If product failures are normal, support failures shouldn’t be.
Andrew Jones, Technical Director at Axair Fans, explains how strong supplier relationships aren’t defined by the absence of failure. They’re defined by what happens when things get messy.
In our industry, product failures aren’t unusual. Fans are electromechanical devices, made up of components that operate under load, over time, and often in difficult environments. Bearings wear, electronics fail, quite simply, there are lots of elements that could cause issues. Anyone who works close to the product understands that this is simply part of reality.
What tends to cause the most frustration, in my experience, isn’t that something goes wrong. It’s what happens afterwards, when suppliers either stand back, or stand up.
Support failure rarely announces itself. It doesn’t always arrive as a dramatic breakdown or a headline issue. It often appears quietly, especially when complacency has hit. Responses slow down, conversations become less certain, and the people who used to understand the application are suddenly harder to reach. Individually, these things don’t seem critical.
Over the years, I’ve found myself involved in situations where failure didn’t originate from us at all. A component has stopped working, pressure is building, and the original support route has gone quiet or gone back to the stalls of their big corporate process. At that point, the technical details matter, but so does something more basic, someone being willing to engage properly and take responsibility for helping resolve the problem.
Those situations are rarely tidy. Information is incomplete, time is limited, and the product is already installed, so expectations are high. What’s needed in these situations isn’t perfection or finger-pointing, but presence. Someone who will pick up the phone, look at the problem honestly, and stay involved until it’s understood.
Anyone who knows me will know that I’m particular about my Land Rover in much the same way. It’s a complex mix of mechanical and electronic systems, and I don’t expect it to be faultless. Things wear, sensors fail, and occasionally, it needs attention sooner than planned. What matters to me is what happens next. If I walk into the garage and feel like the issue is being passed around, confidence drains quickly, and I lose trust that they can help me sufficiently. If someone engages properly and treats the problem as their responsibility to resolve, trust builds, even if the fix isn’t immediate.
Supplier relationships work in much the same way. Most established manufacturers produce reliable products most of the time. Failures happen, but they’re rarely the defining moment. What people remember is how accessible support is when pressure rises, how clearly issues are owned, and whether engagement feels genuine or defensive.
Support failure isn’t usually about technical capability. More often, it’s about distance. Engineers are no longer easy to reach, decisions sit further away from the application, and corporate processes begin to replace judgment. None of this is deliberate, and it’s often a by-product of scale, but the effect on the customer is the same.
When timelines tighten or specifications change, those gaps become obvious. A failed component can be dealt with. A lack of clarity or ownership is much harder to work around.
The cost of this kind of support failure rarely shows up in board reports. It appears in internal firefighting and cautious decision-making. Over time, it leads to not a dramatic fallout, but a growing sense that the relationship no longer feels as robust.
Many businesses remain with their suppliers long after this erosion has begun. Familiarity carries weight, builds complacency, and change always feels risky, even when there may be a better fit elsewhere. I’ve spoken about the perceived hassle of supplier changing previously, but going back to my Land Rover, if I found a garage that had a genuine interest in Land Rovers and heritage, then that would make an impact. For buyers it’s often easier to tolerate slipping standards than to challenge them directly, particularly when the product itself continues to function.
From where I sit, strong supplier relationships aren’t defined by the absence of failure. They’re defined by what happens when things get messy. Support isn’t separate from the product experience. It’s the part that determines whether a supplier is simply present, or genuinely stands up when it matters.
Things will go wrong. That’s normal. But being willing to stand up is what makes the difference.
