As much as I trust and expect my salespeople to act on leads from our website, there are those strays that no one (including me) wants to touch. Case in point:
Web lead: “i have a [generic term for what we manufacture] and i want to sell it but i don’t know what its worth could you help me.”
I’ll be honest, I saw this one when it came in and didn’t know what to do with it, so I let it sit.
One week later I get this email: “yea thanks for the reply.i asked a question one week ago and still no response you guys suck and i will tell everyone i know on face book.keep in touch my ass.”
(The keep in touch comment was in response to our confirmation email each web request gets.)
I stewed about it for a bit. I had dropped the ball, but really this guy didn’t deserve a response to the initial request or the rude follow-up. I decided to respond, and tell this guy what he did wrong and ignore his attitude:
… I’m not surprised that anyone replied for the following reasons:
- You didn’t specify any details about the equipment, even if it was our brand.
- There can be a lot of variability in age, brand, size, capability for each [unit], it is hard to discuss easily just to figure out what you have without investing a lot of the salesperson’s time.
- Our company isn’t in the used-equipment business, and have little knowledge of the market value.
- Salespeople can perceive used equipment as competition for their sales, and choose not to respond.
- Hotmail/yahoo/gmail email accounts are a potential signs of clandestine inquiries by competitors or others.
If the equipment is by our company, email me the serial number and I can look up the equipment specifications, which should help you in selling the unit.
His reply: “Thank you for your time david.you are right I didn’t give you any details I will check with the seller and get back to you. again thank you and sorry for my unexperance in this situation.”
My final thought on this: based on his response, I think he took my reply the right way.
You are right! many a times we have to face clients who are inexperienced and convincing them is just like wrestling match. Well B2B is a market where this kind of things happen everyday.