Home Center Merchant

BILL FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Affiliates

11650 lberia Place

San Diego, Ca.92128 f Hfne are some days when I feel I the only way I'll be able to get off the telephone is to have the receiver surgically removed from my ear, With all that phone time I have experienced some unusual telephone techniques. Some good. Some bad.

I made a mid-morning call to a business executive and had his secretary inform me that, "He hasn't come in yet." l[ I'm out of the office, my people have been instructed to respond, "He hasn't returned yet," no matter what time of day it is.

The director of the trade show division lor Vance Publishing Corporation (the sponsors of the Home Center Show) answers his phone, "This is John Berry, how may I help you". a great way to begin communicating.

One of the biggest irritations in this era of automation is the push button call director. Today I phoned for some information about my United MileagePlus status. "lf you have a push button telephone and are inquiring about your ac. count press 'one' and enter your account number," the electronic voice directed me. I pressed 'one'and entered the code numbers. The voice ordered me to "Enter your ll-digit MileagePlus number again." I entered again. "Sorry," said the electronic voice, "We cannot supply information about that account number at this time. Thank you." Before I could yell "but " there was a dial tone ringing in my ear.

That phone experience sent me scurrying through my files lor a column about telephones that I wrote many years ago. It's worth repeating.

I hate the phone company, phone answering devices and telephone answering services.

My dislike for the phone company is not because ol their service or even their rates. It's because of the questionable selling practices oftheir advertising space sales department.

They sell their Yellow Page advertising by the month (try buy. ing only ll months). Then, they continuously add classifi cations that, as a retailer, you're reluctant to miss. lt used to be easy. You just bought a listing or ad under LUMBER. Nowadays, however, you've got to consider "Building Materials," "Contractor Alterations," "Hardware," "Kitchens." "Plumbing Supplies" and just about every other imaginable category.

To pour more salt on the wound, they keep producing smaller community directorieseach with its narrow product classifications. In metropolitan areas a retailer could easily exceed 2% of his gross volume by taking a small ad in every broad category in every phone directory in his market. Frankly, I think the retailer who ends his print and broadcast advertising with "Look us up in the White Pages... " is a smart merchant.

Electronic telephone answering devices are a pain. I'm intimidated by the recording that either orders me, or pleads with me, to leave a message and I'm mad as hell to have made a long distance call to talk to a machine. I'd rather have the phone go unanswered and remake the call.

As for telephone answering services, they get my award for "scaring new business away." Very few things annoy me more than the curt, "Please holdclick." Mostly I don't hold because the few times I did hold, I kept holding and holding and holding! When I call a business and get an answering service my immediate reaction isNo office! No employees! No communication! No follow-up! Nobody really cares! No business lrom me!

As a customer, I've had answering services tell me that

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"He's out, please call back later" without any attempt to take my name or number or ask about the nature of the call. Chances are I will make another call immediately. to another supplier.

The badjob ofscreening phone calls is not restricted to answering services. We've had recent experiences with major corporations that do a poor job of training their people on how to keep their products and services up to the standards their public relations department boasts about.

It's a buyer's market. Buyers can pick and choose and make their purchases at the stores where they feel most comfortable, most appreciated. Maybe it's time for as report generators, word processing programs and spreadsheets.

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Maybe it's time to check to see if some of the people who talk with customers at your store treat them as an interruption of their non-selling duties. And maybe it's time for management to review their systems and procedures to make sure that everyone who has the responsibility of talking to potential buyers knows specifically how management wants them to respond to, and, to ask questions of the customer.

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