Companies need customers

s.stimson

Well-Known Member
Apploigies but i just fancied a bit of a gripe really; why oh why do companies bother to have websites and email addresses when they don’t respond to enquires that are sent to them. I know this is a hardy perennial whinge by punters but you would hope that as we slip further in to the electronic age people would somehow have grasped the importance of emails to their business. In the last two weeks I have twice emailed (once via their online form and once from my personal email address) a stalking company about a training course / stalking package that they are currently offering on their website, I asked a couple of simple questions which could be answered in two sentences, but to date I have heard not a jot from them.

I have been of the customer of this company before including doing my DSC1, some stalking and purchasing items from them so it is not as is I’m some random person emailing them out of the blue. Neither are we talking about the nit and grit enquiry asking for that one special 4.3mm x 79.46mm bolt with a thread pitch altering between fine pitch and course pitch every 12.3 turns and made of belly button lint of the cross eyed Patagonian tree dwelling heffer-pig; I’m asking about a service that they are offering as part of their core business. Additionally if I was to book this package I would be spending over a grand with them (have to spend the wife’s money somehow).

Now some of you are probably thinking (if you have bothered to read this far), why don’t you ring them? They are possibly too busy to reply to your email, and you could get your answer quicker than it has taken you to write this post. And you are right, I could ring them; equally they could email me or even phone me (as my enquires included my mobile phone number), if they are scared of the technological age they could have a rummage in their filling cabinet and find my home address and put pen to paper for the real “human touch”.

So what’s my view of the situation? Well am I going to bother to chase after a company trying to force over a £1k’s into their sticky little mittens? Or should I share the wealth with some other companies and get some different experiences instead of worrying about their turnover? Let’s just say I won’t be emailing them a third time if they can’t be bothered to reply to either of my first two emails.

P.S I would like to say while this whinge was prompted by a stalking company, you do meet companies like this in all walks of life both in my private life and through work. Companies need to realise that in this day and age an enquiry by email should be seen as no less important as an enquiry by phone of a customer walking into a shop; in this economic climate all are important and failure to respond to any of them will hit your bottom line for a long time. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently” (Warren Buffett)

Simon
 
Email is not a guaranteed method of communication; it can get caught or rejected in spam or junk mail. Servers can go down, email clients can fail. The company’s computer hardware may have gone wrong, email could have been deleted in error, with the amount of junk email that some people get it may simply have been missed.

You have identified the main problem with email/texts/IM – once the sender hits ‘send’, they believe they are absolved of any responsibility in the communication and always assume that the recipient is ignoring them.

Communication is two-way: I suggest you call them, mention that you have emailed and see what the response is. You're obviously happy to spend £1k+ with them so can you not give them the benefit of the doubt?
 
I sometimes people are a shade to quick to condem people without asking people to respond, at work we had quoted a very large medical insurance company to repair some very technical equipment.
A month after we sent the quote we chased it up to be told it was all in hand and they would be in touch shortly.
A fourtnight later we chased it again to be told the same thing.
This is there head office we were talking to.
So I took it on my myself to chase it back to the branch we sent the quote to and found out that the 11 E mails we had sent one after the other had never arrived in the facilities managers inbox, we checked both time and date of send and recieve to find they had been sent and never received.
So knocking on the managers deer sorted the problem.
Which was caused by the E mails not getting to there destination and someone in head office getting paid to fob people off.
The usual fob is I will check into it AND RING YOU BACK , its a good job I dont hold my breath everytime I am told this.
Whinge over.
 
Ok, perhaps should "go the extra mile" i will give them a bell on Friday, though in mitigation the previous contact (purchasing some items from them) did require me to chase 6 or 7 times before the goods were sent, so perhaps i should have realised that the emial was not the perfered method of communicating, but i still come back to my origional point, if they don't like email, don't have an account.

simon
 
Just received a reply from Bushwear to say they can't solve the problem of the flexing sighting bar on their Panther portable seat.
 
I always find talking to a human is better than writing to a computer but email is great if you speak different languages
 
I feel your pain Simon....

There are some with excellent Customer Services, and some shockers, and it happens in all walks of life... If you have given them that many opportunities, I would give them one more chance referring to the previous umpteen emails, and offer them the chance of redemption. Give them 1 week to respond, and then spread the cash around - local can be good !!!!

If you have had this much hassle, what will be the service like when you do part with your cash.

Good luck.

Neil.
 
Rack.

I poured a strong fibreglass resin mix in to the tubing, and then clamped an additional bracket each side to the seat frame... It does`nt move any more.

Neil.


Just received a reply from Bushwear to say they can't solve the problem of the flexing sighting bar on their Panther portable seat.
 
Had the same problem with a trader on here, a well known company too. Eventually i contacted the owner direct via his SD account and he was most apologetic and offered me a discount on the goods as compensation for my trouble. I was most pleased. That was about a year ago. Last month I emailed again to make simple enquiries about some more goods and .................................... no reply. And some people cant get to the phone during working hours, or dont have the time to ring. As the poster says - if they don't want to deal with enquiries by email dont advertise an email account. And while I accept that there may be instances when they don't get emails, I can't believe there are that many - i bet if you sent one telling them they'd won £133 on the Euro Lottery they'd get that one :-|

And with so many shops competing for so little business i would have thought it would pay to chase the customer, not isolate them and loose the business

Just my ha'pennth :lol:

scrun
 
I really can't be bothered to respond to this mail. It is one of my bugbears. There is so much crap, call them. WHY?
they offer a service. If you want business answer the mail.
I send loads and loads of emails for work. Have done for years. Loss rate is next to zero. In fact email is so reliable that I refuse to use post or fax. That should get the techie Xperts on my case
The problem with this country seems to be service or lack of. The why is a different matter. Over worked or underpaid, who knows.
If people or business need to be begged to take my money they I would much rather find someone else. Ok sh1t happens. But no way to the extent that people makes excuses for. Before email, when I used to send enquiries out for quotation by post it was amazing how many got supposedly lost. Usually by the same companies. The reliable ones? Never had a problem. So those that offer good service will offer good service and those that don't will continue to use excuses.
but here's the rub. I don't care! My money, my time, if you offer a crap service before I pay you. Then what is the service going to be like when I do pay you. So there are loads of tyre kickers, sorry, not my problem, you have worked 100 hours today, nope, still not interested. Family crisis, still don't, aw ok I'll give you that, just this once

See I'm not a complete bar steward.
 
As a customer when I e-mail a company I'd expect a reply, no reply to me means that they do not want my trade and I go elsewhere, I do persist with my local RFD even though they never phone me back when they say thay are going to.....I might mention it to them....as I'm in there this arvo.

My wife runs her own busines and spends hours calling people back and responding to e-mails so it can be done, it just takes some level of profesionalism and customer care. It's not rocket science it's basic interpersonal skills....and if you want your business to continue (not even grow) you need to put the effort in.

I'll stop while I'm ahead.
 
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