Yesterday, while working with a client on an email marketing campaign I was part of the following conversation:
Client: Can you guarantee me that the email delivery system being used can omit my previous order?
Me: The list owners are in the middle of purchasing a new email delivery system and they can’t guarantee that they will be able to omit previous orders.
The client wasn’t 100% satisfied with my answer so he went to another broker and asked the same question:
Client: Can you guarantee me that the email delivery system being used can omit my previous order?
Other broker: Yes.
With two conflicting answers the client wound up calling the company delivering the emails to get the answer from the source.
Client: Can you guarantee me that the email delivery system being used can omit my previous order?
List owner: We are in the process of buying new software and they are not sure of it’s capabilities so we can’t make any guarantees.
After these two conversations I talked to the client again and you know what he said:
“I get the feeling that those other brokers (names removed to avoid embarrassment) are just in this to sell me a list and will say yes to anything I ask, even if it’s not true. You know what, I would rather work with you because you guys actually have good customer service and care about what’s best for me and my business”
At the end of the day, we got the sale, and that other broker lost out!
Lesson learned: Caring about what’s right for the client, even it risks loosing one sale gives you more credibility and builds more trust than just saying yes to any client request just because that’s what they want to hear.
Being a “yes man” or a “yes company” may work in the short term but eventually those companies will realize that people spending their hard earned money aren’t stupid and they can smell BS a mile away.
Most businesses with integrity will look for a company to work with that will give them the straight answer… even if a sale is on the line.
Yoav