I have to say that sometimes I find great customer service in places I don’t expect. About half way through the season last year I started doing radio spots with local stations owned by Cox Broadcasting. The lead ad rep is a really great guy and took the time to sit down and discuss what I was looking for with the ad buy I was doing. I was really impressed by the attention he gave me considering I really wasn’t spending much at all.
Last week he sat down with me to discuss what I was envisioning about the next season. We talked about what I felt the competition for the theatre was, what our audience was, how we differed from other theatres on the island. This took about 2-3 hours.
He came back today and had some suggestions for me about increasing our exposure that had nothing to do with buying time on his station. Some of it he could help me with, some we would have to do on our own. He had more questions for me because after our last meeting, he realized he hadn’t gotten a full enough picture to make a suggestion. We spent another 2 hours talking today–and he left with a promise to have a plan for our meeting next week.
Now I have to tell you, the ratio of time he is spending talking to me trying to get a good sense of our business so he can build a lasting relationship with my organization to the amount of money I will spend can’t be profitable.
At this point I am wondering if this guy is gonna lose his job. His company is very corporate. I sent over a CD for a group we were presenting last year that had been nominated for the local equivalent of the Grammys. The program managers for two stations decided it didn’t fit the mix that their market research said people wanted to listen to so they wouldn’t play it.
However since they are also the stations closest to the genre of the performers we were hosting, I took air time. We sold the show out based a large part on the ads. Someone listening must have wanted to hear the group.
So based on this, I am thinking the company might be scrutinizing the time management of their sales people to insure they efficiently selling air time. On the other hand, this guy is a lead sales guy. Whenever I am talking about buying time on multiple stations, he brings the reps for the other stations out to meet me and does most of the talking. People pretty much defer to him.
Unless he is pulling a Jerry Maguire and has decided to treat customers like people instead of commodities thereby sabotaging his career, I am thinking whatever he is doing is working for his bosses.
So the lesson I walk away with today- Even if the behemoth corporation’s only interest in people seems to be based on what demographic they fall in to, there can be cogs in the great machine whose concern extends beyond that point.