Lessons learned from a frustrating sales experience
By Jacqui Sakowski
I’ve noticed that when friends share their sales stories with me they tend most often to be sales horror stories. And my friends are usually the customer. I want to share such a story with you.
My friend Bill purchased a 2-year-old car from a local vendor, Ben. As he was leaving the dealership Jan. 15 with his purchase, he asked Ben if there was an owner’s manual in the car, and Ben assured him there was. When Bill got home he discovered that there was no manual. Assuming that this was an error, Bill left Ben a voicemail informing him that there was no manual, and Bill called back to say he would order one and send it by mail.
It had been agreed that a towing hitch would be retrofitted to the vehicle a couple of weeks after Bill took ownership. Ben called Bill to schedule the fitting and Bill took the car in at the appointed time, and was given a ride back to work by the dealer. The work was supposed to take no more than half a day.
By day’s end the car was not ready and Bill was stranded in Madison without a car for his 25-mile journey home. After much discussion with Ben, one of Bill’s colleagues drove him to the dealership, where they provided a loan vehicle for Bill’s use. It was two days before he got his own vehicle back.
On Feb. 7, Bill reminded Ben via e-mail that he had not yet received the promised owner’s manual and received a reply that said, “I received your mail and I am working on it right now.” On Feb. 24, Bill sent another e-mail chasing the manual, which still had not arrived. In that e-mail, he articulated his overall disappointment with the post-transaction service. He reminded Ben about the situation regarding the towing hitch, and indicated that “in these economic times with businesses shutting their doors and millions unemployed, customer good will should be a cherished commodity. You asked me to remember you in the future. I will remember you, but I am not sure it is in the way you wished.”
Ben sent back a stinging reply, articulating everything that he had done personally to try to satisfy Bill. He shared that the response to the e-mail of Feb. 7 was an auto responder, and he’d never seen the incoming message. He shared that there was an unanticipated delay in receiving the hitch for installation, and so rather than create even more delay he’d had the work done at a different shop, and picked up the $100 tab and the car rental expense personally. He had also personally purchased a manual, which was on its way, due to the problems the dealership had experienced in trying to get one through official channels. He had done all of this good work, to serve his customer, without letting his customer know.
Instead of demonstrating his commitment to his customer by sharing the details of his actions, he kept it to himself and left his customer feeling underserved. Customers know things don’t always go according to plan, and when we’re honest with them, if they can, they will allow some latitude. In this instance, Ben’s communication with Bill was so poor that Bill felt neglected and disappointed.
When Ben received Bill’s letter of complaint he was resentful that his “behind the scenes” efforts should be so undervalued that he detailed them in full in a very forceful style. In the final paragraph he wrote, “Regarding the last comment about bad economic times, our sales are up over 20 percent since Jan. 1 so we must be doing something right, not wrong. And Bill, our customers are a cherished commodity, but it sounds like you can’t please them all.”
Instead of accusing Bill of being an unreasonable customer, Ben would have been better off reviewing his own actions in this situation, so that he could do better with the next guy.
If Ben had told Bill that there was no manual, Bill would have ordered one online for $10 and received it a few days later. He didn’t do so because he’d been promised one. He will not need to use the towing hitch until the fishing season begins, so if he’d been asked to reschedule, he would have been happy to do so, saving time, angst and $100 of Ben’s money.
Ben’s efforts to please back fired because he didn’t talk to his customer about the problems he was encountering as he tried to deliver on the promises that he had made. An actual conversation between Bill and Ben would have allowed them to work together to resolve the problems. The outcome is that they each think less of the other when I’m pretty sure that they are both good guys at heart.
Don’t risk losing your customers’ good will by trying to hide obvious problems. Tell your customers about problems before they tell you, and work with them to find solutions. High customer satisfaction does not come from delivering perfectly 100 percent of the time. It comes from working with customers honestly, harmoniously and pragmatically to meet agreed upon expectations and to resolve effectively and efficiently the inevitable problems that arise from time to time. n
