The Happiest I’ve Ever Made a Customer

I’ve been answering questions this month about the angriest a customer has ever been at us or the biggest career mistake I’ve ever made. So now let’s talk about how happy I’ve made a customer.

Years ago, Texas utility companies were offering big credits and rebates to their customers for switching out their old industrial lighting to a more efficient lighting system. One of our distributors also specialized in industrial lighting, so they offered us a lighting audit followed by a proposal. The proposal was that if we switched out our lighting to a more efficient system, we would get a large rebate check from our utility provider.

I looked over the proposal, thought it looked sound, and that if we did it, we were definitely going to get a rebate check when it was all over. And when we got our rebate check, it ended up being a lot bigger than our distributor had originally projected.

So, I did what I thought would be the honorable thing: I split the difference, 50/50, between what they calculated and what we got. I invited the owner of the distributorship to lunch, and I presented him with the check for his 50% of the excess.

The guy was flabbergasted. He said this was the only time in his entire career that a customer had ever done anything like that for him. He had started his own business 50 years earlier, and was very successful, but a customer had never done that for him.

I’ll admit, the money would have been nice because we were talking about thousands of dollars. But, the rebate came to us because of the work this distributor did for us, and even if he underestimated the size of the rebate, the more honorable thing was to share the excess with him. I believe in sharing good fortune, and this was a great opportunity to do just that.

It was a smart investment on my part because as a distributor, he never tried to beat me up on price and negotiate a lower one than what we normally charged our distributors. He would name a fair price for both of us, and he remained one of our most profitable customers.

One rule I live by is to treat people fairly at all times, even when it’s not to your immediate benefit. Even when it’s not certain you’re going to receive any benefit at all. Because if nothing else, word will spread about what you did and how you helped someone when it wasn’t necessary, about how your unexpected generosity helped someone.

Those stories will carry on, like I know they did for that distributor — he told that story for as long as he was in business, and that only helped my and my company’s reputation for years to come.

I’ve been a manufacturing executive, as well as a sales and marketing professional, for a few decades. Now, I help companies turn around their own business, including pivoting within their industry. If you would like more information, please visit my website and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Photo credit: Walmart (Flicker, Creative Commons 2.0)