Let me tell you what happened today and hopefully it will serve as a customer service lesson for small businesses.

I got a frantic call before opening hours from a new customer (referred by Motorola - a good long term customer). They had ordered 30 cables which we delivered a month ago. They went to install them today and found they had the wrong connectors at the end. A municipality shut down a tunnel at great expense and inconvenience for them to finish the install over the weekend. Those cables take a few days to make. They are in big trouble and it looks like I might have screwed up.

I went over the email chain and found out that while the original request was for the right connector, when my proposal was sent to their technical lead for review and approval, he told the ops manager (the original requestor) and me to change the connector type to the wrong kind. I quoted the changed connector type, they ordered it, we built it and shipped it. So, as it turns out, not my fault at all.

I came up with a solution that involves 60 bulkhead connectors and 60 short cables that in combination would provide the end-to-end solution they need along with the original cables. I am shipping them overnight Saturday delivery from 2 locations.

My cost including shipping is around $650. My profit margin on the first sale was around $1200. The customer has no budget left to pay for the extra cables and connectors and the freight. I agreed to eat the $650. Here's why:

The Ops manager (the one who is selecting vendors on future products) will go from bonehead to hero. He will have saved the install and at no extra cost. He will seem like a silver-tongued wizard that can force vendors to do magic to solve problems. The alternative is that he will look like a guy who didn't manage his project, vendors, or installers properly. I saved his butt. BIG TIME. Now he knows that I have his back, period. He's not going to buy his stuff from anyone else going forward (he switched to us for quality, not price). I took what would have been a one-time $1,200 profit and for $650 turned it into a long-term customer than is going to put project after project in our hands. If someone was willing to sell me a great customer out of the blue for $650 I would pay that all day long. So, why not do it through customer service? Not only that, but I skipped a pre-paid tee time this morning to deal with this (OK, there goes an other $45).

So, $19 or $1,900 or $19,000 the goal here is to keep a *good* customer, or to turn a so-so customer into a good customer. Long term consistent revenue is what you want. 440source seems to get this, even if their communication style could use some polish. For the amount they sell, the small unit-price, and the platform (ebay), they're probably doing the best anyone could. Have a great weekend, everyone. I am taking my 10 year old to get her hair dyed pink, and then will have to deal with my ex-wife when she sees it.