14 July 2007
What is so hard about answering a question?
Posted by Darrell under: Rantings Of An Outdoorsman .
Ok, here is one of my pet peeves. I HATE it when someone responds to questions in my email by either sending me a pdf brochure or a link to their website. Unfortunately, this happens quite often. Here I am, a hot lead, that they’ve likely spent decent money to get - and they blow me off when I ask them a question. Ridiculous! Let me explain.
A couple weeks ago I watched an episode of one of my favorite hunting shows. On the show, the outfitter stated he had $500 cow elk hunts for 2007. “We really need to thin these cows out” he unequivocally stated. Hey, a $500 cow elk hunt? I’m in. So, I emailed the outfitter and simply asked “What dates do you have available? and What is included for $500?” It seemed simple enough.
Two weeks later I received a response “Attached is our 2007 hunt brochure”. Guess what? It didn’t have anything about $500 cow elk hunts. There were some $1050, $1200, & $1600 cow hunts - but no $500 hunts. Furthermore, my other questions weren’t answered either. How frustrating. I mean, I’m not trying to sell them a hunt. They are supposed to be selling me, right?
Something even worse than this, though, is when I just receive a link to the companies website. I take the time to look at their site (how else am I going to get their email) and ask a couple questions about booking a hunt or stay and instead of receiving answers to my questions I receive a link to the site I started from. I just want to pull out my hair. Don’t they know that the questions I asked aren’t answered on their site? Do they not really care? Probably not, that’s why I’ve never booked with someone that does this.
Ok, I’m done ranting about this now. Just, please, don’t ignore my questions if I’m trying my best to buy something from you.
5 Comments so far...
Kristine Shreve Says:
15 July 2007 at 12:07 pm.
A lot of companies are guilty of this. One of the things I hope I’ve done is learned from the mistakes of others, and in so doing, have made Gun Safety Innovations much more responsive.
I’m with you, I hate being put on hold when I ask a simple question, or having to go through four or five people to get the answer I need. Part of having a good business is providing good customer service.
I’ve written a couple of blog posts on the subject. Might be time to do another one.
Kevin Paulson Says:
15 July 2007 at 8:44 pm.
The world of outfitters has been put together mostly by guys who were great guides and got tired of being bossed around by an outfitter and so they went out and did it themselves. As a whole the industry is filled with guys who are great hunters and lousy business people. I wont say they are all that way, at least half of them are really business people as well but weeding them out is sometimes a very frustrating process.
Darrell Says:
18 July 2007 at 1:48 pm.
Kristine & Kevin, Thanks for your comments. Kevin, I’m looking forward to your http://www.huntinglife.com resource for finding the best outfitters!
whitesmoke reviewed Says:
16 October 2010 at 4:38 pm.
Reading this article it is amazing what rubbish idiots will add to a blog, Really what is the point? Give the guy a break and stop adding so much rubbish.
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