I’ve just switched back to BT from Tiscali. I’ll be honest, I wished I’d never went away from them; but you live and learn as the saying goes…
It was a painless process. I had a call from BT around 7.30 on Friday night. Politely she asked if it was a good time to talk? I said that as a rule I didn’t take sales calls but I as I was currently looking for a new broadband provider, and as they don’t repeatedly call, I was happy to talk (I’d also heard some good things about their service from a colleague at work which stood in their favour…)
The whole process took about 5 mins. And as Alexandr says, “Simples!”
However, the opposite can be said for BG (British Gas). Whatever happened to the BG of yesterday with the ‘have you seen Sid?’ commercials…?
We had 5 phone calls from them last week, from 3 different people!
Call 1 – Tuesday,
BG: “Are you interested in switching back to BG because we’re 6% cheaper”
Me: “No thanks, we’re happy with our current supplier”
BG: “Can you give me a reason why?”
Me: “Oh I do apologise, I thought that ‘we’re happy with current supplier’ was a reason!”
BG: “but we’re 6% cheaper…”
The call ended…
Call 2 – Thursday Lunchtime
BG: “Are you interested in switching back to British Gas because we’re 6% cheaper?”
Me: “I had this conversation with one of your colleagues on Tuesday, and I’ll tell you what I told them, no thanks”
BG in a puzzled sounding voice: “but we’re 6% cheaper!”
Me in desperate attempt to get them off the phone: “Can you send me an email with the details then I’ll have a look”
BG: “Sorry we don’t do emails”
Me, even more desperate to get them of the phone: “Then please call back outside of office hours.”
Call 3 & 4, Friday mid afternoon
I ignored their calls as they ignored my polite request to call outside of office hours…
Call 5 – Saturday 2.30pm (during my crispy duck pancake)
BG: “Are you interested in switching back to British Gas because we’re 6% cheaper”
Me: “Look, actually we’re really not interested”
BG again sounds of disbelief: “but we’re…”
“I know, you’re 6% cheaper, but as I told you’re colleagues on Tuesday and Thursday we’re happy with our current supplier!”
Now, we really are happy with our current supplier – they’re not the most expensive or the cheapest but we’re happy…so why would I change?
If British Gas insist on using this tried and tested way of p***ing people off it can only do them more harm than good. I suspect I wont be getting any more calls from British Gas, at least for the remainder of this year, but I wouldn’t want them to supply me now -even if they decided to give the stuff away…!
Interruption marketing doesn’t work!!!
Actually I can’t call it marketing, as anyone who blatantly disregards any knowledge gained from previous conversations, reads from a script etc is basically just ‘painting by numbers’, and you don’t see many of those pictures at the Tate Gallery do you…!
‘Grrrrrrrrr’
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