Ecolab And Ultra Chem: Case Study

I currently work for a Wyndham owned resort. We have several third party service providers; however, two of our main ones are Ecolab and Ultra Chem. Ecolab is a mandatory provider of our core cleaning chemicals and pest control because Wyndham has an agreement with them. Our sales representative has established a great relationship with us through keeping good records about our order history, equipment, needs and problems. When I refer to past issues or orders, he always knows exactly what I am talking about. He often provides organized sales presentations based on previous conversations we have. He brings Ecolab’s latest cleaning and laundry products and demonstrates their ability to clean. When showing us products, because he knows the issues we have with stains, he always shows up chemicals with stain fighting features. He knows that we lose
money when we cannot get a stair out of lines and have to discard them. Stain fighting products are valuable to us. We have a high level of trust with him because he always keeps our issues and needs in mind when he visits once a month. We have never had him pitch a product that suit our needs or didn’t work. Never once have I felt like he was just trying to sell us something. The dynamic of our relationship is not changed by the fact that we are required to use Ecolab. Surprisingly, the relationship is customer focus and competitive as if we could drop them at any moment.
On the other hand, our supplementary chemical provider is a company called Ultra Chem.
We use this company for industrial strength chemical which Ecolab does not provide. Usage of this company is completely optional; however, they provide one specific product which we need and we cannot get it anywhere else. The sale rep for this company is very aggressive and does not take the time to understand our process or our needs. He does not know our buying motives. Just last week, he called (he calls at least once a week) tried to sell me a very high priced tile cleaner. What really irritated me is that the resort does not have any tile. Not only did he not know that, but he did not know that the cost of this product that I did not need was way over my budget. When I think of sales dialog with him, the dialogue is mostly him talking and just rapid firing products at me. If I didn’t need to buy that one product from this company, I wouldn’t even deal with him. The dynamic of this relationship heavily involves voicemail because no one at the resort wants to talk to the sales person unless we need to place an
order.