Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case, 2019): Based on a novel by Ferdinand von Schirach, this legal drama features courtroom scenes but places greater weight on private investigation, legal argumentation, and reserved procedural exchanges, rather than direct, heated confrontation between parties.
Customer is not King
In Germany, at the beginning of the business relationship the responsibility for how the work is done – methods and approaches – is transferred from the customer to the supplier. For the customer has contracted the expert to solve a problem, to complete a task, to manage a project. It is expected that the expert do so with limited involvement of the customer. For the two parties have already discussed and agreed on the details of how the work will be done.
The German client, therefore, wants to know upfront the methods and approaches used by the supplier. At the same time, the customer respects how the supplier works, including adapting customer requirements to supplier methods and approaches. In the end the supplier has the say about her own processes, which produce the results desired by the customer.
Every product and service is a clear indication of how a company works, their methods and approaches. And German customers are deeply interested in how the work is done. They want to understand how the supplier works. They want to be convinced by the supplier‘s expertise. The German customer also knows that the success of the business relationship will depend on close collaboration, on the coordination of work processes from both sides.
Whenever a company as the customer contracts an external supplier, they are implicitly admitting to a gap in their own expertise, implicitly stating that the area of expertise of the supplier is not a part of the their own core expertise. Companies small and large, regional and international, are constantly defining what their core expertise is, what business they are in. Defining that means defining what external suppliers they need to draw on.
This is one reason why for Germans the customer is not king, but instead a partner. German suppliers expect, and in many cases demand, that the customer accept them as partners, accept a partnership of equals, auf Augenhöhe, literally at eye‘s level.
Germans see a customer-supplier relationship as complementary, with each side having its respective strengths and weaknesses, its core and non-core areas. To do business together means to help fill each other‘s gaps in expertise, to complement each other, to serve each other.
fun is inefficient
Comments: “As a german i can say, this is so funny i will laugh about it later after work between 17:00 and 17:22 on my way home” … “I tested it and couldnt find any humor here – greetings from germany” … “He says words that are longer than most of your sentences.” … “Stay serious my friends, fun is inefficient” that was ironically one of the funniest moments.”
Auf Augenhöhe
Augenhöhe. Literally at eye level. Equals. On equal footing.
It is said that Germans will work without stopping until they have completed the task. A prerequisite for such effort is that the parties involved are partners at eye level, are equals, the opposite of a master-slave type of relationship. Germans, as employees and as companies, want to work more as consultants, as experts, than as mere service providers or as servants.
Germans are self-confident about their abilities and skills. Even when the relationship in terms of the contract, the law or societal expectations cannot possibly be one of equals, they expect, and often demand, a business relationship auf Augenhöhe, at eye level, to be treated like colleagues.
To collaborate at eye level is not just a matter of good form. It is a serious demand especially from small- to medium-sized companies, the famed German Mittelstand. Many German companies advertise their willingness and ability to work together with business parters auf Augenhöhe, signaling their desire to be open, transparent and honest.
Companies which promise collaboration at eye level are stating that they treat all partners, regardless of size or prestige, as equal partners. Respect is critical, not the size of the contract or the nature of the partnership. This includes informing the other partner immediately when things go wrong. One‘s expertise is put to good service for the other partner. Neither side looks to gain advantage.
Germans strive for a high level of openness and honesty from the very beginning of a business relationship. As a well-known German company once stated: Zusammenarbeit auf Augenhöhe sichert Qualität. Colloboration at eye level guarantees quality.
Germans consult. Americans serve.
A big source of misunderstanding between Americans and Germans, rarely made explicit, is about whether business should inherently be customer-centric, supplier-centric, or somehow balanced, as our fourth column in this series explains.
Germans and Americans alike will of course say they care about their customers. But they associated different meanings with that notion. And that often leads to misunderstandings and frustration. American providers of business services proudly offer exactly that: a service. By contrast, German providers view their proposition less as a service and more as a consultation. The difference is subtle, but consequential.
Mandate
Mandate. Latin mandatum, task, job, order to do something for another; to represent another legally; an elected office to represent the voters.
A mandate is a broadly defined task where the service provider – consultant, attorney, architect, subject area expert – advises the client. The business relationship is not made up of small, individual tasks.
Instead, the service provider – the person who has been granted the mandate – serves, represents, and advises the client in a complex area involving many different kinds of issues and interactions.
Attorneys represent their clients in legal matters. Political office holders represent their voters. A mandate obligates the adviser to act in the interest of the client even without the client‘s expressed permission.
Fine Line
To serve the customer is to deliver what the customer has ordered. No more, no less. Quickly. Precisely. Fulfilling the order. Full. Filled. Unless asked, a waiter does not discuss with the customers the wisdom of their choice from the menu.
To consult the customer is to enter into the decision making process, to co-discuss, to co-think. To discuss with, think with. Perhaps initially just as a sounding board. Then later as a provider of information, input, advice. At the highest level, acting independently, but in the spirit of the customer’s wishes.
Stages. From order-taker all the way to co-thinker and co-decider. Grades. Gradations. Graduation. Gradual. From serving to partnering with. And there is a fine line between each phase, at each transition.
If the lines are identified, understood and managed (walked carefully), the collaborator is graduated, “makes the grade.” If misidentified, misunderstood, therefore mismanaged, the collaborator is not graduated. The business relationship might be terminated.
True Friends
If to consult is to provide advice, then that advice might, perhaps should, include what the customer needs to hear, but does not want to hear. A fine line. How to walk it? To withhold that advice could mean to underserve, or even damage, the customer. To provide that advice, however, could damage the relationship.
If true friends are those who tell you what you need to hear, but surely you do not want to hear, at the risk of damaging or destroying the friendship, aren’t true suppliers-vendors-consultants those who do the same?
Protections
“Today, caveat emptor does not apply to as many situations as it once did. Due to the changing marketplace, government regulations were created to protect consumers’ interests. With the release of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)—a set of business laws that regulate financial transactions that occur across states—for example, warranty provisions are much more common. Additionally, some industries now require seller disclosures.”
Tail wags dog
Germans. Augenhöhe. More consult than serve. Ok, fine. American customers can work with the German approach. Maybe even work better, if the approach is understood by both sides and is applied carefully.
But even if so, it can look and feel to the American customer as if the tail is wagging the dog. The customer is the dog. The German supplier-vendor-consultant is the tail. Germans don’t want to be the tail. Who does? But the American customer is clearly the dog. And that dog doesn’t want to be wagged by its tail, German or any other culture.