Holland becomes a customer / Sander van Dooren

We sold a DXP to Holland. The customer lived on an island and wanted to use it to distribute the mail. I was happy about every new customer. But that's nothing special so far. Some time later, an enquiry came through our Belgian dealer, Olivier: the Dutch postal service wanted to procure a good dozen DXPs for trial purposes. I travelled to Amsterdam together with my saleswoman Pam, who is responsible for the Benelux countries, and we had a meeting with the person in charge at the post office. There was a short, intensive exchange. He told us that a postman had bought and used the DXP at his own expense. He was so enthusiastic about our vehicle that he visited him, took his vehicle to the mainland and asked a few other people for an assessment. All this was very positive, and now he wants to purchase the first vehicles. One for each region. They decided on a Friday the 13th that they needed 13. But since the number 13 could be such a thing, they decided to give us the order for 14 vehicles. One more wouldn't hurt either. I was amazed at the way the procurement of this first sample order had gone, and was also very happy to be able to deliver 14 vehicles. The number 13 had brought us luck in a double sense.
I remembered my early days. At a trade fair, I had met a very likeable Dutchman: Sander van Dooren. I was enthusiastic about his product. An electric motorbike for wheelchair users, equipped with air suspension that could be lowered to pick up the rider. We exchanged technical details and arranged a meeting. On my next trip, I visited his company Freewiel in Eersel, south of Eindhoven. He had a company of a similar size to mine at the time. Both Freewiel and KYBURZ had a production of special vehicles. In his case it was bicycles for people with walking difficulties and this pendulum for wheelchair users, in mine it was my CLASSIC vehicles for senior citizens. Sander was enthusiastic about my products and immediately decided to sell them in the Netherlands. For many years we had a very friendly, intensive and fruitful cooperation. We inspired each other. In order to learn from each other, we came up with the idea that his saleswoman Ineke would come to Switzerland for a fortnight and work in my sales department as normal. My sales assistant Lukas was to spend the same time with him in sales. Two phone calls later, the deal was done. The exchange was wonderful. Ineke came with me to trade fairs as a representative of Freewiel. If a customer had a complaint or a suggestion, she visited them. She demonstrated my products to our Swiss customers and learned a lot. In her straightforward manner, she also addressed uncomfortable issues directly and pointed her finger at processes that still had potential for improvement. With Ineke, I only ever had to watch out when she got quiet and stopped talking. Then the house was really out of order. Then I had to listen to her especially attentively. Lukas did the same in Sander's company, and both returned with many new ideas.
Since the exchange was so fruitful, we repeated it with our developers. My development manager worked at Freewiel and Sander's joined us at the same time. During this time, Sander also proudly showed me his project that he had come up with for the Dutch postal service. A very stylish tricycle with a big box. He had made several prototypes, but never sold a single vehicle. That was difficult with the post office.

Remembering this sentence, I never seriously knocked on the door of the Dutch Post Office. Fortunately, however, a postman did so on his own initiative and was able to convince his superior, who then procured the first test vehicles.
Today, this customer already has 700 of our DXPs in use and is very satisfied with them.
In the meantime, Sander has sold his company and is enjoying his well-deserved retirement on his own farm. He still has many ideas and projects going on, including supporting a company in Africa that builds wheelchairs. HUKA had bought Sander's company, including the distribution of our vehicles.

I learned from that:

• A satisfied customer is the best salesman.
• Friday the 13th can bring good luck.
• Sometimes a customer comes to us in an unconventional way.