been received, this part is left out of their work. The salesperson continues to respond on behalf of the company, although the sales report says everything is already done. Another note recording that the file was forwarded will show activity, but will not answer who authorised the rework.
The customer needs a quick answer. What kind?
That is a fair objection: if every request leads to a lengthy approval process, the buyer will tire of waiting. Two jobs are being mixed up here — quickly acknowledging the question and confirming that the company is ready to make the change on specific terms.
The salesperson can do the first immediately: note what is changing and say when they will return with an answer. The second requires information about progress on the work. If cutting has not yet started, there is enough material and the date remains unchanged, a response from production will allow the change to be accepted without unnecessary waiting, within the agreed limits of authority.
If the parts are already finished, the decision is different. You can offer a different deadline and terms, keep the original version or have the company cover part of the costs. The owner sets prices and limits on concessions; the head of sales chooses within those limits. They bring any exception beyond those limits to the owner, with calculations and options.
So a ban on all changes is too blunt. A mandatory extra payment for every email is too: it would apply both to a new measurement and to correcting a requirement that was missed. And forwarding every question to the owner means making them gather information all over again that the salesperson and the workshop already have.
A request needs an answer, and the workshop needs current instructions
You can start with one type of order. The head of sales and the head of production trace the most recent instances of rework and check whether work really did begin before agreement was reached. If the instructions were correct and the mistakes happened during manufacture, there is no reason to make the approval process in sales stricter: the cause lies further along.
If it is the step from request to decision that was missed, you need to agree on specific actions:
- The salesperson keeps both versions. Shows what the customer confirmed before and what they are requesting now. Tells the buyer when to expect an answer, without promising an outcome before checking.
- Production assesses the consequences. States which part of the order is ready, what additional work is needed and what date is achievable. Its head decides what can continue and what should be paused while the parties reach agreement.
- The head of sales checks the proposal to the buyer. Checks whether there is confirmation from the person doing the work, whether the costs are clear and whether they have the authority needed. After the salesperson replies, checks whether the customer has agreed to the revised order details and terms.
- The person doing the work confirms the replacement of the instructions. Shows which version they are now working from. The old version is removed from the current instructions and kept in the history. Simply adding a new file to the folder is not enough.
There is an awkward case that is easy to miss: the buyer decided against the change. The salesperson has finished the negotiations, but the new drawing is already in the workshop. So the head of sales also checks the refusal — the person doing the work must understand that they need to continue with the original agreed order.
And the approval process cannot be abandoned halfway through. If production has not replied by the promised time, the head of sales finds out what delayed the calculation and makes sure the buyer is contacted again. The buyer should not have to guess whether the new counter or the old one is being made for them.
Next week, check when the rework started
For this check, you need new changes to orders of the chosen type. For each one, the head of sales compares what was confirmed to the buyer, when the person doing the work accepted the replacement instructions and when they started the rework. Matching files are not enough: they could have been put in order after the material was already ruined.
If the revised order details and terms were agreed before the rework, and the workshop really is working from the accepted instructions, the required action is now in place. If approval is recorded but the person doing the work opened a different drawing, you need to fix how the instructions are passed on. Asking the salesperson to fill in the order record even more carefully is pointless here.
Separately, look at corrections of your own mistakes. Is a measurement missed during the sale sitting there waiting for approval of an extra payment? That procedure needs to change: the department has learnt to collect approvals, but has delayed work it should have done from the start.
If there were no requests for changes during the week, there is nothing to check yet. If there were, you can assess the actions, and compare costs after similar orders have been completed. You will need to account for rework, additional work and concessions the company deliberately covered itself.
The head of sales’ own explanation needs checking too
The owner should not have to read every correspondence thread. But they need to distinguish between the causes of costs: a requirement was missed, a new request was accepted without assessment, or something was made incorrectly from correct instructions. And they need to see who is already correcting the recurring mistake.
At RENTROP, this work is part of “turnkey sales management”. The head of sales is responsible for the actions of salespeople, including promises about paid orders. The business development director checks their decisions: whether they looked at the original agreement before calling the rework a concession to the customer; whether they followed up on the change after the salesperson forwarded it. AI helps analyse the available data and correspondence, while the client’s production team confirms whether it can be made.
Prices, the budget and permitted concessions remain the owner’s responsibility. Their team runs manufacturing. Agreed terms and the reasons for exceptions are recorded so that, when the head of sales changes, their successor does not have to find everything out from the owner all over again.
For an initial review, the latest instance of rework is enough: ask the head of sales to show when the company agreed to the new terms and when work began under them.
The company must agree to the rework before it starts paying for it.