It’s late, I’m going to go through this rather quickly so please stay with me. I had an existing account that was shared with a direct branch. The direct branch had the majority of the placements, while we had three units in a satellite office. One of those placements was a 135 ppm production system.
I had been in touch with the manager about the end of lease and had a good relationship with him for eight years. My guy told me that direct would also be quoting for a new production system, since they also had a color unit at the same location. I knew my chances to hold the account were slim to none, however I put my best foot forward, submitted an aggressive proposal five months before the end of the term as did my competitor.
After hearing nothing for quite some time I followed up with my guy. I was told that Jed in IT is making all of the decisions. My guy had heard nothing and suggested I follow up with Jed. He gave me Jed’s contact number and off I went.
I left my first call with a message that we submitted a quote and I need to follow up with him about the end of term obligations for the existing system and to get an idea of where we are at with the new lease. I waited a week and nothing. I then placed another call a week later with the same message. Nothing, no return call. A few days later the same message and of course there was no call back. All in all I placed at least 7 calls to Jed. I got nothing! Typical I thought.
About a month later, I had a dream that I had lost the deal. The next day I received notification from our service dispatch that he had received a call from “my guy” about removing the system. I thought that SOB has my number and he couldn’t call me? Then I thought that he didn’t want to tell me directly because I would ask him “what happened?”
The next day, I get a call from Jed the IT guy. He’s asking me for a copy of the cost per page lease, and looking to see if we can remove the equipment. I stated I would be more than happen to comply, however you need to call the leasing company and schedule that with them. However, I have a question for you. “Why, did you buy from the other company?” I was told it was a price thing. OK, I can live with that. I then asked, “Why did you not return any of my phone calls?” The answer, “I’m not obligated to call anyone back.” I blew my stack! We’re an existing vendor and we wanted to tell you about the end of the lease obligations and you tell me you’re not obligated to return a phone call? He went on to state that he doesn’t check his phone because they are all sales calls. However, I do check e-mails, he told me. I thought, you rotten $#%!!!! I called this facility many times and you can’t even get a person to pick up the phone let alone find or ask for an e-mail address.
Thinking about it, I probably should have asked my guy for his e-mail address too. But who knew that this worker was not obligated to call an existing vendor back.
Moral of the story, they entered into a new contract and because they didn’t call me their cost per page lease went into a year roll over with some 2.5 million pages attached. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when that conversation took place now that they now have to pay for two production systems for at least a year. But, I’m thinking they may just have the system forever, because their ineptness will cause them to fail to notify the leasing company when the renewal comes due again.
Good selling!
