After the National Day holiday is over, the work of the factory's Foreign Trade Department is not as simple as switching from the "vacation mode" to the "order receiving mode": the backlog of inquiries before the festival must be returned within 48 hours, and the cabin space in the first week after the festival is the most crowded. A batch of new regulations that will come into effect on October 1 are testing the documentation link. The RMB is in a strong stage, and the foreign exchange settlement window must be kept on your own. This article lists an action list from the first day to the seventh day after returning to work. Follow this and don't let the holiday gap turn into a loss of orders.
Day 1: Stock bottom-three tables of orders, production scheduling, and inventory
The first thing to do when returning to work is not to reply to the email, but to pull out three tables: the order-in-hand table (customer, quantity, delivery date, and final payment status), the production scheduling table (production line occupation, bottleneck process), and the raw material inventory table (gap and arrival time). In the last two weeks of the festival, production lines that rush to ship goods during the holidays often have backlog of semi-finished products and quality problems left behind after the festival. These "hidden debts" must be turned up on the first day. After the three tables are aligned, you can judge in the afternoon of the same day: which delivery dates need to be re-confirmed with the customer, and which ones need to be urged to purchase and replenish materials.
Day 2: Class-The first week after the holiday is one of the most crowded windows of the year
Goods that were missed before the festival and orders confirmed on the mid-line were all crowded into the second week of October. Drewry statistics that there are still 10 announced empty flights on the trans-Pacific route after the holiday, and the U.S. route cabin is still actively managed by shipping companies. There are three things to do today: send a post-holiday shipment plan list to the freight forwarder to lock in the booking priority of each container; confirm with the freight forwarder whether there has been any change in the customs closing time; for orders with sensitive delivery time, ask if there is a shipping guarantee clause, and if necessary, pay a little more freight for certainty. On the contrary, European line orders are still falling, and they are arranged according to the pace of production and are not snatched.
Day 3: Documents-check one by one with the new rules in October
Starting from October 1, a batch of new regulations have been implemented to compare their products one by one: for exporting perishable and spoiled foods and frozen products, the container loadability inspection must submit an application and upload a compliance statement within a "single window". The inspection results are valid within 21 days. If the system fails the verification at the time of export declaration, the order will be refunded directly-food factories will confirm today whether the packaging plan covers the inspection time limit. If products covered by steel measures are exported to Europe, the certification documents of the smelting and casting country shall be checked; if hand tools are exported to India, the BIS certification status shall be confirmed. For routine items such as certificate of origin, commodity inspection, and fumigation, the application date is reversed according to the shipment plan.
Day 4: Money-Demand for final payment and foreign exchange settlement decisions
For goods shipped before the festival, a copy of the bill of lading and the bill should be issued in mid-section. Today, we will check which customers 'final payment has arrived and which ones should be urged. The reminder email directly provides three items: bill of lading number, date due, and method of payment, with less pleasantries. At the same time, make decisions on foreign exchange settlement: RMB rises to a high level of 6.7351 before the festival, and foreign currencies that have been collected in the account should not sit still and settle foreign exchange in batches according to the operating rhythm; if you have large exposures, ask the bank to ask for the long-term lock-up amount this week. The collection and payment ledger is updated on the same day. Don't wait for the month-end reconciliation to discover that a single item is missing.
Day 5: Customer-48-hour remediation of lost contact during the festival
Go through the inquiries, emails, and WhatsApp item by item before and during the festival. Anyone who has not responded for more than 72 hours will reply today. The first sentence is full of sincerity: explain the holiday arrangements, apologize for the delay, and give the answer directly. If there is no transaction before the pre-holiday quotation, don't just ask "How are you thinking about it" when follow-up, but attach a new reason: post-holiday space, exchange rate window, inventory batch, giving customers a step forward now. Old customers issue a notice to resume work and make post-holiday production capacity arrangements, and confirm the Q4 replenishment plan in the meantime-this is how many annual end-of-year orders are recovered.
Day 6: New customers-hierarchical follow-up of pre-holiday inquiries
The week before the festival is usually a small peak in inquiries (customers rush to shop for next year's suppliers before the holidays), and the quality of these inquiries is generally good. Classification according to the old rules: in-depth chat on the same day if there is a clear product, quantity, and port of destination; if only the product has no quantity, send information and ask guidance; if there is an obvious group comparison, just give a standard quotation.customs dataIt is completely different to be able to spend 20 minutes checking the purchase records and then replying to buyers with good numbers. The goal this week is to achieve both the response rate and advancement rate of pre-holiday inquiries to the extent that they can be re-opened.
Day 7: Review-turning holiday gaps into process improvements
Take the customer response records before, during and after the festival to make a reply: how many inquiries have not been returned for more than 48 hours, at which link the loss occurred, and at which step the documents and shipping space have been stuck. Write the conclusions into the department's SOP: customer group notification template before the next long holiday, duty arrangement, and automatic reply configuration during the festival. Holidays are the norm, but losing orders should not be the norm.
common problems
1. There are too many things to do in the first week of returning to work. How should I prioritize it?
One main line: in-production orders with a deposit received and a clear delivery date rank first, documents involving the new October regulations rank second, and backlog of inquiries in the section rank third. Internal affairs (review, SOP) are left on the seventh day, so don't put the cart before the horse.
2. During the festival, customers sent messages and no one responded. Will they just run away?
Professional buyers usually have their own stocking plans before the holidays, and most delays within 72 hours are acceptable. The key is the quality of the first reply after resuming contact. Directly giving answers, scheduling, and compensating plans (such as prioritizing production schedules) is more useful than repeatedly apologizing.
3. Should we take the initiative to reduce prices and grab orders after the holiday?
Let's look at the cost side first: European freight rates are falling and the RMB is strong. After two deductions, your real costs may not increase. Quotes are recalculated and redetermined based on current costs, and don't use emotional pricing. The space saved by falling freight rates is used for rebates and delivery commitments for old customers, which is more valuable than direct price cuts.
