Customers are slippery !!

These days customers are slippery. They may not care about relationships in the past. It is only price.

A customer was asking me an air-conditioner for his children's room.
As we spoke he told me that he knows our company and proprietor quite well and that we used to buy drilling machines and other tools from him.

His house is situated less than a kilometer from our showroom.

When discussing about price he agreed that margins are very, very low and that the price quoted by me was not bargained.

These days at the very first instance we quote the lowest possible price, lest the customer gets out of our hand.

He said that his daughter wanted only a red colour panel. The next day I informed him that red colour was indeed available.

When I later phoned, his office informed me that he is out of station and would be back after a week or so. Again, I phoned two or three times but on every occasion he was not available.

Today I phoned and he came on the line. The person who was earlier cordial was as distant as possible. " I asked my office to take the unit from you. Did they not contact you?"

He is a small shop owner and buying unit for his house. Can't he just tell me that he has purchased the unit??

I didn't want to embarrass him. I told him politely: "If you need a unit, you may contact me anytime".

I disconnected and banged on my table. Mild pain in my wrist !!