Same Order, Two Prices

Two customers, same industry, ordering essentially the same product in the same quantity, compared notes at a trade show and discovered they were paying prices 18% apart. Neither was doing anything wrong — one had negotiated hard with a rep three years ago and locked in a rate that never got revisited, the other signed up more recently at current list price.

Both customers were now annoyed, for different reasons. One felt like she'd been overpaying for years. The other felt like loyalty hadn't earned him anything.

Nobody had planned this. It's just what happens when pricing gets set deal by deal, year by year, with nobody ever stepping back to check whether the whole book of business still makes sense together.

If your two most similar customers compared invoices tomorrow, would the pricing make sense to both of them — or just to whoever negotiated it?