”In the mid-eighties one of the very largest semi companies in the business decided that hearing the voice of the customer would be a good thing to do,” he recalls.
“I was running Operations then for one of Europe’s largest system houses and this included all our procurement activities. I was approached by the semi company’s head of Europe, a small but larger than life Frenchman, to see if we would host a dinner for his CEO as he swung through Europe on his very important listening tour.”
”We were perfectly happy to do this and set up a small dinner in a private dining room at the Institute of Directors building on Pall Mall in London. “
“On our side there was myself, my CEO, and the head of our Office Products Division. For the semi company the attendees were the CEO and the head of Europe. “
”The dinner was very pleasant, the food and wine was excellent and the white glove and black tails service was impeccable. When the coffee stage was reached we were asked to tell the CEO what our candid thoughts on his company were. Did we have any problems? Were they difficult or easy to deal with etc etc etc. The CEO really valued the opinions of his customers so we should tell all, good and bad, no holds barred.”
”I have been in many such meetings and experience says that good news is always delivered with confidence and gusto while less good news is usually hedged about with justification in support of the supplier’s insurmountable difficulties even though the customer, in this case us, is footing the bill and living with those problems.”
”This instance was no different. The head of our Office Products division had the task of delivering what the semi CEO was so anxious to hear. Our guy was a perfect gentleman as always and hesitatingly started to hint, albeit obliquely, that there were some issues particularly with the semi company’s latest product offering.”
“He cannot have been more than a couple of short sentences into this mildest of critiques when the semi CEO exploded. The words are scarred on my brain.“
“How dare you f——-g talk to me like this. I invented this f——-g industry”.
”There wasn’t much more listening to the customer after this. The waiters were traumatized, the French head of Europe tried to soothe the injured parties, and the semi CEO asked for his coat and left.”
“There was no subsequent discernible improvement in the semi company’s customer support and no one from that company ever suggested listening to us again,” concludes the exec.
