Shopping through the internet has made life more simple than handing over your Google account information to the maker of the Pokemon Go app. I can sit in my bed, on my couch or even the throne and make purchases that will then be shipped to my house. I don’t have to put clothes on, operate a car and, most importantly, deal with other human beings. As much as I enjoy a nice discussion with people to learn more about ourselves I would rather wade through a pool filled with cancer infected leeches than talk to someone at a store. But not all companies make it this easy for you.
In the past I’ve ranted on my personal Facebook about, and caught a good deal of shit for, the ways sales people will not simply give a potential customer the information they are looking for. They want to know how big your business is, what your favorite color is, if you like frills on your panties. None of that information being relevant to the service or products that they provide. Just give me the damn price of what it is you provide!
Now I absolutely get that there are some businesses out there that have different factors that go into their pricing. Some of these do require a few simple questions to get you the correct pricing, like when I order labels for beer cans or bottles. Those items can vary in size, print type, colors, etc. Add in quantity discounts and I understand I have to provide someone some important details before getting a price however most companies that provide goods and services do not need all this.
There are countless tech companies that I come across on a near daily basis that offer a service with different packages that contain different features. However when I search for pricing it is nowhere to be found. There are buttons and links all over the site begging me to request a quote. Why can’t you just put the pricing for each package on the site? Hell I’d be okay with contacting someone to complete the payment if I decide to get it but why do I have to contact someone, be asked a bunch of silly questions and just be bothered in general just to get your standard pricing plans? Do these companies change their pricing for different potential customers? If so that’s some shady business practices.
Let’s face it, traditional face to face sale jobs are becoming more insignificant by the day. Majority of customers now and days want ease and peace of mind. They want to order things online or deal with a person by email. Yes there will always be the people that want to talk to human, and they will forever be weird to me, but a sales person must be versatile and work with customers in the way they feel comfortable in order to keep them as a customer. Making things difficult for a potential customer when you would rather deal with them face to face or on a call when they just want to do things via email is not likely going to land you a customer. I don’t know how many times I have turned down soliciting emails from sales people that want to immediately set up a sit down meeting in order to even tell me what they offer. I don’t work that way and if you don’t want to work with me then I will not be a customer of yours. But back to the pricing issue.
Even with many vendors that I deal with I know that they aren’t going to list all their pricing on their websites. My grain providers have hundreds of products they offer all with different quantity discounts. But I’ll be damned if I can’t just email someone at their companies, ask for a pricing list and they will give it to me without needing to know my emergency contact information.
While talking about pricing and websites, do you ever browse around that big website with all the stuff that begins with A, ends in N and in the middle is MAZO? Yeah? Well every once in awhile you will come across an item and on it’s page it says that you must add the product to your shopping cart in order to see the price. What? Why? They claim that the manufacturer will not allow them to list that item for the low price that they are selling it for. In no other aspect of life does this argument apply. When you are grocery shopping and come across your favorite flavored hummus on sale it doesn’t refuse to tell you the price of it until you get to the cashier. Department stores do not refuse to give you the pricing on that hilarious graphic tee that you’ve been wanting unless you put it into your basket. The store has already purchased the items from the manufacturer, it’s now up to them how much they want to charge.
Today is the age of convenience, or laziness, or maybe both. Let’s call it conveniently lazy if you insist. Either way companies must stop putting so many obstacles between the path from a potential customer to becoming an actual customer.
