Procurement As Therapy

“I need to speak to you about a procurement that someone on your team is working. He left your name as the out of office contact.”

Hoo boy, I thought to myself, here we go. One of my very busy senior team members is on vacation for this holiday week. In spite of telling all his key clients he was out, I was pretty certain that this end user wanted me to do something for her in his absence.

“Ok,” I replied.

This end user is a known troublemaker and is a part of a deeply scientific research organization at my company. Thus began a discussion of the procurement. From top to bottom. Day one until now. The ins the outs the whathaveyous.

“Um hmm,” I replied in the appropriate places.

“And I’m having one heck of a time writing this scope of work!” the end user proclaimed. “I’ve talked to the team, I’ve talked to the supplier and I understand what we need to do, but I’m having a hard time writing it up.”

I made sympathetic noises and then asked, “Do you have a copy of our SoW template?” The procurement business office wrote up a pretty nice form-slash-template that users find to be a good guide to getting a reasonable SoW written and I thought maybe it would help.

“No, I do not have that template!” she testily replied. So I emailed it as we chatted and she opened it and looked it over.

“What else do I need to get this contract done!” she snapped.

I walked through the key pieces we needed and she “unh hun’d” her way through the list.

Meanwhile, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. She wanted something from me and I wasn’t going to volunteer. My stomach was a little tense because I knew the roundhouse wallop was on its way.

An end user doesn’t get this indignant without a good reason.

I continued to answer questions. I continued to make sympathetic noises. I continued to “umm hmm” in all the right places.

Finally, she said, “Well thank you this has been very helpful!” and hung up.

I sat back in my chair and puzzled over this conversation.

Then I realized…she didn’t really want procurement’s help, she just needed someone to listen.

Whether we like it or not, sometimes Procurement Heroes have to pull double duty as a therapist.

A couple well placed “unh huhs,” a good template and hearing out an end user can be one of the biggest keys to good customer service.

Image found here.