Contact - is there anyone there

[colin]

Nice to see the forum, but I think it would better if someone at Navitron could just answer the 'phone, or fax, or email.
I know things must be busy, but I've been trying for weeks!
Come on guys - give a thought for your (potential) customers.
I'll keep trying..........
Colin

[Ivan]

Hi Colin,

Apologies for the difficulty in contacting us. We will try to respond as soon as possible ('we are experiencing extremely high call volumes' as the awful telephone answering machines say!). You are not alone! We are incredibly busy at the moment - our low prices, sunny weather and the TV publicity are all to blame. We have two phone lines ringing constantly all day, plus a few hundred email enquiries each day, visiting customers as well as orders that need to be packed and despatched. It is extremely difficult keeping on top of all of this at the same time predicting what we are likely to sell over the next 4 months. We don't believe in robot telephone answering machines, queueing systems etc, but it is difficult to answer everyone prompty. Many of the calls we receive start like this 'I am thinking of renewable energy and wanted some advice.....' It is so difficult to answer these sort of questions quickly, and many people do not take the time to read the FAQs before ringing, so we thought this forum might be a good place for people to ask and answer questions as well as giving the benefit of their advice/experience. It also allows us to answer questions publicly - allowing more people to benefit from the answers.

Ivan

[colin]

Thanks Ivan,
Now I know there is someone there!
I do understand your problems - catch 22 again.
Perhaps just a quick email acknowledgement, rather than silence?
But please can you answer my fax of Tuesday evening about a visit.................
Cheers,
Colin

[anodas]

Ivan,

You and your company is on a real winner here, but you know this! People appreciate quality at reasonable prices so when you add the publicity from a certain TV program, rising fuel costs and the knowledge that your website has given people, the seed of thought has been sown that has made the general public think.. yes this stuff is affordable and maybe I can do a lot of it myself! That is why you are going to be very busy for a very long time.

I think, everyone is getting more conscious of their fuel bills lately, and green stuff is part of it, but mainly people just hate getting ripped off. This is the feeling you get when getting a quote from a local "solar specialist", it's similar to getting a quote from a fitted kitchen/double glazing/etc salesman, the hard sell, buy right now and save x%, offer ends tomorrow lark just turns people right off any well intentioned ideas they had.

I'm sure you will reply to my email enquiry from a couple of weeks ago, one day but I for one am happy to wait, I'm actually really pleased to hear that so many other people are making similar enquiries.

Keep up the good work but please don't grow the company too big!

Simon

[ssherlock]

Although I appreciate why you don't want to go with an IVR for answering telephone calls and avoiding human contact like the banks do, this is exactly the situation where they are useful.  If a message is played informing the prospective customer as to why their call is not being answered they then at least know what is going on, rather than thinking you just can't be bothered to answer the phone.

On the email side it is very easy to set up a response thanking people for their email, explaining how busy you are and that you will respond within x days/weeks etc.

That way people trying to contact you aren't so p'ed off that they go elsewhere....

In fact why don't both the IVR and email response mention the forum where some of the beginner questions can be answered either by staff when they have time or other members of the forum, thereby reducing the load on telephone calls and emails.

[Ivan]

Colin - I have tried to reply to your fax, but although someone answers the phone each time, they do not seem to know how to switch over to your fax machine - do you have a fax machine?! I sent to the fax number given on your fax!

ivan

[colin]

Sorry Ivan,
My fault, I've emailed you - best take this off-line.
Cheers,
Colin

[mike]

Having had siimilar difficulties to Colin, I must thank you for agreeing to see me this afternoon, at short notice. As I live locally,it was easy to pop in. Will get back when I have sorted out what I need.
I fully endorse anodas' sentiments.
My regards to Jim Milner when you next see him.
Good Luck

Mike