L.A.E.’s customer-supplier 360° long-term relationship

What is 360° customer-supplier approach L.A.E.’s 360° customer-supplier relationship is a long-term approach which focuses not only on making the sale today, but also on...

byL.A.E.


What is 360° customer-supplier approach

L.A.E.’s 360° customer-supplier relationship is a long-term approach which focuses not only on making the sale today, but also on developing a relationship that will enable us to have a happy customer tomorrow. While simply selling some equipment, regardless of whether it meets the customer requirements, might create some turnover today, this is not the best investment in the future. L.A.E. was founded 40 years ago and since its beginnings it has been looking towards the future and focusing on happy and returning customers.

Our 360° approach comprises three phases: pre-sales, sales and after-sales.

Pre-sales phase

In the pre-sales phase, we consult with our customer in order to understand what requirements they have not only at the equipment level, but also at the process level. For example, if the customer is interested in a winding machine, then we find it important to know more about their production process and how they produce the winding. How will they be using the machine? Where will it be placed in the plant? All these important questions give us a better understanding of the customer needs. There are cases when the customer requests a fully equipped and a very flexible machine, but then we realize that in fact their focus is on productivity. So, we direct their attention to a different machine from the one they initially wanted, to the machine with the features that they need, even if it is cheaper. We prefer having a happy customer to selling a more expensive machine.

To give an example, L.A.E.’s team has recently visited our customer who asked for an upgrade for the old machine. When the team analysed the problems at hand, it was discovered that such upgrade would not be able to solve their major issues. Therefore, we recommended the customer not to take the upgrade, but rather to save money today for a better investment in a new generation machine tomorrow. So, at this stage we want to understand the customer’s needs and try to advise them about the best solution.

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