I went to the doctor today and I have got to tell you I GOT MAD. Not because of anything he told me, thank goodness I am in pretty good health, but because of the lack of respect he had for my time. The way I look at it is I am the customer, the person with the money, and he is the salesman, the person who delivers products or services. Any good sales rep should respect his or her customer.
My appointment was for 1:30, I showed up around 1:15 as I am asked to do every time I go. After about a 20 minutes past my appointment time of 1:30 I was called back to the exam room where his assistant ask me several questions and told me the doctor would be in to see me in a “FEW” minutes. I learned something from her today, to a doctor a “FEW” minutes means 45!
Now I have been in his office for over an hour past my appointment time and I am just getting to see the doctor. He comes in and starts asking me basically the same questions his assistant asked me. He did an exam and was gone all within 15 minutes. His assistant came back in handed me some papers explaining what I needed to do, gave me my pre-signed prescriptions and told me the exit was to the left.
I had to fight with myself to keep my big mouth shut, but until I had another doctor I felt it was best to pay my co-pay and leave without making a stink.
That was a great story right? Well maybe not so great. As I drove home and started to calm down I started to think about the sales rep customer relationship. I thought about what just happened to me and then realized that I have worked with reps in the field that treat their customers the same way.
I recalled customers asking reps to come back and being willing to set an appointment with the rep just to have the rep ignore the request and keep selling until it got to the point where the customer either asked us to leave or left themselves. I have heard reps ask a customer if this was a convenient time and when the customer said no ignore the customer and keep talking. I have seen reps show up late for appointments or even worse not show up at all. I have watched reps take phone calls, read and send text messages, and send e mails in front of their customers.
It was shocking to me that I could think of so many examples of reps disrespecting customers in so many ways. I was amazed by the fact that the more I thought about it the more widespread disrespect for a customer was.
When my oldest daughter was in high school, she was in the band. Her band director, Mr. Pharris, was an awesome influence on the students. A lesson that he taught every band student from their first day until they graduated was, IF YOU’RE NOT 10 MINUTES EARLY YOU ARE LATE!
Disrespect is not acceptable in any form between a rep and their customer. You need to not just respect their time, but their money, their business, their responsibility, their position, and their knowledge. There is no room for disrespect in a rep customer relationship.
I hate to say it but I have heard reps tell me the customer didn’t respect them and that is why they didn’t respect the customer. Sorry, being disrespected can be a reason for you to decide not to do business with a customer, but never burn bridges. Walk away and leave the door open, maybe not for you, but for another rep.
Every time you are in front of a customer you are not only representing yourself and your company, you are representing your profession. How you act and react reflects on every sales rep that will ever walk through that customer’s door from now on.
As the great Aretha Franklin sang, R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
Lorin
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