Dear Stephen,
I'm a manufacturer's rep for one of the majors. This isn't my first time working in sales for a major brand. I'm in my 40's and well established in my career.
I have a pet peeve with the dealers that I'm responsible for and I've seen the same complaint in this column before. It just happened to me again recently and I'm furious. It's a complicated feeling because I need the dealers in order to grow my business, yet this one thing that they always do makes me never want to talk to them again.
What is the major faux pas that every sales rep hates? It's emailing me, cc'ing senior executives in our organization and the design firm to complain about products or services. Here is the most typical example:
A dealer has a quality control issue with something that's been delivered. We, as the manufacturer of the product, are working as hard as possible to get this resolved. The problem shouldn't have happened, I get that, and the end-user is rightly annoyed, as is their design firm. For that matter, so am I. We're working on it, right? But, it's hard to get immediate results with anything. At some point, typically, the dealer salesperson decides to write a letter complaining about the problem in which they blame our response, usually addressed to me while copying no less than 3 vice presidents from headquarters in Grand Rapids, my direct boss — the local manager, the customer and (worst of all) the design firm.
When this happens even the higher-ups in Grand Rapids are livid! The higher the executive, the more annoyed they are at this antagonistic approach on the dealer's behalf. Especially considering 90% of the time, the dealer only has the order because we, as the manufacturer, got the product specified. They're basically the servicing dealer.
Here's a tip for the obnoxious dealer salesperson – think twice before you send this letter. When you cc anyone high up at a manufacturer, you're labeling yourself as one of those people we will never want to help in the future. When you have a real problem, you will have lost the chance for that favor.
We respect our dealers; they're the cornerstone of our business. We have no intentions of letting them be hung out to dry by the customer or the design firm. So there is just no reason for this type of behavior. It's not even an eye roll situation; it's just direct abuse and dealer harassment of the manufacturer they're supposed to be representing. Maybe they scored some points with the end-user, although I doubt it. At what price? I will never ever look at them the same way, whether I'm working for this manufacturer, or another one.
I'll be nice to their face because I must... but that email just ruined our relationship, forever.
I know you've gotten this same gripe before, Stephen, because I've seen it in a few of your columns but I wanted to sound off about it. Now I feel better. What are your thoughts?
Signed,
Cc'd Me Off
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Dear Cc,
Thanks for sharing. This is a story we have heard before. As someone who has worked for both a dealer and a manufacturer, I want to start by saying there are two sides to this story.
In the dealer salesperson's defense – no matter where the genesis of the order is, it has become the dealer salesperson's problem once the order is placed through their dealership. The end-user is driving them crazy, and they're concerned about future business. Your product might be specified again, but it may be done through a different dealer next time if the customer ends up blaming them for something that goes wrong.
Meanwhile, I can see your side of the story which is the dealer's letter makes the manufacturer look bad with the design firm because it reflects the manufacturer's work if a conference table veneer doesn't look right, or if a chair comes in broken... Whatever the problem is, big or small, everyone wants to get it resolved, immediately. The dealer salesperson who has the most customer interaction in this scenario feels the need to show the customer that they're taking action.
Dealer salesperson: this is the point in the problem where you should realize taking action is as simple as writing the same letter but just to your direct sales rep at the manufacturer. You do not need to copy other people. If you really want to have a good relationship, why not even give them a heads up that you're sending a "CYA" letter to them? Almost like a wink. We all understand the customer is always right and you want to look like you're solving the problem.
Everyone gets it. Manufacturing furniture is a very complicated process. There are many steps and many things that can go wrong. The mistake here is your overzealous need or compulsion to copy everyone above the sales rep and the design firm on the correspondence. There's no need to send an inflammatory letter and copy the people at corporate. Just think twice before cc'ing the end user and under no circumstances should you ever copy the design firm - that's the way to permanently alienate the manufacturer.
When I query manufacturers and dealers alike about customer service problems and why this causes such a ruckus, I'm told that half of the time when they come across a problem in the field it's because the dealer didn't have somebody competent doing the installation. In fact, often the mistake is not something in the manufacturing but the way the outside installer or the dealership installed the product. The installer just doesn't know how the product goes together, and the dealer doesn't want to take responsibility for that.
Dealer salespeople and dealer principals, heed my advice – before you get a letter going with all the higher-ups and the design firm, just pick up the phone and ask for an in-person or video meeting with the sales rep and their manager or regional VP. Often, that does the trick and gets things moving towards a solution much faster. It's amazing to me that with more people than ever having smart phones at their disposal, no one seems smart enough to use them.
Signed, Stephen