Rarely does a day go by when I don’t read, hear, or otherwise note that some auctioneer is disappointed with some auction platform “ever since they …” were acquired by another company or merged with an existing platform.
It may be a hard fact of life that companies generally start out with a focus on customer service, and then when venture capital companies get involved, the focus changes to stockholder returns often at the expense of customer service.
It’s a touch counterintuitive, in that by providing good customer service, there are resulting profits. Yet, building on the customer service side takes time, while cutting expenses is far quicker. As such, with less attention to customers and more focus on profits, customer service often wanes.
We have only so many choices as auctioneers — which platform, which technology, which company … working with other companies is an essential part of business for almost all auctioneers. Even if we start out receiving exemplary customer service, it can change overnight with a merger or acquisition.
Less than desirable customer service can be as simple as no responses to requests, incorrect answers to questions, system outages with no explanation — and/or lying by calling them “scheduled maintenance” https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2022/07/06/what-is-scheduled-maintenance/.
So what are auctioneers to do? We recommend choosing the best partners to make your business the best you can, understanding that any company has limitations, including many who will openly and willfully trade service for short-term profits.
It also remains important to choose your platform on two distinct criteria: “cost and benefit” and not just one. Too often, auctioneers look only for the least costly resulting in commensurate benefits: https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2023/02/15/auctioneers-tell-me-benefit-doesnt-matter/.
Lastly — and again — if you’re changing partners (platforms) because your chosen platform is down, it is prudent to reconsider as it’s not that the platform is down, and rather what they are doing about the outage: https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2022/08/02/your-auction-platform-is-down-so/.
Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, CAI, CAS, AARE has been an auctioneer and certified appraiser for over 30 years. His company’s auctions are located at Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, Brandly Real Estate & Auction, and formerly at Goodwill Columbus Car Auction. He serves as Distinguished Faculty at Hondros College, Executive Director of The Ohio Auction School, and an Instructor at the National Auctioneers Association’s Designation Academy and Western College of Auctioneering. He has served as faculty at the Certified Auctioneers Institute held at Indiana University and is approved by The Supreme Court of Ohio for attorney education.
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