I’ve not told you all a little story for a while, so I reckon it’s about time I put that right…

It started with a door. More specifically a red wood grain composite door with light oak outer frames. I think we can all agree that this combination of colours is probably low down on the list, however, in this case my customer wanted this specification, as well as a sandblasted top light with his own choice of words in clear. That was his door, his way – like a certain burger chain!

He got a price from myself and another company based in Leeds. As we quite often do non-standard door specs this was a simple door to price. But, when he came in to sign up with me, he explained that when he went to the other company to get a price, it seemed too cheap. He knew that what he was asking for would mean that the price would end up being a little more than the average door, and that the colours he chose weren’t the norm. So he rang the other company back to check if everything was OK. Much to my surprise, he told me the other company thought that he was joking! They said that because of the specification of the door he wanted, the other company assumed that he wasn’t being serious so just gave a price out!

Talk about being non-professional. At the time of the other company’s reply, he still hadn’t made his mind up on who to go for. But once he was told that the other company wasn’t taking him seriously, that made his mind up to come to us. I explained to him that we are known for designing and installing doors that are unique to everyone and that what he had asked for was quite possible.

The lesson here ladies and gents is to take every customer seriously, no matter how odd the specification. Who knows, the company from Leeds could have won that order he had had bothered to take this gentleman seriously. But they failed to do so and I was able to accommodate his requirements and sell him a very high quality door, designed to his liking.

Professionalism is something which is absolutely imperative in our industry, especially when trying to selling expensive one-off items like bespoke doors. I could never dream of telling a customer that I thought they were joking and that I wasn’t taking them seriously! Those are a sequence of words any business should never say to a customer. If they didn’t want the job there were certainly more polite and diplomatic ways of putting it, rather than telling the customer what they did.

We are due to fit this red and light oak door at the back end of next week. As soon as it’s finished I’ll try and get some pictures up on here.

Got a similar story? Feel free to leave it in the comments section below.