Problem account manager at one of our suppliers – should I say something?

[Katie]

Hi SB, Coming back to the sounding chamber with a bit of a conundrum. We have a generally great supplier for the packaging of one of our products. Our experience using them has been almost entirely positive and professional, and even when something went wrong (part of a shipment got lost in transit and we foolishly didn’t realise when receiving and signing off the order) they went above and beyond to sort it out competently and professionally. However, the account manager who handles sales to us is really getting on my nerves. She has repeatedly missed emails and not replied until i’ve called up and spoken to another agent who’s gone into her inbox and told me that she’s completely missed them. When I mentioned in passing that one of our shipments had arrived with some grit inside, she started talking about how we were “destroying evidence” by cleaning them off before telling her (we never asked for any kind of compensation or refund, it was just mentioned as an aside when referring to the issue above). She often gives one word replies when we ask her for information, or when we ask for a datasheet/specification for a product, she simply sends us a link to the supplier’s web page on a family of products – for instance we ask for a datasheet on a specific biodegradeable package, and she will just send us a link to the suppliers generic “about our biodegradable options” page with no further or specific info, or even a covering message. We’re (I think) one of their smaller clients, and i’m not sure if i’m overreacting. I’m hesitant to email asking if we can switch to a different account manager because they are a fairly small firm and I don’t want to sour our relationship or be labelled as a problem client. What do you think? – by /hq/badonkadelic – –