 |
| Katherine Hepburn's Smythson Address book, image from revivingcharm.com |
In the 1990s a large and well known auctioneers, Bonham's, had a large and successful saleroom on the street. At some point, the company decided to have a huge expansion, and within it, revamp their entire telephone system to a more modern and sophisticated system.
One of the small problems was, the saleroom telephone number would have to be changed. Now all calls would be directed to a central number and redirected to all the different branches. This would streamline the customer service process and make it all much more efficient. Bonhams were expanding hugely, concentrating on the global markets and advertising internationally.
The thing is, in the 1990s, people still wrote down telephone numbers in address books and kept them for years, especially wealthy aristocrats living in Chelsea & Belgravia wanting to sell their dusty old Louis XV Canapés and Chippendale Commodes.
Most people selling at auction would rarely visit the auction themselves. A valuer would visit their home, inspect the items, write down all the details, a van would collect the goods, and then once sold, the vendor would receive a nice cheque. So they had absolutely no idea what happened to the items once they left their house.
On Lots Road there were also some tiny, independent auctions on the street.
One such business, Francis Smith's, saw they had changed their number, called BT and managed to request the old number Bonham's had discarded, for his own number.
Whenever the phone rang he would answer: “Good afternoon, Saleroom?”
And the customer might reply “Oh hello, is that Bonham’s?”
And he would reply assuringly “You’re speaking to the saleroom on Lots Road”
And then using his natural charm and patter he would arrange a valuation visit to their house and the customer was his. I think most of them might have been completely unaware it was a different auction until after the sale had happened and the cheque arrived.
Bonham's must have lost thousands of pounds in sales over the years.
They hadn’t really thought about how lots of their customers actually contacted them.
They assumed everyone read the expensive glossy magazine advertising.
In reality many of them simply opened their dog-eared address book.
What I love about the story is it’s a classic David and Goliath tale. The tiny independent seeing a chance and having a little victory over the big powerful corporate.
Cheeky perhaps, but clever, and quickly seizing an opportunity.
It’s also a great example of how if you know your market, and you know how your customers actually operate, you can be very smart.
