Pieter Kroezen: A listening ear

“Back in the mid-90s, after the wall came down, West German companies were trying to sell into the former East Germany,” said Pieter Kroezen of Netherlands-based InandAut, but sometimes without as much success as they’d hoped.

It seemed West German technology and engineering companies had assumed they’d have a ready-made market in the east of the country, after all, East Germany had been cut off for a long time from the advances made by the West.

But this was the point: “People in East Germany had a long-standing tradition of repair, instead of buying new parts simply because they haven’t had the money; you could say they then hadn’t caught up with our throwaway society.” However you describe it, the West German companies quite often found they simply didn’t have the trust of their counterparts explained Mr Kroezen, and added: “It’s odd but having someone like me coming from another country, not trying to sell them parts or services directly but just give advice, actually helped both sides.”

While this arena has now changed, it got Mr Kroezen thinking about the value of having someone around who is “more than just another sales rep”. At the same time he realised these specialists are out of the reach of many smaller companies’ budgets: therefore his idea has been to provide relationship managers “as a floating resource” on limited contracts.

And, contrary to expectation, this element is far from redundant in these days of websites and electronic orders. “People buy in bulk and chase a discount where they can, but the reality is that it’s always possible a few percent of these items won’t quite be up to standard,” he said. “The problem is if someone orders a spare part from a webshop and it’s faulty, they’re very unlikely to try and get in contact with you... They simply won’t order that part from you again.” Of course the worst-case scenario is where a customer is left waiting on the quay for an emergency repair: given this potential “the only way to salvage the relationship is by providing a listening ear, and a proper, fast response”, he added.

Another characteristic of the marine sector is the number of individual development projects. It’s an element that Mr Kroezen enjoys, “as I like to be around people who are ‘hands-on’,” but it does create challenges: “There can be different versions, automotive, industrial or marine usage parts that are apparently similar, even with almost identical codes, but given a different application, some will have a shorter life expectancy than others.” So, what’s needed is someone able to talk through the options, “saying this costs more but it will give you that much longer in operation”.

The approach is a long way from relying on an electronic interface to sort out business. Although Mr Kroezen added: “Don’t get me wrong, webshops aren’t a bad thing” he is clear they “need to be supported by someone who understands the technical details”.