Bay of Plenty Business News - September/October 2020

September/October 2020 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS 21
If you don’t manage
expectations, they
will manage you
In the more than 100 disputes tribunal hearings that I have been
involved in as a support person for my clients, a huge number
of them have one common denominator, the mishandling of
expectation management.
When a private client
engages a professional
service –
whether that be in the trades,
IT services, automotive, hospitality,
legal or any other industry
– they are generally not
engaging with the provider as
an expert in that industry. This
means that any expectation
that they have regarding the
provision of the requested service
is usually based on their
limited exposure to it in the
past.
There is a real balance
to be found in setting an expectation.
It must be high
enough to attract customers,
but realistic enough that you
minimise the chance of disappointing
the client, which can
lead to non-payment, disputes
and damage to the supplier’s
reputation.
In my experience with
larger businesses, the issues
are often found in a disconnect
between sales and production.
Sales people under pressure to
hit targets and be the quarter’s
sales champion can sometimes
oversell the business’s ability
and then hand the problematic
baby over to the production
teams to manage.
An example of this was
at an electronics company I
worked with. The sales person
did a proposal to a large government
department’s investigations
department.
They needed 10x high resolution
machines and their main
pain point was the amount of
money they were spending
on toner, as such departments
have fixed budgets that are set
a year in advance. Doing some
basic model research, the sales
person found a model that had
a toner yield of 6000 pages
and put together the proposal
focusing on the high yield as a
[Expectations] must be high enough
to attract customers, but realistic
enough that you minimise the chance of
disappointing the client, which can lead
to non-payment, disputes and damage to
the supplier’s reputation.”
major selling point. It worked
and the department issued a
purchase order for $270,000.
The technicians installed
all 10 machines, removed and
destroyed the old machines
(as security protocol dictated),
updated all drivers and printing
software and conducted
around 20 hours of training
with key staff. One month
later, the complaints and service
calls started rolling in as
the toner was running out even
faster than the previous machines,
averaging 400 pages
per set rather than the 6000 as
quoted.
After many heated phone
calls from the client to the
service manager, the sales person
was called into a “please
explain” meeting. After an investigation
it was discovered
that the 6000 yield quoted
was based on a 5 percent page
CREDIT CONTROL
> BY NICK KERR
Nick Kerr is Area Manager BOP for EC Credit Control NZ Ltd.
He is also a director of International Private Investigations Ltd.
Nick can be reached at nick.kerr@eccreditcontrol.co.nz
coverage, but the department
in question was in charge of
building inspections and the
reports that they were printing
were full of high resolution
colour photos that averaged 80
percent coverage.
The machines were returned,
sold as used items for
a massive loss, the company
absorbed the $20,000 training
and installation expenses, the
sales person was given the opportunity
to work somewhere
else and the brand suffered
huge brand damage in the
governmental supply community.
This could have all been
avoided with the sales person
asking for a sample report, giving
it to the technical manager
and researching the client’s
needs fully.
The basic lesson is that it
is better to give people good
surprises than bad ones. I have
never heard anyone complain
that their house was completed
a week faster than they
thought it was, or that their car
engine fault turned out to be
easier and cheaper to fix than
initially anticipated. Spending
a little extra time educating
the customer at the start of the
process is a heck of a lot easier
and cheaper than arguing with
them at the end when they are
trying to collect on the invoice.
Just a thought.
At Bayleys, we believe relationships are what businesses are built on and how they
succeed. We understand that to maximise the return on your property you need:
Professional property management
A business partner that understands your views and goals
Contact the Bayleys Commercial Property Management team today.
Bayleys Commercial
Property Management
07 579 0609
jan.cooney@bayleys.co.nz
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