Many buyers express frustration to obtain precise information from his chinese supplier. Poor communication from the supplier may cause delays in shipping, quality problems and a series of other complications. Communication by telephone, email or even through a meeting face to face at the factory can leave plenty of room for misinterpretation. Perhaps your supplier inadvertently is sending a wrong message, or you have not clearly exposed the details of the negotiations. Doing business in a foreign country can be difficult, especially if you do not speak the language. Sometimes you never know if there is a lack of communication from the supplier or mutual understanding. They could be saying what they think they want to hear. Or they may be committing a cultural crime.

Currently, English is the international language for businesses. But that does not mean that all employees of the company speak English. Except for employees in the customer care or sales, is likely to find that the majority of the owners and workers of Asian factories have little or no skill in the English language, which increases the chance of having communication problems with the supplier. The main objective of a seller is to make a sale, and so making you happy as importer.

Suppliers of English-speaking contacts tend to be recent graduates hired for their strong English communication skills to make foreign customers feel more comfortable. However, these young people often lack practical experience of manufacturing or doing business. And this makes very easy for them to misinterpret situations. This can be a huge problem when the misunderstanding of some words or simple processes leads to the manufacture of a defective product for you. Make sure to send the detailed specifications of the product to your supplier of contact and walk through details that can be easily misinterpreted.

A common mistake by the importer is to assume that the factory that manufactures your product has an internal quality control department and production staff who are able to evaluate the quality of the product and clearly understand the expectations of the importer.

One reason why the production staff and the quality control department often misinterpret the customer’s requirements is due to the fact that the importer often communicate through a sales representative of the company. Rather than speak directly with the staff who is actually managing the product, the importer usually is compelled to communicate his expectations first to a sales representative, who must then translate this information and transmit it to the production and quality control personnel. Usually the seller does not have the same level of technical expertise as the quality and production control staff, so some parts of the message of the importer may be lost in translation.