Understand Your Customer

This article assumes that you’re lucky enough to have customers making requests. Hopefully, you’re getting these requests all day every day. So, you’re getting requests for parts, often times customers who know what they’re doing will call and say I want this part number from this manufacturer (usually the part number tells you which manufacturer or brand they want). Further, most people make the assumption that this order is a rush. The customer needed it yesterday.

The priority has to begin with you

The most important question that most reps and counter people never ask is “when do you need it”. Some customers will always tell you it’s a rush. They’re playing the short game. Enlightened customers will tell you if it’s a rush, or if they need it in the next few days, there’s a lot of work to do on the vehicle, or the vehicle will be out on the road for a few days. This, of course, never means delivering in a few days is acceptable. What it does mean is that when your driver heads out on the road, he can actually prioritize priorities.

A quick note on the “it’s always a rush, every time” customer. Your driver can help identify them easily. Ask them to keep track of a few deliveries, are they still on the bench 3 days later? Does this happen often? If the answer is yes, this is a customer that exaggerates and always will. This doesn’t mean give them mediocre service and they’ll just complain no matter what. They will make decisions based on service, if you give none, you will lose business.

A quick note on difficult customers. If a customer buys product from you, and they pay their bills on time, and when all expenses are considered, including the cost of late payment (if relevant) they are a profitable customer, then “firing” the customer is a stupid thing to do. There are only two possible reasons to “fire” a customer. First, if they are not a profitable account, no matter the reason, no matter how “important” they are, you must get rid of them. Let your competitor have this awesome customer that just costs you money. Second, they are abusive to your colleagues and are a detriment to your staff/co-workers’ wellbeing.

To be clear, I said your coworkers or staff, not you. If you are the owner of the business or the representative, you can and should take the heat from your customer. Be an adult, work to improve the customer relationship, but most importantly: take their money and pay yourself and your team.

When the request is not specific

When there is a specific part number that your customer wants, it’s usually pretty straightforward, especially if you have that part in stock. The rest of the time there is a second question you need to ask: “what do you need this part to do?” If it’s something like a fender, then you don’t need to ask the question, if it’s something like a suspension or steering part, then you have to. Airbags are not all made equal and depending on what your customer is doing with the vehicle you need to adjust what you offer.

With time, hopefully, you’ll know what sort of work the customer does. If they run twelve-wheel dump trucks on construction sites all day, then they need more severe duty parts. If they are a potato chip or mattress transportation company and they never see anything that resembles elevation or extreme weather (like ice storms) then they really don’t need severe duty and offering them such a part will mean you lose the sale. That said if they are at the end of their lease and need to return a vehicle, or at the end of a vehicle's life-cycle, and they need to fix up the truck to sell then there are other priorities. It’s wrong, unethical, and possibly illegal to fix a truck for sale with inferior parts that you know won’t last, especially on the steering or braking system. But that said, you don’t need to be selling them the top-end 5-year warranty stuff either.

In short, on a day-to-day basis, you need to be making sure the customer is profitable, and increasingly so. You need to make sure that when there is a problem and the customer is irate that you, the owner or representative, take control of the situation and take the brunt of the heat. By definition, if you are the owner, and there is a reasonable grievance, it’s your fault. Your business, your team made the mistake. Also, if you are the representative, you represent the company and therefore you are the one to take the heat. Not the counter person, the order picker or the driver, though it may be their fault. It's you who must take charge of the situation and correct it.

It's not all doom and gloom. If you take the heat from a customer with a reasonable grievance, and you apologize and correct the situation (or better), then your customer will continue to be your customer, and may even trust you more. This is the essence of a true customer-sales rep relationship. The customer asks, can I count on you? You need to let him know the answer is in the affirmative. Also, with time, if you do take the heat, like an adult, and correct the problem (or better), then you can use this fact to diffuse situations. A well-placed “I got this” just might be enough. Maybe a little, “I regret this happened, and just like every time there’s a problem, I’m here to help you”.

When a customer believes, rightly or wrongly, that he’s been wronged, nothing is more disarmed than some variation of, you’re right, I’m sorry, I got this. You can’t really say much more than “damn right” after a statement like that. And if you do what you say, you just might get the opportunity to continue to be the recipient of the customer's monthly checks.