A Dissertation on Jerks and the People Who Buy From Them
OK, in this case, the buyer was me (shaking head in disbelief).
A supplier of ours (the Jerks) who shall remain nameless recently screwed up. Big. They cost us money. When I called to see what, if anything, they could do for us in light of the loss, I was pretty much told to deal with it and that I’m one of many others, and bottom line… “too bad.” When I pointed out how much business we bring to them, I was told in so many words that it didn’t matter. Ack! I was treated poorly and the “customer service” rep I had to deal with was far from sympathetic to our situation and clearly didn’t care that my business had experienced a loss. All the person had to do was to express sincere remorse and compassion - that would have been enough (for me). I’m a pretty easy going person and can understand mistakes, but when he acted like such a JERK, it became about principle.
As a result - I won’t do business with them anymore, nor will I refer to them anymore.
What that rep cost the company (because he didn’t see the big picture) was immense. We used to bring them a LOT of money every year, and to make me happy would have cost a tiny fraction of that just once. But somehow it wasn’t worth it? Talk about biting your nose off to spite your face.
Had they handled it correctly by making SOME gesture to amend for the loss, I would have continued to do business with them and continue to refer new business to them on a regular basis.
Marketing Lesson to be learned here:
RELATIONSHIPS are one of the best marketing tools you will ever have. Your clients and customers need to feel like they are important. A relationship that produces not only their own business, but solid money-yielding referrals, is a relationship to be kept and nurtured. When people hear how great you treated your clients through adversity (as well as the good times), your reputation will do your marketing for you and that’s not something you can buy.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:02 am
Well said. It is all about relationships.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Hey Pete, thanks for the response!
How often have we all been on the receiving end of a miserable CSR who makes us feel insignificant?
Anything that we as professionals do to make our clients feel valued and important only helps to solidify our relationship and their loyalty!
Laura
September 26th, 2007 at 9:19 am
I agree. Today so many people seem to really underestimate the power of the word-of-mouth syndrome where a satisfied customer will tell others how happy they are and promote the business to others. However, an unhappy customer will mouth off to twice as many people to show their disdain. And this WILL hurt a company’s reputation. This has been proven over and over again. Guaranteed.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:22 am
It’s amazing in this day and age of ridiculous amounts of competition paired with the incredible volume of resources available to companys regarding Customer Service techniques…THIS STILL HAPPENS!
It’s less the fault of the CSR and more the fault of Mgt./Ownership for not identifying the deficiancy in their business model. This can’t be the first time the rep performed poorly.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Here are a few thoughts to add.
It is not how good of a job we do but how well clean up the mess-ups that goes a long way. Here is a true story from one of my known Builders. They had a very intense large residence that they built and it took way too long to complete but the owner of the company took over the project for a year to make sure all loose ends got completed correctly, as promised. A short time after completing that residence they were interviewed for another large residence. That owner requested a reference from one good client and one not so good client. Obviously they gave the name of this one I speak of who said he would never use them again BUT he truly appreciated that the company and the owner stayed with the project and completed it as promised. The
contractor was awarded the new project.