Modern Technology has its Perils!

Here is an email I sent to a customer this morning, after he had to twice ask me for some information.  My lack of attention to him is not a very good example of the level of customer service to which he is entitled.


Good morning Scott-----

I am sorry for not responding. I have been on the road so much that I have lost track of what I need to do, such as answering your questions.

We do take Visa and MasterCard. Lead time depends a bit on item chosen, but will range from two days to two weeks. All molding and machining is done in our factory, so we are able to control maximum lead time.

J______ H_____, copied above, is our Customer Service and Marketing Manager and will be in the office except for the first week of March. I will be gone for the next ten days, so for a more responsive (and more responsible?) person, please put us both on your emails.

Again, I apologize.

Regards,

Rich Borglum
Sent from my Android tablet


Modern technology is wonderful. But when you move between office computer, home computer, tablet, and smart phone, even though they are all synched (supposedly), it is easy to lose track of where you are at.


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Taking a step backwards

Last week we had an important customer who asked me to send a price quotation for some products.  Within two hours and several interruptions of receiving his email, I hit "send", happy that I had been able to get it done the morning of his request.  
 
I went on about my day, without seeing that email that my quote had "bounced back" with a message that "The Internet Community" rejected it because something within my message matched a "spam profile".

Fast forward 27 hours to when our customer called asking where the quote was at.  He was understsndably concerned because he needed it to complete a project and put closure on his week.

I tried a bunch of tricks, including sending a jpg screen shot of the message, sending from a different address, changing the subject,  etc, etc.  I  even posted it to this blog and tried to give him the blog address.  I panicked.  I am was on the phone with the customer three times leting him know that I was trying.


I will be scrubbing the egg from my face for a couple more days. It is egg that immediately ran there when he suggested to me that "Rich, maybe you should take a step backwards in technology and use the fax."  Done.  Problem solved!



How often do we all need to take a step back and remember that the old ways still have merit and a place in our world.



Our flagship product, foam markers for agricultural sprayers, has been largely replaced by GPS based guidance systems.  Yet, we continue to sell a lot of units of our "foam based" systems because commercial spraying businesses remember that sometimes  new technology  (GPS)  fails and you need a fallback technology.  We have made that the center of our whole marketing plan for 15 years.  

Guess I forgot my own "wisdom".

Thanks A.G.

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Sales Success Statistics

48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
12% of sales people make more than three contacts
2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

I don't know where these "statistics" came from or how accurate they are.  A few minutes searching with Google found a number of websites taking credit for them.

But----- one thing I do know is that persistence is critical in making the sales.  In the past I have asked two people what they had learned after they left Richway and went into business for themselves as fully commission based sales people.  They both said "persistence."  And they were good -no, excellent- sales people when here at Richway.  But faced with having to "sell to eat" they became even better because they became more persistent!


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The part of the pompous ass was played by himself

Recently I sat across the table from an acquaintance during a luncheon.  I have known him for over 40 years, though I have seen him infrequently.  In his younger days, he was always overly convinced of his own importance to the world.   He proved again the statement I have made for several years:  “As we age we become caricatures of ourselves.”

For all of us near him, he went into detail about his many accomplishments, including his involvement with religion.  He was “the head of the whole southern part of the state informal bible study group”, among other things and had “been to a study breakfast already this morning!”

The irony of this was that as he was talking he gulped down two cocktails and said he would have more but they were “too weak” and he might as well drink water. I am sure those were not his first two.

I am not opposed to drinking and drink myself, but there was something terribly incongruent in his behavior.

Later, after leaving, I decided he was the perfect character for a stage play in which:   “The part of the pompous ass was played by himself.”

Circumstances have been changed somewhat from reality to protect me from retribution.
 

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