Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2010-01-26 08:13:18 - Graham Ellis
"We don't like to email people because they might be deceased, and no-one likes getting a letter for a colleague who's passed away. So we phone instead" ... so said a sales caller yesterday.
We're a small company, but in such wide ranging business areas that we have to buy everying from soap to web servers, and from organic cheddar cheese to highlighter pens with our logo printed on them. And this means we have a wide range of suppliers, many of whom only see sporadic business from us ... how long does a gross of hotel room emegency sewing kits last, after all? And these suppliers. when they've not see an order in a while, want us to remember them in case we need more product - they would prefer us to purchase from them and not from their competitor. So the "keeping in touch" call that says "I'm your rep ... can I tell you about a special deal / how is our product going?"
We're a small company, and these "keep up" calls always come at the worst possible moment. I'm training and can't take the call, Lisa has grabbed a block of text containing a calculation algorithm into a cut buffer and has to remember to paste it to a new place, and Chris and Sarah are offsite. So Lisa grabs the call, and explains to the rep who also called three months ago that we'll get in touch if we need supplies, we don't chop and change on a whim (giving us the nightmare of old stock to use up, new accounts to set up, etc), and that he's doing himself a dis-service by re-calling rather than emailing or posting a very occasional catalogue.
Lisa and I remember these people (and I could name and shame some of the companies here!), but they promise to make a note, say they understand ... then make so MANY more calls in the following three months that by the time it comes around to reviewing our account again, they take a look at what their computer says and think "that can't be right ... surely they want to talk to me as I'm an important supplier of [insert product here] and I have [insert special offer] at the moment".
But I was left open mouthed to be told that the guy yesterday was calling rather than emailing in case the person he had on his lists was deceased. "No - (s)he's very well thank you - but if the concern of emailing someone who's no longer with us is a serious concern, please switch to sending any emails to our "info@" email address ...".
But I expect I'll go through a similar conversation with the same company in 3 months time.
"We don't like to email people because they might be deceased, and no-one likes getting a letter for a colleague who's passed away. So we phone instead" ... so said a sales caller yesterday.