As a purchaser, it can sometimes be very frustrating to get ahold of the sales department of a firm to deal with an issue, get an answer or even give them your money. Working business to business, trying to reach your suppliers can be even more infuriating. After leaving the military, I have been in the labor market about 20 years, and in that time, I have observed a change in the way manufacturers and even distributors deal with their customer base; and it is not for the best.
The experts are really predicting recently, how China will take all the American work, and destroy our state of the nation; but we are complicit. The U.S. labor force has forgotten the meaning of "Service", and has forgotten that the shopper is always right. I do a lot of sales with my firm, Goodrum International and so I often try to reach new vendors for quotes and information. I am frequently surprised at how many companies don't know if my company is a billion dollar potential customer or a crackpot, and make no effort to find out. With the state of the nation in the shape that it currently is, why a sales rep would not be available at all times is baffling. I often need a simple quote request, or an answer that I am sure a Salesperson should know By heart; but they are at lunch at 2pm or gone all week at another trade show. How can you sell your products when your salespeople are invariably in conferences? I have caller ID, and if I see a prospect on the line, or even somebody that I know is not a family member or friend, I take that call.
When I was still in the Marines, I was with a fellow jarhead and we were walking around a new car lot. A salesman came up to us and asked "Hey guys are you going to buy today?" We said 'no', so he very rudely shooed us off the lot. Are you kidding? An automobile salesperson can kick off a young person with a steady job and disposable income just because he is not ready to commit to buying a car immediately? When your waitperson takes forever to bring your meal, and never comes back to fill up your drink, do you mentally start marking down their tip? You ought to.
Why have we become a country that treats it's customer like crap, and even worse, why do we persist to give our business to companies who don't give us the courtesy that we should get. it was always my opinion that those secret shoppers were just spies for 'the man', and they are; but perhaps that is not such a bad concept. If every company owner would try to shop at his or her business as an outsider and see how often he is shuffled from person to person, hung up on, given incorrect or partial information just to get him off of the phone, he would be lopping off heads by the end of the day. talking about phones, having an infinite of loop of answering machines and press number one for dept A, and press number two for dept B, can get me yelling at my phone. It is so difficult to reach some companies, that I am ready to talk to an Indian customer service agent, just give me a person for God's sake.
Some firms avoid annoying telephone call from their customer base by not providing their phone numbers. Yes, I said it. You are looking at their website and have a question. You seek the "contact us" button, it isn't there. You search at the bottom of the page in the fine print, no contact number. The best you can find is an e-mail questionnaire that you have to complete and hope that they contact you this century. I have literally sent them messages, 'Hi, I want to buy your commodity, please call me as soon as you can" just to try and get a quick response. In more than a few cases I have received a call up to two weeks later, asking how they can help me. almost always, these e-mails to info@generic-business dot com are never returned.
If your firm has too many customers, bring on board more associates to help them. It is not that hard to figure out. If your sales person are taking an eternity to give simple quotes, reprimand them. If your customer service/inside sales people are losing business for you by not calling back, being abrupt, not taking the time to get the correct answer to a question and in a timely fashion. Get rid of them. If you can't match the off shore competition on price, change the one thing that you can control. Give your customer base good service. If you don't, someone else will.
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