Nice story. I generally agree the message, particularly the concept and phrase of an "internal champion". As demonstrated that one person can make or break you.<p>I've witnessed similar situations play out more than once, but to the negative with bad service aimed at seemingly insignificant people killing six and seven figure orders.<p>That said, I think you're missing something if the potential windfall is your impetus for quality service.<p>"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." —Malcolm S. Forbes [0]<p>0: <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/28/judge-character/" rel="nofollow">http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/28/judge-character/</a>
If you value feedback from the HN collective then you probably should read the extensive discussion from the last time this was submitted:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4081390" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4081390</a><p>There are many points and counter-points there, with more anecdotes, and some data.<p>Comments there are closed, of course, it being so old, so any new discussion will have to be here.
I like this story. I have provided this level of support in the past and it made me proud. But beware the lesson you learn from this "$4m call" story.<p>The lesson could easily be: I played the lotto and won big. Therefore, everyone should play the lotto.
Being a champion of world class service is always the goal and stories like this never get old. Keep in mind that there are also hidden/intangible costs associated with delivery of this level of service, for every "Bob the 4 million dollar client", there are 10 "John the 2 hour time-syncs". I am not saying that you should not strive for world-class service, because you should. I would speak more to pricing your services accordingly and not under valuing them to the point where you cannot take care of clients properly.
Kind of an entertaining coincidence that the other post from inc.com on the front page right now is called 'Never be a customers doormat'.[<a href="http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/never-be-a-customers-doormat.html?cid=sf01001" rel="nofollow">http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/never-be-a-customers-doorm...</a>]
As noted in the other HN thread, this is a great example of taking time out to help a customer that's having a tough time and reaping a reward.<p>But.<p>While it can be great to have a general philosophy of "always provide the best customer service possible, even at 2am, no matter the customer," a great CEO will need to act based on the realities of their business situation -- informed by these philosophies, but not locked down by them.<p>I agree that in the context of business you should always be as nice as possible, no matter how difficult of a time you're having with someone. But some customers aren't the right customers for your business, and they should be guided elsewhere.
This is what Dell Computer was like in the early days. I worked there in the late 80s. Tech support would try to solve any problem a customer had, regardless of whether it had anything to do with the PC hardware. I think that kind of service was a key to early success.
This deeply relates with the "Do things that don't scale" essay from PG.<p><a href="http://paulgraham.com/ds.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/ds.html</a><p>As long as you can, do things that don't scale. Even if the end of this history were different, the writer would have lost near to nothing, and possibly gained some insight.
I have come across this kind of support numerous times from various companies like Apple, NEC and Wacom. The result is, I firmly recommend them everytime I have a chance and will continue to do them as long as they provide transparency.