HOME GENTER MERGHANT

BILL FISHMAN

Bill Fishman & Atfiliates

1 1650 lberia Place

To pour more salt on the wound, they San Diego, Ca. 921 28 keep producing smaller community direc- lHafe the phone company, phone anI swering devices and telephone answering services. torieseach with its narrow product classifications. In metropolitan areas a retailer could easily exceed 290 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.

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

Firstly, they sell their Yellow Page advertising by the month (try buying only I I months). Then, they continuously add classifications that, as a retailer, you're reluctant to miss. It 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. Will they someday try selling advertising by SKU?

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 from me! As a customer, I've had answering services tell me that "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 bad job of screening phone calls is not restricted to answering services. We've had recent experiences with major corporations who do a poor job oftraining their people on how to keep their product and services up to the standards their public relations department boast about.

Last week our office shopped for word processing equipment. Our ultimate purchase will probably exceed ten thousand dollars. That's not a bad initial sale for some company and there's continuing volume in software and supplies. But, we witnessed personnel at giant companies like Xerox, IBM, and Radio Shack destroy much of the image that their advertising tries to create.

Here are some of our experiences: o We toldthe sales department of IBM

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