How to get the door slammed in your face
Mar. 12th, 2008 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurDear door-to-door salesman,
If you had led off with, "I'm with Verizon, and was wondering if you'd be willing to consider our FiOS service," I probably would have declined for now but done so politely and taken your literature. We haven't ruled the possibility out, so this was a fine opportunity for you.
But when you instead start with "I'm doing a survey of Verizon customers, and wanted to check how you like your fiber-optic line", and then claim to be shocked -- *shocked* -- that I have Comcast service when Verizon is so much better, and *surely* I should upgrade, you don't deserve politeness. I don't like liars when they waste my time on the phone, and even less in person. Even being charitable in my assumptions, you're *both* doing a survey and selling the service -- but you're still using the survey as a sales tactic that I find unsavory. And trying to keep up the canned hard-sell after I say "no" goes from "loses" to "loses big". Buh-bye...
If you had led off with, "I'm with Verizon, and was wondering if you'd be willing to consider our FiOS service," I probably would have declined for now but done so politely and taken your literature. We haven't ruled the possibility out, so this was a fine opportunity for you.
But when you instead start with "I'm doing a survey of Verizon customers, and wanted to check how you like your fiber-optic line", and then claim to be shocked -- *shocked* -- that I have Comcast service when Verizon is so much better, and *surely* I should upgrade, you don't deserve politeness. I don't like liars when they waste my time on the phone, and even less in person. Even being charitable in my assumptions, you're *both* doing a survey and selling the service -- but you're still using the survey as a sales tactic that I find unsavory. And trying to keep up the canned hard-sell after I say "no" goes from "loses" to "loses big". Buh-bye...
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-14 05:31 pm (UTC)I knew they'd been laying the cable in our town because I'd seen the trucks *everywhere*. Mark and I had discussed it vaguely, as he was getting annoyed with our cable service. Eventually, an extremely polite young man in a Verizon shirt came to our door one evening to ask (just as you say) whether we were interested. As we were, we let him in and asked questions. Mostly he was quoting scripts, but they were GOOD scripts, and had useful information in them, so we let him quote. AND we signed up.
Maybe they've tried changing the scripts? Or maybe this guy decided to "improve" them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-15 02:36 am (UTC)