This company used to be my best customer. I have known them since 2005 but lost them to my competitors in May 2019. They went with the competition because of a cockup on my behalf (it's a LONG story) combined with assholes offering stuff below cost price and some serious brown-nosing by a competitor sales guy (who I never could stand anyway). For reference let's call that sales guy "Mr. A"
It really was a proper clusterfuck of a situation. Pride got the better of my customer and he was so angry that he went to a higher priced, worse performing supplier. The guy even went so far as to block my number on his cell phone so I couldn't get through to him to talk.
Fast forward to late November 2021 and out of the blue he calls me. He started off by mentioning how I had fucked up - I openly admitted that I had made a big mistake but said I preferred to explain the whole situation face to face. I didn't pretend to run away from my mistake, I simply wanted him to know it had been an honest error which I wanted to learn from.
He confessed that I had a better product, he needed some replacement parts which I organised for him and we agreed to meet for lunch.
A week later, as I'm sitting down to lunch with the customer, Mr. A calls him on the phone. He was trying to sell my customer MY PRODUCT but was attempting to overcharge him. The customer then starts telling me how Mr. A had been bad-mouthing me, how much of a pest Mr. A is and how it's "dangerous" to talk about business infront of him.
The tables had turned, Mr. A's true nature had been discovered by the customer who had now come back to me. Mr. A only ever tries to sell more and more products to the customer whereas I ask questions, listen, and try to help the customer succeed and obtain his objectives.
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