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Hypothetical situation for audio dealers who feel used by crappy "customers"...

Posted by Dalton on February 17, 2007 at 15:00:31

Suppose a potential customer walks into your shop wanting to buy a very specific and very expensive item. He has cash in hand, no questions to ask, knows exactly what he wants, and does not desire to haggle on price. Your "dream sale".

Normally, you don't ask questions, just count the money. But then the potential customer blurts out the reason why he is so certain and willing to act quickly: He tells you that he has been shopping for months and has demo'ed that exact item and several of its competitors from another audio dealer. Yes, he was generally satisfied with the helpful service he had gotten (although he was mildly off-put at times by the condescending tone of the store's owner) and was happy with paying full price. But he discovered at the last moment through a friend of his that your store had a sale fall through and the item was uncharacteristically available in stock that very day! The other dealer who had invested all the time and resources, had to order it, and that would take a week. This item is something you don't normally don't stock, and you can't return it to the manufacturer. The buyer who backed out on this item decided on a more expensive alternative, which he bought from you. Now, your potential new customer doesn't really "need" this item immediately, but the weekend is coming up and he wants to have some fun NOW!

What do you do?

a) Politely ask him to leave your store after imploring him to be more patient with the other dealer, who invested so much of his time and resources convincing the customer to buy that item. Or, tell this lousy "customer" bluntly to f#ck off and buy from Audiogon. Your choice, depending on how much stress you've been under the past few hours.

b) Ask the customer for the name of the other dealer. Call the dealer up and offer to provide him the item from your stock at dealer cost so that he can consumate the sale with the impatient customer. After all, you theorize, "We dealers have to stick together". You get rid of an item you don't normally stock and generate good will with a fellow dealer who may return the favor someday. It's win-win!

c) Gleefully sell your "new friend" the item at full price despite the fact that you would consider him a bastard for abusing your store's time and resources if the shoe were on the other foot. Of course, you'll be extremely wary of this guy if he comes in again and you will most likely deny him any service in the future that requires you to go out of your way for him. This includes talking to him politely. But for now - it's take the money and run!

To hear some of the recent pontificating from many high-end dealers here lately, you would think options a) or b) would be the most correct responses. But why do I suspect that c) would be the most common real-life course of action, and the one that you all will no doubt attempt to justify below....

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