Jane owns a Rainbow vacuum cleaner and loves it. Ever since the first night she let Randy, her demonstrator come over and show her and Bill how good the Rainbow vacuum cleaner really is she loved it. She was amazed at how dirty the water had turned inside the Rainbow vacuum water basin. Randy, her Rainbow vacuum salesman, had just vacuumed a small three foot square area of her light beige carpet after her husband had gone over that spot 50 times, back and forth, with her old vacuum cleaner. Actually, her old vacuum was brand new, it was only 3 months old. The problem was, according to Randy the Rainbow vacuum guy, that all the little holes in the bag of her old vacuum had stopped up causing it to lose air flow. Air flow? Jane thought suction was what picked up stuff off the floor. Randy had heard this response dozens if not hundreds of times before so he knew that Jane was playing along according to the script that is played thousands of times a day all across the county. Only Jane had not rehearsed the play and Randy had. Jane and Bill ended up owning a Rainbow vacuum cleaner that night and have loved the way it has performed ever since. That is until one day when they called Randy to order some more of the Mulberry oil based fragrances. It made the whole house smell wonderful every time they used their Rainbow vacuum. The problem was that when they called Randy he was not there. Not only was Randy not there but the office number had been disconnected with no forwarding information. Scenarios like this are common and will continue to be so. The reason it happens is that vacuum cleaner distributors are just like any other direct sales organization. Sometimes sales are good, sometimes they are so bad that the distributor cannot stay in business so it closes the doors, leaving customers high and dry and no local office to get parts and supplies. |
