I currently have to wade thru the crap on 20+ blogs that we operate … every single day.
I hate spam and spammers.
That’s not what I’m here to talk about though.
If you look at the comments on Lorelle’s post, you’ll see one from Seth.
Seth said he’s tried twice to contact the people over at Akismet to buy a couple of licenses, with no reply.
Lorelle gives the standard response that they’ve had server trouble, which is a cop out created by the internet that I hate with a blazing, burning, bigass passion.
She then says to give them a few days to respond. What !?
OMG ! A few days !?
People fall in love, get married and move entire households faster than that in Vegas.
And we have to wait that long for a response to an email from someone we want to give money to ?
My company has 18 locations if four states and we answer every single call, with a live operator, before 4 rings.
If we don’t, the prospective customers go somewhere else and current customers become former customers. Period.
A few days !?
To sell something to someone ? Not a freakin’ chance.
That crap started with the internet, but it needs to stop … now.
It doesn’t work for Starbucks.
Me - ” Hi, I’d like a white chocolate mocha latte venti with whipped cream please. “
Them – ” Okay, but today is Thursday and right now we’re taking orders for next Tuesday. “
Nope. They’re a real business serving real people, so they make it right now.
They charge a fair price and spend some of the profits on stores, employees and phone lines. Try it.
If you can’t answer all of your emails before the end of the day, don’t end the day. Hire people. Fire people. Raise prices. Whatever it takes to actually give customer service to actual customers.
Memo To The World – I’m certainly not aiming this towards Lorelle, nor at Akismet, but at all the companies that claim to do business on the internet.
Please don’t read anything vindictive into this, the comment just spurred a rant and they happened to be the ones involved in rattling my brain into action.
Akismet’s name just happened to be the one used in the post, that just happened to be written by Lorelle.
I don’t use Akismet’s service, so I can’t comment on their responsiveness.
The real issue here is the vast majority of anonymous companies that try to do business on the ‘net … anonymously.
Why in the heck does anybody deal with anonymous businesses ?
Would you eat dinner in a restaurant that wouldn’t let you see their face, hear their voice or shake their hand ? Me neither.
I’d have to be pretty damned hungry to do so and I’ll have to be pretty desperate to buy from an anonymous company on the ‘net.
No phone line ? No deal.
No way to contact you except email ? No chance.
No physical address to see ? See you later.
You want my money but don’t want me to know who you are ? Forget it.
Why do you think that internet only businesses can get away with only having email contact with their clients ?
Should they at least have some hours during the day to answer a phone ?
Should we even care ?
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