At a home show at Westconn in Danbury my wife and I came across a booth for All American Seamless Gutters of New London, CT. Since we live in a woodsy area, the idea of covered gutters which don't require cleaning sounded like a house upgrade to be considered. Eric was the salesperson we spoke with and gave our contact information to. He called and spoke with my wife and set up an appointment with us of 11:00am on 3/13/2004. Everything sounded great so far.
At 12:15 they hadn't arrived and we hadn't received a phone call to tell us what was going on. I called their office a few minutes later and explained that they were already over an hour late, we hadn't heard from them, and that didn't reflect well on the company. Since we hadn't eaten yet (we thought we'd eat afterwards) we were hungry and decided to eat something. At 12:30 just as I was sitting down to eat the first bite, the doorbell rings and it's the gutter guys. I told them that they were an HOUR AND A HALF LATE, I was now sitting down to eat, and they should come back at 1:15 (45 min later). They went back to their truck and I sat down to eat. A few minutes later the doorbell rings again and the worker guy says that they are sorry they were late, but they can't wait and have to leave. I said that I was sorry we couldn't do business and watched them go.
At this point I was annoyed, but it was possible that I would have considered them in the future. The worker guy had been decent about it. Then Eric, who's supposed to be the salesperson calls me. I told him they they had screwed things up. He started to brush off the fact they had wasted an HOUR AND A HALF of my time and proceeded to tell me that he didn't like the way I treated his workers (what I said above was almost word for word what I said to the worker). It was clear that he was just diverting away from his screwup and I didn't want to hear it so I hung up. He then had the nerve to call back to try to tell me off some more - that lasted about 5 seconds.
Now I don't know what salesmanship school Eric went to, but if he had half as much sense as his worker guys, he'd have acknowledged that they didn't show up when expected, been more diplomatic about things (this is where REAL salesmanship skills are needed), and tried to set up a different appointment. Instead he demonstrated VERY clearly that if they had done any work on my house and there was the slightest problem that they'd try to turn it on me and not fix the problem.
Sometimes salescalls are delayed, it happens and I don't disqualify dealing with someone because of it. What is important to me is how it is handled. Once I had an appointment with a paving contractor and he was late, but he called. That told me right away that he had respect for my time and concern for my business. I almost think the fact that there was a minor problem and I saw how well he handled it made me more confident that I was in good hands. I signed with him on the rescheduled appointment and now I have a new driveway that I'm very happy with.
I'd say this is a case where if a company can't even get it together for an initial sales call (the point where making a good impresssion is key), then they are doing you a favor by blowing it. How dumb do you have to be to start yelling at a potential customer after you goofed up a salescall?
Maybe you think that an hour and a half with no word whatsoever from them was no big deal, or that I shouldn't have told them to wait for me when they showed up just when I was sitting down to eat. I can understand that, but then consider what you think might have been reasonable. If you've got things to do on a day when a salescall is scheduled, how long is it reasonable for them to expect that you wait without word before giving up and going on with the rest of your plans for the day? How much disrespect for your time can a contractor show during a salescall before you decide that they'd respect your time even less once you sign on the bottom line? Let me know.