My 'Benjamins' Are Going Homeless *

SECOND IN A THREE PART SERIES

(*For those of you who majored in 'feelings' in college, Ben Franklin's face is on the U.S. $100 dollar bill. It is thus often called a 'Benjamin').

I have been trying to buy a new motorcycle. An Italian one as it were. Trying is the key term here. It will cost many Benjamins. Not because I am special in that regard. All motorcycles cost a lot of Benjamins.

Three (3) different dealers, 3+ weeks of 'interaction' and still no bike. So what is so hard you might ask? I don't think I did anything (yet) to get cancelled.

Welcome to 'commerce' in the current times. Disconnects, lack of information, prices and inventories that no one seems to control or understand and experience, knowledge and courtesy of the staff on the provider side, all at inexcusably low levels. And please don't say 'Covid' because guess what, in business and in life, stuff happens.

At the outset, each of the Dealers 'systems' for Customer Engagement worked very well...sort of. Within seconds of [each of] my initial on-line inquiries, specific to Model and Manufacturer, I received the welcoming email from each place (no doubt auto-generated), telling me how important, special and in one case, how wise I was to be part of their family of buyers and riders. That positive start lasted exactly 5 minutes.

I waited for the promised follow up phone call. Even an email or a text. Each dealer had my email address, my text connection, my phone number and pictures of my 2000 Facebook Friends. Thank God I wasn't waiting for medical assistance or an answer to any of life's burning questions.

Day 1 passed. Day 2 and then, Day 3. I thought, why should I call them? After all, I have the money and they have the goods. C'mon, why not actually sell me something? But then, my always wise (but not a lover of motorcycles) wife (who also quickly tired of hearing my complaining) said; "...do you want to be stubborn or do you want the motorcycle...call them..!" After all, I did have the actual names of the people who had reached out to me.

Call Number One: "Oh, we're sorry, that person is no longer with us...tell me again who you are and what you want..?" Call Number Two: "...We are running behind on our calls but thanks for calling us instead; you were on our list somewhere..." And, Call Number Three: "...We just became a dealership for that Manufacturer last week. We really don't know much about them. But, we will in about a month if you call back then..." And yes, each one of their automated (worthless) answering systems asked me at the outset of these genius exchanges if I would stay on the line and fill out a short survey...

Strikes one, two and three in about the same time it takes for the Mets to bat through their entire starting line up. Too bad for me, I still wanted that motorcycle. And by the way, I forthrightly told each Vendor up front that I was considering a total of three competitive offers. Yawn and bigger yawn from all three!

Now it became the all-too-common- Consumer choice of the day: Which one is the 'least worst' of the bunch to deal with? Who do I want to cajole and babysit through a process that in the end, will yield revenue and profit for them as my 'Benjamins' find a new home. At least now, I was really feeling special...not.

In case you believe that I am an especially difficult Customer, here were my specific needs: (1) Can you email a complete invoice with all fees and taxers shown. (2) Can you confirm a delivery date on the bike? (3) Are all services, warranty and registrations complete and up to date? (4) Are the accessories I want factory or dealer installed? and, (5) How do you want to be paid?

You guessed it, NONE of the three dealers could handle all five questions in 1, 2 or even 3 interactions. And why? "...The person you need for that is out this week..." or "...The factory is in Italy and we have to call them..." or "... Yes, I sent you an email but I forgot to attach the invoice..." or "...Delivery will be somewhere between 15 and 75 days..." or the best (worst) one: "...Sir, this bike is super popular right now so we aren't that worried about any one Buyer; we have many others waiting..."

Yes, I should have said it earlier. Mine is a high class problem to have. Poor boy can't get his motorcycle, boo hoo. And his Benjamins are no better than anyone elses. Yes and Yes.

That said, what has happened to the simplicities, (I thought) of Service, Customer Appreciation, Trained Associates, Prompt responses, Respect for others time, a desire to be better than the competition and the joy and satisfaction of actually closing a sale?

If you are an Owner or a CEO and you believe that you have bought your way into assured success by way of automated systems for Customer Service and Engagement, on-line assessment tools to insure you hire the right people, checking the boxes for all forms of inclusive management and employee engagement and the very best in WEB sites, a strong social media presence and online chat bots, I humbly encourage you to DO ONE THING:

Try out and test EVERY ONE of those fool-proof systems as an anonymous Customer of your own firm, store , dealership or distributorship and be willing to honestly assess if [you] would buy [from you] given the 'real' experience you end up having?

We are all better than this. We are all more capable than this.

The standards and virtues of a great Customer Experience do not just happen. They must be (in order) enunciated clearly, established wisely, trained intently, checked vigorously, tested internally, communicated repeatedly and, most importantly assessed honestly.

How many Customers did you lose today?

Vroom, vroom...

=================================================================Allan's full profile is on LinkedIn.com. Consider engaging him for a 30 minute discussion on this topic. [email protected]