After my three months in Italy, I came back to Brussels. It’s for me amazing spending autumn abroad because usually I do not like very much this season. It represents the end of the summer and I love summer. Anyway I had a strange feeling when I returned. I thought that my real life was here and the previous months in Italy were just a dream. Very strange!
My boss was very enthusiastic to see me again. Now there are 2 new Italian trainees – they will leave about at the beginning of November – and Nadine the new co-worker that I taught before I returned in Italy. Apart from that few things have changed.
My first task has been to deal with updating Alfio Bruschi’s files, our important Italian shoemaker, sending emails and reorganizing the material which we have. Many prices are changed and I had to check old files comparing with the new ones.
Now we have some customers that buy his bespoke shoes and so it is necessary to order and pay attention about prices and catalogues, to avoid misunderstanding. I am making this work collaborating with our shoemaker.
There will be another meeting with Alfio and our customers here in Belgium next week, because in September, when I was in Italy, there were three events with him in different cities in Belgium and he sold a lot of shoes.
I will have to go with him to Gent because Benjamin, my boss, will be busy. In this meeting Alfio is going to bring the first fitting test shoes and check that every pair fits well or not, being personalized and bespoke shoes.
Another issue I handled was a complicated situation with a Scabal’s customer. He did not pay some invoices because he was sure that there were some mistakes.
So I checked his emails, invoices and orders and I found out the problem. Actually there were some mistakes regarding some prices’ fabrics that had not been discounted. I made a list in Excel with the right prices and solutions. In this way I solved the problem. The customer and Scabal were satisfy about my work.
With this new task, I learned how much can be difficult sometimes deal with an online business, to manage procedures and sell products with exceptions or discounts. Normally the online system cannot handle exceptions on prices.
And so there may be problems.
See you next time.
