A technical sales company is often run by someone who knows the product but doesn’t enjoy being the public face of the company. Staying within one’s lonely comfort zone can cause a leader to miss the signals that frustrated customers are ready to switch from no-bid renewals to a competitive bidding process. In this case study, a single-source provider did not have the insight to deduce the scope and nature of the issues that were putting their most important relationship at risk.

This is one in a series of case studies highlighting “Key Questions and Course Correction Quotes” taken from 20 years of B2B customer insight projects. All names are fictitious, but the situations are real. Case studies paint a picture of how important it is to know what your B2B customers are thinking, but not what they are saying. These are real-world examples of how asking for and acting on customer feedback has helped companies retain customers longer, grow relationships, and win new business faster.

Case study: relationship in jeopardy

Key question (asked to COO of multi-million dollar account): “You don’t have a day-to-day relationship with ‘PartsCo,’ so it’s hard for them to be sure what your expectations are. What should they understand about what you personally expect of them now and how could it be different than what you expected of them earlier in the relationship?

Course correction quote:

COO: “It’s hard to deal with them. We don’t want to get ripped off, and in some cases we feel ripped off. Our other key suppliers are more flexible by comparison. We’re also concerned about their quality control and their willingness to replace faulty parts. I wasn’t here when the relationship was new I met your number 2 guy but I’ve only seen your CIO at industry conferences You need to show me between contract negotiations that you consider our business important I want to continue renewing them, and recent improvements in quality control are helping, but they need to recognize that we have options.”

Customer Schedule:

This great multi-year relationship had started off quite successfully, but slowly deteriorated over time. PartsCo felt helpless as its main association seemed to be disappearing. They were desperate to understand what they were doing wrong and how they could get things back on track.

Conclution:

The real problem was that most of the communication in recent years had been done at the front-line level, except during contract negotiations. A lot had changed at the higher levels of the customer over time, and PartsCo stayed out of it. PartsCo leadership needed to periodically initiate top-down peer-to-peer communication and stay engaged. Its top executive had a technical background. He needed advice on how to structure a conversation to maintain a relationship. Once he understood the fundamental nature of the problem, he and his team quickly began to listen more carefully and work more collaboratively with this customer (and others). The relationship is now back to normal.

I classify projects as assessments, investigations, scavenger hunts, or rescue missions. This project was a “rescue mission.” The challenge was: “Can this marriage be saved?”