Six figure contract lost through lack of enthusiasm and service on the telephone

This case involves a large organisation that was negotiating the lease on a fleet of campany cars for its Management Team. The deal had been negotiated all the way through by representatives of the lease hire company and the Senior buyer for the organisation. Negotiations had progressed exceptionally well with both sides feeling happy and content that they had struck a good arrangement. The rest of this story is worrying. The MD of the organisation wanted to know a couple of the details and wanted to get a feel for the lease hire company that he was about to sign contracts with. The MD wasn’t looking for trouble but he got it! He simply called the lease car company, introduced himself and asked to be put through to Michael who had been one of the names given to him by his senior buyer. “Michael who?” was the short response. “Oh sorry, Michael Smith…” , “I’m sorry, he is out of the office, can I take a message?” The MD left his message asking for a call back. The call never came, the MD made another one“Hello I am…., I called a few days ago wanting to speak to Michael Smith.  I left a message when I was told he was out of the office but have not heard” “Ok, I’ll pass on another message to call you. Has he got your number?” Now this scenario is wrong from a few angles but you know what’s coming. The MD did get a call back but it was another 3 days later. This could have been because Michael Smith had not been passed the orginal message, it could have been because he had been absent through holiday or illness but the MD lost confidence and trust and cancelled the deal. There could be faults with the internal systems of the car hire company but if the phone interaction and skills had been much better, the contract would have been saved. Not a happy ending! These are the areas that need to be addressed –

1.      Call ownership and responsibility

2.      Effective Message taking

3.      Tonality