I'll paraphrase the head of customer satisfaction of a publicly traded company here in Silicon Valley.
"Despite the numerous statements IT companies make about providing great customer satisfaction, vendors really want customer apathy. Most companies hope a customer buys their products and then goes away."
I've heard the tag "high maintenance given to many customers over the years. In most instances, it is the vendor who is high maintenance.
Think about it. How many times have you heard a business say any of the following?
“We want our order shipped to us wrong.
“We really don’t care when we get it. Nobody on our team is scheduling their time for implementation or installation.
“Sure, emailing us with a response 4 days from now will be fine. I don’t need the answer anytime soon.”
“Please take our system down during peak hours.
“It’s ok if the price changes. Budgets are just guidelines around here.
“Send your junior field service folks to help us. We want to learn as they do.”
The truth is that customers want to fix their business issues, not create more problems. Customers usually become “high maintenance” when their order is late, when the product is hard to install or use, when training is incomplete, or when the sales rep over promises and under delivers.
The great vendors know the best customer relationships begin when the customer asks their first question AFTER an order is placed. That's not high maintenance, it's good business.
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