Behind the Scenes - Fulfillment at Body-Solid
Most customers never see the behind-the-scenes operations that are the heart of Body-Solid's service commitment–specifically, the fulfi llment of your order. While we handle hundreds of orders every day, each one is important to the customer and cannot be mishandled. Our experienced team is led by Don Pielet, Darren Mason and Joe Franklin who, combined, have over 60 years of experience at Body-Solid.
The process begins as soon as an order is received as it is automatically transmitted to our warehouse personnel for picking and packing. Whether it is a full container order headed overseas or a single drop ship order on the way to a consumer, the order is quickly and efficiently prepared for shipment out of our warehouse inventory. To insure the packages arrive intact and undamaged, the shipments are carefully loaded onto pallets, shrink-wrapped as necessary and in some cases, the items may even be repackaged to allow them to ship safely.
While all of this activity proceeds fairly automatically with computer generated pick instructions, we always include a fi nal human review to make sure all is correct. Besides a double check to make sure the order has been picked correctly and that no items are missing, we also review the packages and the loading of the units to lessen any chance for damage in shipment. Also we look for the odd orders (for example, a gym attachment without a gym) and we may even call the customer to make sure their order is truly what they need and want. Body-Solid has been shipping individual pieces of equipment for over 20 years and in that time we have learned what it takes to get a product to the customer without any damage. This means not only making sure that the box is strong enough and made of quality materials, but also packing the interior components with adequate packing and cushioning to insure that the pieces are not damaged while in route. Our packaging is designed to take a lot of abuse.
Every day we see full truckload orders ready for loading at one end of our shipping dock, next to rows of pallets full of product for our LTL shipments, next to even more pallets ready to be picked up by FedEx and UPS on their way to consumers. We work very closely with our shipping companies to ensure the very best possible freight rates. We pass on the savings to our customers and that makes us one of the most effi cient and economic shippers in the industry.
A big part of our small package shipments are related to parts being shipped to customers for warranty fulfi llment and similar needs. With over 20 years experience and thousands of different products, most with a lifetime warranty, Body-Solid has a huge parts inventory ready to help and support our customers. Our experienced parts staff manages over 30,000 square feet of parts storage and is able to quickly respond to whatever our customers may need.
At the end of the day, as trucks load up and the docks begin to empty, the warehouse quiets down and all the information from these shipments migrates back to the front offi ce. From there, each and every customer will receive a notifi cation as to what shipped for them today, what the appropriate tracking number is for the shipping carrier, and when the estimated arrival will be.
A few days later, all shipments will arrive on time, intact and undamaged (over 99% of the time according to our customers who rate us) delivered to customers who, may not realize the hard work that went into fulfi lling their individual shipment.
