Sales Fail

Posted by Matthew in General on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 | 5 responses

I was working with a company on purchasing some kiosks for our children’s check-in.  I received a sales e-mail from the company for a great deal on some kiosks, so I naturally called the 800 number on the e-mail.  Here’s the play-by-play on how that shook out.

  1. The first two calls to the number were answered (you could hear people in the background) and hung up on
  2. The third call was answered by a very unhappy lady who forwarded me to the voice mail of my sales representative
  3. I called three more times before I actually got in touch with the representative.  He then promised to forward me technical specs
  4. I called again the following day to remind him about sending me the details, which he then said “I didn’t know I was supposed to do that.”
  5. He called me a few hours later with the details I requested, and I made an agreement to purchase 4 units
  6. He wanted a credit card to hold the units and then a signed sales agreement faxed to him with a company check on the fax too (weird)… this was Thursday
  7. Friday he called me three times and sent three e-mails to get this signed agreement.
  8. On Monday he left me a curt voicemail saying that I was going to lose these units if I didn’t send him the agreement right away.

I got frustrated on Friday.  He had been so unresponsive pre-sale, but once the sale was pending, he suddenly became very interested in getting in touch with me.  In fact, this was so off-putting to me that I cancelled the sale.  What do you think?

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5 Responses to “Sales Fail”

  1. Jeff says:
    March 3, 2009 at 11:17 am

    Sounds about par for the course for a lot of companies these days. I don’t blame you for cancelling the sale.

  2. regina baird says:
    March 3, 2009 at 11:24 am

    I think that was appropriate.

  3. Jeff S. says:
    March 3, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    Bummer. Unfortunately you lost a week, but it makes me wonder what the follow up would have been like if you needed service. Def. Move on.

  4. Angela says:
    March 3, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    SO frustrating! I’m sorry about that…but I do whole-heartedly agree with your decision!! Sadly, these sales and customer service trends more than likely serve as a foreshadow for future interactions… Very wise! :)

  5. Dean Lisenby says:
    March 3, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    Yep.. right move.

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