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It's Only Common Sense: Would You Buy From You?

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Have you ever evaluated your own company? Have you ever opened one of your own boxes to see how your products are packaged? Have you ever sent a secret RFQ through your own inside sales department to see how your quotes are handled? Have you ever inspected your own boards to see what the customer sees? Let me go out on a limb here and guess you've never done any of these things. It's not so unusual; I don’t think any of us has done such a thing in the past and I doubt many people do it currently. But maybe it’s high time we did. The only way we're really going to learn how to serve customers is to put ourselves in their shoes and look at our company from their perspective.

Let’s give it a try: Go ahead call your company…I’m sure you know the number. The phone is ringing--are you ready for the first test? How many rings does it take before the phone is answered? If it’s more than three you have a problem. Does a real live person answer the phone? You know, one with a real human voice; a cheerful voice that says something like, “Good morning, thank you for calling ABC Circuits, how can we help you today?" Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? It feels good to talk to a human being.

I certainly hope you don’t have one of those annoying phone systems where you hear an electronic voice saying, “Thank you for calling ABC Circuits. If you know your party’s extension you may dial it now or press one for the company directory.” If you hear one of these automated systems it means you'd rather save a buck than service your customers. It means that somewhere some anti-customer accountant talked you into buying this system by showing you how much money you'd be saving.

Once you get a real person, ask for inside sales. Is the person who answers the phone courteous and helpful? Does the person get right to the point and help you with your quote? Are you able to get your quote right away? If not, are you told when you'll get your quote? Do you get your quote in a timely manner? Is it sent to you in the format your requested? Did your inside sales person quote exactly what you asked for? Did he quote the exact quantities you wanted? Did she extend the prices per quantity like you requested? In short, did you get what you wanted and when you wanted it?

Okay, now let’s take a look at your product. For this I would suggest you not bother to go through the charade of having something sent to you; just go out to your shipping department and grab a boxes ready to ship. Go ahead, just pick any box at random and take a good look at it. How does it look? Does the box have some kind of logo or marking that distinguishes your product from the others that will be in your customer’s receiving department? Is your box so distinguished that you would recognize it from across a room full of boxes? Take a look at the address label--is it clear, and well written to ensure no mistakes are made in delivery? Now open the box. How does it look inside? Are the boards neatly packaged? Are they packaged as the customer would expect them to be packaged? Look at the packing slip--does it match the quantity of boards in the box? Is the part number correct? How about the PO number? Is the count correct? Check all of the paperwork to make sure it's all there. Remember product shipped to the wrong address, product shipped with the wrong quantity, and product shipped with missing or incorrect paperwork is unacceptable and unusable. Take a final look at the entire package from the box to the paperwork to the product and ask yourself, “Am I proud of this package?” Is this something that represents our very best effort? Is this product what I want to represent my brand and my company? If you were the customer would you be happy with the company that delivered this product in this way?

If you feel good about your product, great; if not, get to work and fix it. Keep asking yourself if you would buy product from your company until you get it right. It's only common sense.