Don't always try to make customer happy
Some time ago a friend which I’ve working with told me a story. He was Head of the Key Account Managers in a big Car company and each Key Account Manager in order “to keep his Customers satisfied and coming back for more” was allowed to borrow them the newest car models or even registered prototypes for the weekend as a test drive. One of his Key Account Managers was not the kind of person that will push his Customers too hard. When they were borrowing the car for the weekend he was not calling them in Monday that time was up. If they returned the car on Tuesday or Wednesday – why not if that keeps them satisfied. Once this KAM was on a sick list so his Customer after calling the company office got another KAM contact on behalf of the absent. They took the car for the weekend and on Monday 10 minutes after the regular “borrow time” was up got a phone “where are You and why the car is not back”. The Customer was shocked – it has never happen before. They took the car back 30 minutes later and after that went straight to the Manager. My friend was expecting that they will not be happy that Key Account Manager dared to call them that they were not on time. But the Customer surprised him. He said that he is really sorry for the delay and he’d like to change the Kay Account Manager who is cooperating with to this new guy. When my friend asked him why. He said – “since he is so accurate doing he’s job when he has to push the Customer I’m sure that he’ll be also accurate doing business with me”. So the moral is that we just had to be the one we actually are and let’s hope that our potential Customers will have common approaches, bending just to try to keep the Customer happy will not always work.
