Results For "complaining"

is not what I said.

What I said was this:

I am writing to inform you that the only reason I have re-enrolled in the HP Instant Ink program is in order to use the cartridge you sent me and for which, over the course of 2 months, you billed me $35 in your so-called “free” program.

Understand this: I have no interest in participating in the program, and I will un-enroll as soon as this cartridge is empty. Do not send me another cartridge. If you send me another cartridge, I will refuse delivery.

Furthermore, if you bill my credit card a single dime, I will report it as a fraudulent charge, and I will file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

I trust you can determine my account simply from the associated email address.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

What I wanted to say was a little harsher.

Welcome to the MTS Online, Interactive Automotive Sales Super Results course. By merely following the steps outlined below, you will increase your sales, raise your profit margin, sell more cars, and generally make more money at the very minimal expense of your customers.

Showroom Salesman

The first thing you must remember is never to allow the most fundamental truth of the situation enter into the minds of your prospective customers. Certainly, tell them you’re not into pressure sales; tell them you’re only interested in them getting the best car that for their needs; say all this with a smile – but never forget you’re there to sell them a car. Bottom line. Your boss’ bottom line, and therefore your bottom line. The customers’ bottom line is someone else’s problem.

Next, it’s good to try to give the customers a feeling that you actually have more power over the car’s price than you actually do. Never use “we,” as in, “We could take good bit more off the price.” That encourages the obvious question: “If the whole sales staff is in agreement about this, why not just lower the price in the window to begin with?” (The last thing you want is a cheeky customer, so choose your words carefully.) If, however, you say, “I can lower this price,” then it sounds like you’re more than just a cog in someone else’s economic machine, that you and you alone add the personal touches of chatting about your kid and asking about customers’ future family plans. Added all together, this will give the customer the feeling that you’re on his side and that you indeed have the power to looking for the little guy in the Big Bad Car Business.

Third, because we’re selling a large time, we can’t put it in the customer’s hand like a TV salesman can do with a remote, but we want to accomplish the same effect: the thought that this very TV (rather, in our case, ha, ha, ha, a car) could be his! To that end, it is essential that you herd your customers into a “test drive” as soon as possible. But don’t use the term “test drive.” Just tell them you’re going to back the car out for a little better view, then when you get back in the car, tell, sort of off-handedly, as if you’ve just thought of it, “Come on – we’ll go for a quick ride.” Viola – you’ve got them in the car, and they’ll start thinking, “Imagine this is our car!” Drive to some place you can turn around, then jump out and ask, “Who’s driving back?” And there’s your test drive, without even using the words.

The next step is a tricky one, and it’s something that separates the men from the cliches in our business. You have to get them in to see a finance officer who’s also skilled at subtle, sales-encouraging chit-chat. This gets them teetering on the legal brink of actually buying the car, and from here, your job is finished. But the real trick here is to get them into that office without ever asking them if they want to buy the car. Let the customers assume what they will, but if you can implant in their mind that you’re just taking them to get some fiscal ideas, to get some notion of how the payments might fit into their budget, then you never have to ask them if they actually want to buy a car. Why, they’re talking to a finance guy — it’s obvious they want to buy it!

Finance Officer

When the salesman delivers customers into your hands, it is a critical transition. It is imperative that you do or say something that will immediately take the customers’ minds from the fact that they’re now dealing with a different person (and more importantly, the significance of that). For this reason, it is absolutely critical that customers not wait in your office alone. They can sit at the showroom salesman’s desk all day long, but any time alone in your office will lead them to thinking thoughts you don’t want them to have.

It is also important to say something personal and reassuring to the customers that also distances yourself from the cruel realities of the automotive sales industry. An example might be:

Before we get started, I just want to make sure you folks understand what motivates me. Do you know why I got out of bed to come to work this morning, every morning? To make people happy by providing them with the perfect car to meet all their needs.

Improvise from there.

The importance of this fact arises from the simple reality that, when the salesman delivers customers into your hands, he may or may not have gotten a verbal agreement to buy. Never mind! Your role is the same, regardless.

If the customer is indeed going to buy the car, your set. Occasionally, though, you might get to this point and hear something like this:

We’re not actually going to buy this car. We didn’t even come here with the intention of buying a car. Rather, we’re just orienting ourselves to the market, because it’s been such a long time since either of us has looked at a car. We were interested in talking to you about the potential cost.

When you hear these words, savor them, because they represent the hardest challenge in your industry: the ten minute turn-around sale. Sure, these people are saying they’re not buying a car, but you can make it seem like there should be a battle raging in their minds as to whether or not to buy it. Some tips:

1. Make sure you boil it down for the customers to the real issue: money. Establish that the car they looked at meets their needs. In a perfect situation, you might be able to get them to admit that it’s almost perfect. Then it’s just a matter of highlighting the lower pricing options and you’re home free.
2. Once you get them to admit that the car would fit in their lives very well, make it sound like the difficulty is on your side of the table, that perhaps you don’t understand something. After all, you’ve established that they like the car, that it meets their needs, and you’ve shown, by highlighting the lower pricing options, that it fits into their budget (Don’t worry whether it actually does or doesn’t). Once you’ve established all this, you might ask at this point, “What then is holding you back?”
3. Shame and embarrassment are always a good sales technique, and this point in the process it might be worthwhile to try to introduce a bit of both. Tell them that you were working under the assumption that they’d decided to buy, with an infection that makes it seem like you could have been doing more important things, like helping other people fulfill their automotive dreams. Make it seem like the earlier salesman could get in a bit of trouble for handing off someone who wasn’t really ready to buy. The shame can be torqued a little by very indirectly suggesting that it was a miscommunication on the customers’ part.

If you’re still meeting resistance at this point, it’s time to bring in the head man himself. He’s the only one than can save the sale now. When you head out the door, make sure you tell the customers something designed to make them think you’re handing the sale off to someone more knowledgeable. Since you’ll never be coming back into the room while these particular customers are there, it’s good to add in a pre-excuse at this point. Here’s an excellent opportunity to use the shame technique again by concluding with something like, “I’m going to go out to the shop and make sure they don’t have the car in detail.”

At this point, you’re likely to be furious. Go ahead – have a cigarette. You’ve just been through a very stressful experience. You deserve it!

Showroom Manager

When your financial officer comes in to get you, the hope of a sale is diminishing rapidly. It is important to remember this, and not press too hard, lest you cast a hue of desperation on your co-workers’ previous efforts.

Also realize that if you’ve been called in, it means that all possible excuses have been covered except one: the customers were never intending on buying a car that day to begin with. When you realize this, relax. It means your salesman and financial officer have done their jobs and either the customers realized the whole time they were being swindled and simply went with it out of curiosity, or the customers are slow and it just took them a little while to catch on. We know this, because if the customer had been an idiot, you’d already have a car sold.

Addendum: Final Contact

At this point, the customers are probably standing alone in the finance officer’s office, waiting for him or the showroom manager to come back. You of course know that both have exited the drama permanently, but there is still a small ray of hope. Make the most of it. Approach the customers in the office and accompany them to the door. Small chit-chat here constitutes your final chance to make a future sale.

If, however, your clients have half a brain, they will not be back again.

I’m looking for a second job to get a little extra money in the bank. We want to buy a house, and every little bit helps.

I was looking through the classifieds at Mountain Xpress when I found the perfect job scam. The nature of the company was pretty obvious from the advertisement:

Companies desperately need employees to assemble products at home. No selling; any hours. $500 weekly potential. Information: 1-985-646-1700, Department NC-6529. (Source)

Up to 2k a month, and you don’t even have to leave your house? Sounds too good to be true, so of course it is. But I like playing the sucker from time to time, so I called.

“Are you calling about the ad in the paper?” a woman asked when I called. No greeting, no pleasantries -— straight to the chase.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Is this the first time you’ve called?” my inquisitor asks. If red flags hadn’t been up when I first read the ad, they would be up now.

“Yes,” I respond.

“Are you calling for yourself or for someone else?” Now comes a bit of a puzzle. If this weren’t such an obvious scam, I might in addition to myself be calling for my wife. Two people can put together twice as much cheap plastic crap as one person.

Thinking all this, I hesitate, the reply, “I’m not sure.” I was going to ask for clarification, but the pleasant lady didn’t give me a chance.

“Well, you call back when you are sure.” Click.

Being rude to me on the phone is not a good idea. I like to call back. And so I do. Unfortunately, another woman answers the phone.

I decide to go through the whole monologue.

It turns out there are simply dozens of companies out there who just need my help. “What will you be doing?” the operator asks rhetorically and almost breathlessly. I can put together wooden CD shelves, jewelry boxes, and so on. This fine company will put me in contact with all these other companies who need my help. All for just a small fee of forty-three dollars. “And you don’t even need to worry about that, because we have a money back guarantee, written — on page three of our brochure.” It’s just too bad I don’t have one of these sitting in front of me. Still -talking- reading on the same breath as she started the -conversation- monologue with, the kind lady tells me that I can put this small, insignificant fee on a credit card, or I can send a check–why, I can even do it C.O.D.

“Come to me baby! Come to me C.O.D.” I think. She probably wouldn’t get the allusion. (Do you? Quick, quick — name the song and artist. And no Googling!) Besides, I couldn’t get a word in even if I greased it up really well, so I just smile to myself and continue listening.

Finally, I sense the spiel is winding down, and I get ready to say, “I’m not really interested.” Here it comes… “And so do you have any questions, sir?”

“No, but I don’t think I’m interested.”

“Something-unintelligible-about-four-syllables-long” comes the staccato reply, then click!

I bemoan my poor memory: “Why, oh why can’t I remember this woman’s name?” I have to call back. There’s just no choice.

It’s a moral imperative. (Quick — what movie?)

I get to the “Is this the first time you’ve called” point, and say, “No — actually it’s the third time.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just calling to suggest you hire some operators with better people skills,” I continue.

“I know,” she sympathizes. She confesses that they’ve been getting a lot of complaints. I think, “Sounds like you should be monitoring your calls, with the little announcement at the beginning of the phone call that we’re all so used to hearing now.”

We chat for a couple of minutes. There’s no way for anyone to track down who it was that took my two calls, she explains. All the lines are directed to the one phone number, and there’s just a room full of people answering these phones.

“Well, then I suggest you get better telephone hardware, because tracking who answered a call like that is a pretty basic thing,” I explain. Whoosh — over her head.

Should I ask for a supervisor? She probably wouldn’t know what one is. “We just clock in, start answering the phones — we don’t even know who we’re working for.”

After I hung up, I thought about calling back again, but what for? These jerks have to deal with enough jerks like me, I’m sure.

They’re just tryin’ to make a buck…

You’re a loyal wireless customer. You always pay your bills on time, and you’ve never harped on or bitched about anything.

What happens when someone steals your cell phone and your contract is with a reputable company that is vaguely interested in keeping its customers satisfied? The answer is irrelevant, because there are a number of solutions to the problem that involve keeping the customer happy (so that, naturally, she will continue giving money to the company).

What happens when someone steals your cell phone and your contract is with a company that has no idea what “customer satisfaction” means and is more interested in covering its butt than providing a service? You’re charged a penalty.

I had a cell phone with Plus GSM, a sorry excuse for a wireless provider that has such generous packages as twenty free minutes for a forty-zloty monthly charge.

“Choose us and you get three short but entire conversations for free!”

Such are the sorry offers you get in Poland, where an adolescent free market is still virtually competition free. You swallow hard and take what they give you, if you want a cell phone.

I had no choice. I signed a contract, used my twenty minutes, sent a ton of text messages instead of talking to people, and despite the ridiculously small number of minutes I had, was relatively satisfied.

When Kinga and I moved to the States, I left my cell phone with my father-in-law. This was because Plus GSM would not cancel my contract even under such extenuating circumstances. I was told I would have to pay an early-termination fee. Nothing new there — wireless providers in the States do the same thing (although Verizon told me that I could cancel without a penalty if I were moving to a location that didn’t have Verizon service. What is ridiculous about it is Plus GSM’s early termination penalty fee is 800 zloty, which represented 73% of my monthly salary!

Seventy-three percent! I decided instead to leave money for my monthly payments with my parents-in-law and let them use the free minutes (My wonderful package included a whole twenty free minutes!) until the end of the contract.

Last week, my mobile phone was stolen. I informed Plus GSM via fax and asked them to discontinue service to that particular cell phone. The plan was simply to continue paying the monthly fee until the contract is completed in November and be done with it. To do this, we’d have to buy a new SIM card for the cell phone, even though we wouldn’t have a phone to put it in.

We wrote a fax to Plus GSM about this. For those who can read Polish:

Zwracam sie z prosba o calkowite wylaczenie karty SIM mojeg telefonu nr 695-635-967. Prosbe swa uzasadniam tym, ze telefon moj zostal skradziony. Poniewarz w tym momencie przebywam w USA chcialbym upowaznic do wszystkich zmian na moim koncie pana Jana Jedrusia […]. Zwracam sie rowniez z prosba o udostepnienie Janowi Jedrus adresu e-mail oraz nr, ktore umozliwia znalezienie telefonu.

Wiem, ze dane te powinny znajdowac sie na mojej umowie ale niestety umowa ta zaginela podczas mojej ostatniej  rzeprowadzki.

For those who can’t read Polish, the fax basically informed them of the situation and authorized my father-in-law to make any changes necessary in my account to resolve the matter.

Plus GSM did as requested. Sort of. They interpreted that fax as a cancellation of the contract and informed my father-in-law that the penalty bill had been sent.

Infuriated, I sent the following fax, in English:

I have been informed by Jan Jedrus, my father-in-law, that despite the fact that my telephone was stolen, you intend on forcing me to pay the penalty for early termination of contract.

My phone was stolen and you want to penalize me further? I’m a victim, and you’re treating me like I’m the thief!

That is the singularly most immoral business practice I have ever encountered.

I know your argument: “Well, sir, if we just canceled contracts whenever someone reported their cell phones stolen, we would lose a fortune because so many people would lie and then sell the phone!”

I’m sorry, but that is not my problem. You are the ones operating a business, and that means you are by default taking a risk. Customers should not be taking a risk in signing a phone contract.

What you’re doing doesn’t even make good business sense. You want to make money, not lose it. When I come back to Poland, I will need a cell phone. If you treat me well, I will chose your company, which would result in me paying much more than 800 zloty. However, you want me to pay 800 zloty now and thereby guarantee that I will never use your services again. Are you really that short-sighted?

You’re just showing that in Poland, it’s better to steal than be honest. It’s better to be a thief than to be an honest customer. If there were any justice in Poland, and there is not, you would be shut down for your fraudulent business practices.

I refuse to pay this penalty

Kigga’s Dad talked to these folks several times, and they told him that if we didn’t pay, they’d take me to court. But when we got to thinking about the details of this situation, and we realized something startlingly simple: we never canceled the contract. If they take us to court, we simply and honestly deny that we canceled the contract, and they have no proof that we did.

Still, we wanted to finish this in a respectable, honorable manner, so we sent yet another fax, explaining explicitly that my father-in-law had my authorization to do anything necessary to resolve this, including buying a new SIM card. We wrote yet another fax, expressly saying that my father-in-law had “permission” to buy a SIM card for the phone. Again, for those who know Polish:

W zwiazku z tym ze aktualnie mieszkam w USA a moj telefon, na ktory nie wygasla jeszcze umowa zostal skradziony upowazniam pana Jana Jedrusia zamieszkalego w Jablonce […] do zakupu zastepczej karty sim na rzecz mojego konta. Pragne wyrazic moje oburzenie jak malym zaufaniem traktujecie swoich stalych i uczciwych klientow. Bylem waszym klientem ponad poltorej roku, zawsze w terminie placilem rachunki. W sytuacji kiedy przeprowadzam sie do USA a kilka tygodni pozniej, telefon zostaje skradziony z kuchni mojego tescia firma naraza mnie jedynie na kolejne koszty i traktuje mnie jak zwyklego oszusta. Pragne tutaj zaznaczyc, ze w USA w kazdej firmie telefonii komorkowych w przypadku przeprowadzki mozna bez zadnych kosztow wycofac sie z umowy. W Polsce nie jest to jeszcze mozliwe, to ciagle jeszcze mlody kapitalizm i niestety nie umiecie jeszcze szanowac swoich klientow. Przyznam, ze najwygodniejsze dla mnie byloby zaplacenie abonamentu do konca waznosci umowy, niestety jak poinformowal mnie tesc po rozmowie z biurem obslugi klienta, firma nie wyrazila na to zgody.

Bardzo prosze rowniez o przyslanie na moj adres internetowy adresu e-mail do dalszej korespondencji. Musze przyznac, ze forma komunikowania narzucona przez PLUS GSM naraza mnie i pana Jana Jedrusia na znaczne koszty. Bardzo prosze o wyrozumialosc i odstepstwo od Waszych nieprzyjaznych zasad.

Highlights, for non-Polish readers, include, registering “offense at how you treat your honest clients with such little trust,” and a comment about “young capitalism” in Poland, which means that unfortunately “you don’t know how to respect your clients.”

After we sent this, my parents-in-law went back to the nearest Plus GSM in Nowy Targ to buy the card. The sales rep asked for a copy of the contract. My parents-in-law didn’t have it; I have no idea where it is. Plus GSM does have a copy in Warsaw, but they refuse to send it. My father-in-law, angered beyond belief, suggested that he just pay the rest of the contract monthly payments then and there.

“No,” was the reply.

And so we’re just forgetting about it. Let them take us to court — for a little over $200 dollars. Let them do whatever. I, for one, will never have anything to do with

Plus GSM, and if you’re in Poland, I suggest you do the same.