Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Taking care of visitors - a sales mistake

Many years ago, I worked on a proposal to sell an information security system to Hong Kong Telecom. I worked for a very large company and the proposal was a joint effort of our Hong Kong team and our telecom experts in the US (I was part of the US team).

After submitting the proposal, we learned that the HKT procurement team would be visiting the finalists for a site visit and product demonstration. We let the team know they should rent a car at Boston Logan Airport, and gave them directions to where our office was. We had a very nice presentation, served a sandwich lunch, and they left.

Within a few days, we learned HKT had eliminated us from contention.

That seemed to be the end of it. But some weeks later, we had a call with one of our internal security leaders. He talked to us about our proposal and solution. It turned out he knew the key executive at HKT because they served on an international security committee together. Soon thereafter, we learned that we had another chance at the business, and were invited to spend a day presenting to the company at their Hong Kong offices.

In Hong Kong, we were met at the airport, driven to our hotel, and our entire week of meals, shopping, etc., had been planned. I had never been treated with such care by strangers before. Our presentation day went flawlessly, and we learned that the executive had invited our whole team to dinner at his club that night.

At dinner, we laughed and drank and ate amazing food. Sometime during the night, he asked me, "Do you know why you were eliminated from contention?"

"No."

"How have you been treated since you've been in Hong Kong?"

And I told him.

"When we came to visit you in Boston, you didn't even arrange our transportation. We had to rent a car and find your office outside town. Do you know we don't even drive here? We were so upset after that visit that we didn't think your company was suitable to supply us with anything. Luckily, your colleague" - the security guy, who was also at the dinner - "called me and asked if we could give you another chance to prove yourself. And so you did. You will be getting the business."

We did not view the HKT team's visit from their perspective, but from ours. For us, renting a car at Logan Airport and driving to Waltham was no problem. We also didn't understand that other countries took hosting visitors very seriously, much moreso than we did in the US. The visit to Hong Kong taught us that. From then on, when customers have shown us the courtesy to pay us a visit at our home office, I've made sure they are taken well care of, as I was all those years ago.

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