Have you ever hired a company to perform a service for your business only to be totally shocked when they unveil their true nasty character? Maybe the sales or contact person was a total professional or nice person but not so true for the balance of their staff?
Well here is a sure-fire way to root out the bad ones. Have you ever thought about trying to cold call them or have a friend do it? Read this story….
A customer of ours hired a telemarketing and email marketing company to bring in new leads. They were tasked with calling and emailing potential customers using lists obtained from a variety of sources. That in itself seems harmless right?
So this outbound marketing company just happened to market to a local company who touts itself as being a leader in the home improvement market. They sent the home improvement company a harmless email inviting them to participate in a FREE online listing service. Still harmless right?
Well what happened next was shocking and an alarming display of nasty behavior. Someone with the home improvement company called after business hours and left a nasty-gram on our customer’s voicemail. Here is part of the message:
“Yes I’m trying to reach this “blank” company. Uh, we don’t want your business. We’re too busy. We’re back about three and a half years. Just wanted to let you know to stop F’ing with my email. You don’t have no need for a request. Don’t bang on my email, nor my website, nor my phone, nor my pager, nor my wife, nor my kids, nor anything else over there. You guys don’t have a clue who you are F’ing with. You know what I mean! If you don’t you’ll find out……”
YIKES!
What do you think of this home improvement company? Would you hire them?
In most states this message is considered to be public tender. In other words, a blogger, news service, or other online content publisher could use this information to destroy the reputation of the home improvement company.
What’s the lesson learned? Always treat your customers and all other contacts with professionalism and integrity. If you don’t like the approach someone is taking to earn your business, simply send them a note to kindly take you off their list of contacts….period.
