The cost of poor customer service.

We've decided to buy  machinery for our company to assist in creating models for proposals to prospective and existing clients.  We'd narrowed the choice down to two suppliers and allocated budget for the purchase.  We needed to check the stock level for the desired item at the local branch of our usual supplier. We phoned the branch and hung on waiting five minutes for an answer without success.  Clearly they don't want the business and subsequent follow-on spares purchases.

We placed the order shortly after with their competitor. The Derby branch of Machine Mart screwed up and lost hundreds of pounds worth of business as a consequence. The moral is if you are in the business of sales and the phone is ringing, answer the damn phone. If you don't answer in a timely fashion you can lose a lot of business.

Modern phone systems offer a whole range of features such as call roll-over which might have kept our custom.

Edit: 18/05/2016
We now have a new 14 inch band saw delivered and operational. It was supplied by Charnwood in Leicestershire. It is their own label brand and appears to be well constructed. They'll be getting future machinery orders, so for Machine Mart the damage is long term. Charnwood answer the phone promptly. We'll be using this machine to develop prototype trading room furniture. It is primarily aimed at wood cutting, but it can also be used for plastics.