Growing Your Biz

In this bi-weekly column, marketing guru Chuck Sink asks, "Who's your best friend when issues arise?"

They go by various titles these days: Business Development, Account Executive, Retail Consultant and sometimes creative titles like Chief Happiness Officer or some C_O variation. They are the salespeople who must be objective mediators if ever there is a service or quality dispute between a supplier and a customer. Mutually successful resolution is their only goal.

If you're a customer service rep, hug your sales team. If you're a buyer, hug the salespeople from whom you purchase products and services. If you're an executive, hug your sales team and the salespeople who sell to you. Why? Because they are your advocates and friends who understand both sides of an issue better than anyone else.

With notable exceptions, no one in business sets out to cause anyone else damage, least of all their customers. Yes, complacency may set in and business may be taken for granted at times. There's certainly no excuse for those attitudes. What I'm talking about here is mistakes, the oversights and miscommunications that occur because we're all human.

If you're having a quality or service issue with a vendor/partner and make demands of a manager or service rep to fix the problem, you're dealing with someone who has a bias in favor of their own company and they may react defensively. Now think of your salesperson whose income (perhaps even his job) is directly tied to your satisfaction. He is almost forced into a position to be either neutral or biased in your favor! He's in the best position in either organization to see both sides of an issue.

Here's what I recommend. In a supplier relationship, if you have a customer service manager assigned to your account as well as a salesperson who made the original deal with you, always contact the salesperson if there's an issue or if you feel you're not getting the value you were promised. It's in his best interest to make things right immediately. His motives tend to be more in your favor and he can investigate the real cause of your dissatisfaction. He must help maintain his company's profitability while at the same time resolve your situation with a mutually beneficial solution. Those two objectives usually go hand in hand.

During the course of my sales career, I've held this middle ground position. From that perspective I could more clearly see both sides of quality/service issues than could either my client or my co-workers serving our client. We salespeople must serve two mastersour customers and our companiesand therefore we have the responsibility and motivation to rectify a problem. Don't let a simple misunderstanding or problem doom an otherwise great relationship.

Let's face it. Your sales rep earned your trust or you wouldn't have made the purchase. In the same vein, you should trust him or her to have your best interests at heart when something isn't going right. If you made a good choice in the first place, his attitude toward your issue will be exemplified by words like these: "Is there anything at all that needs attention? Oh, please, let me help. I'll make it my priority!"

Chuck Sink is a sales director at wedu, Inc., a marketing firm that leads the pack in strategic thinking and creative communications. Visit www.wedu.com or e-mail chuck@wedu.com.