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I called a company at lunchtime today to get a bit of advice over the phone and order the products they recommended. The advice I received was excellent, and after a five minute conversation about what was best for me I asked if I could place the order. At this point they told me that I'd get a much better deal over the web, and they couldn't do this price on the phone. Does anyone know why this is with companies? I had to end the call without having paid for anything!
This isn't the first time for me by any means; one company even told me they couldn't take orders over the phone at all. I don't have web access at work, so will need to wait till I get home at midnight to make the order. Surely from their point of view that's bad business, because in those 11 hours I may have just gone and bought the stuff from somewhere else.
I don't want to name and shame I'm afraid, I just wondered why companies do this? Surely it's bad for business and customer relations? I realise that it encourages people to give them less overheads by ordering online, but turning down business just seems odd to me.
This isn't the first time for me by any means; one company even told me they couldn't take orders over the phone at all. I don't have web access at work, so will need to wait till I get home at midnight to make the order. Surely from their point of view that's bad business, because in those 11 hours I may have just gone and bought the stuff from somewhere else.
I don't want to name and shame I'm afraid, I just wondered why companies do this? Surely it's bad for business and customer relations? I realise that it encourages people to give them less overheads by ordering online, but turning down business just seems odd to me.
It depends upon the product and the company.
In most cases, you'll find that the company doesn't have the capacity to manually take and process your order or if they do, they simply pay someone to do what you'd do anyway online.If a company has geared up their operations for online business, then to facilitate manual orders would cost them money and if their margins are small, would make no sense for them to fulfil.
It may also be that the company that you buy from doesn't hold stock so the online ordering process taps directly into their suppliers and to break this would not be possible.
In most cases, you'll find that the company doesn't have the capacity to manually take and process your order or if they do, they simply pay someone to do what you'd do anyway online.If a company has geared up their operations for online business, then to facilitate manual orders would cost them money and if their margins are small, would make no sense for them to fulfil.
It may also be that the company that you buy from doesn't hold stock so the online ordering process taps directly into their suppliers and to break this would not be possible.
Ordering over the phone also means that the distance selling regs come into play. This would mean that you have rights over and above those of a standard purchaser and as such they might not be able to abide by those, hence "order on the internet" (as it will probably come from a DC via their head office) or "order on the internet and pay in store" as that way you're making a purchase in person, which is bog standard face-to-face sales for the SoGA.
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