Stay In Touch! The following story serves a two fold purpose. Number one it illustrates the importance of staying in touch with your customers, and number two it highlights a very important service that we provide that can be invaluable, cash advance!
Last Friday, when it was thunder-storming here in Southern California so ferociously, I had an appointment in the San Fernando Valley. Afterwards, I figured since we hadn’t spoken for at least a year or so, I’d stop by and see Tony Dodge at ‘Dodge Bros. Automotive’ (Our deceased partner ‘Doc’ used to love him!). Sometime last year we needed to do a download on Tony’s terminal and Marc Ellen, our vice president, went over to Tony’s place twice, once at 5:30 am one day and once at 6:00 am another day, because that’s the only time Tony isn’t too busy!
Never the less Tony unceremoniously ushered Marc out both times; claiming he was just too busy and we were unable to get the download done.
This was a great opportunity for me to just get it handled! After my appointment, I drove through a torrential downpour to get over to Dodge Bros. and when I got there Tony was busy as usual hunched down at his desk flipping through papers and making notes. After shaking hands and greeting each other, I announced that I was here to get the download completed. He briefly glanced at the download instructions and said “Rick, I haven’t been with you guys for over a year! I needed some funds after American Express cut my credit line in half last year and these other guys got me $50,000 advanced on my credit card transactions!”
I quickly apologized for not having kept in touch. Because number one, I didn’t even know that he wasn’t processing with us as he never cancelled his account. And number two, we offer the very same service for less than what Tony ended up paying!
I asked Tony if I could earn his business back and he responded “come back next week when I’m not so busy and we’ll get signed up”, so I’m scheduled to drop by this week to re-sign Tony and to re-establish our relationship.
I can not stress enough the importance of communicating with your customers. Not only did we lose a sale we almost lost a merchant-partner, all because we had not maintained proper communication! Fortunately the relationship is being restored and we’re learning from our mistake.
When Tony wants more cash advanced, around summertime this year, ABC Processing will be the folks providing the value this time around.
By the way, here’s a ‘shout out’ to Tony Dodge for allowing us the opportunity to earn your business back, ‘Thanks Tony!’
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