A truly remarkable piece of door step selling occurred to me this afternoon.
Three people turned up at my door, claiming to be from Talk Talk, complete with ID badges. (So possibly genuine?)
I said I wasn’t interested, but one of them started arguing with me. He started by claiming that the exchange had been upgraded and then claimed that all broadband was now free. (!)
This is a particularly odd claim given that they certainly seem to have prices on their website. There were also various other points made which I believe to be partly or wholly inaccurate.
I’m truly amazed at the stupidity of the whole thing. If I tell people I’m not interested I expect them to go away: they’re not going to change my mind. The only thing the argument did was make me annoyed and I cannot see how that can be a viable sales strategy. Especially when giving information which is actually wrong, surely they will get caught out as soon as the order is submitted to the company and the customer is billed for the service?
What am I missing, where is the advantage in these practices?
I am also somewhat concerned that someone with less technical knowledge might get caught out and switch to this crowd.
It is truly disappointing that this sort of behaviour is permitted.
As a final, ironic twist, I found this page on the talk talk website, describing how to avoid door step sellers. 🙂
I’m thinking the answer is to keep a cheap solid state camcorder by the door, and if anyone like this calls, say, “Okay, but I’d like to video this conversation for later reference if that’s fine by you.” I’ve a feeling they’d clear off shortly after that. 😛
🙂
I bet that would work. They all seem to prefer not to be identified….
My God I had those eejits minus one at my door last night.
With exactly the same sales pitch and the same atitude.
They ask if I had recieved my bundle through the door, I said “No what bundle?”, they said “about the free internet”, “what free internet” says I.
“Oh we are upgrading the exchange and broadband is going to be free” came the sales reply.
“Who is upgrading the exchange” I asks
“We are” says they
“Who is We” I retort
“TalkTalk” was the final answer.
“Is that right” I say as I point my company van parked at the kerbside outside my house, The BT Van I use every day in the course of my employment with BT, “Strange that, as the exchange is BT’s responsibility and its already upgraded”
I then ask when this is happening and I get a vague answer of December.
With that one of the sales persons gets extremely nasty and bitchy and starts mouthing of about the fact BT employees get broadband free as a perk.
After speaking to several neighbours they got the impression that it was BT on the doorstep and only after much asking did they find out it was talktalk and were told that the same thing regarding Talktalk upgrading the exchange and that broadband would be free if they moved to talktalk