“Tom, we have a problem.” It was the voice of my best customer. He was standing in an empty warehouse, surrounded by metal racks and wire shelving(oru product) that didn’t fit the racks. Over $100,000 worth of wire shelving that didn’t fit the racks and was probably useless.
My customer was surprisingly calm considering his customer, the warehouse owner, was standing next to him when he made the call. My voice may have sounded calm, but inside I my stomach was churning. I made a quick trip to the warehouse to size up the situation and begin thinking about a solution. My boss was with me and her serene countenance helped keep us focused on fixing the problem rather than on the amount of money involved.
What made this situation even more difficult was that we had a product drawing approved by our customer. If we wanted, we could have said, “Sorry, you signed off on it and it is yours.” Instead, we thought of the big picture and the future orders we would be losing if we took a “you signed off, it’s yours” position.
We finally figured out a solution that involved making additional supports for our decks at a cost of $15,000 or so. Our customer would bear the cost of installing the supports, also about $15,000. But in order to show both our customer and the warehouse owner how this solution would work, I had to drive from Portland to Vancouver, BC to pick up a part air freighted from China overnight. It was a 6 hour dirve each way, but I wasn’t going to let my customer down.
I drove to Vancouver on Sunday and had the new part ready for a meeting Monday morning. We showed our solution to the warehouse owner and received approval to move ahead with production. Our customer was very happy and his customer was also happy. As a result, we continued to get business from this customer and, in fact, saw a marked increase in purchases from his company.
This story reinforces the introvert trait of laser-like focus on customer service. A slick sales pitch can get a sale but a commitment to the customer on a long-term basis can build business that will continue for many years.
