Companies to Customers: "Don't Bother Us By Calling!"

DMCG Results

Have you noticed how difficult it is to find a customer service phone number these days? They give you email, Chat, and links. But your questions are complex and difficult to resolve. Your questions require a phone call to cut through the information maze.

Let’s get down to everyday reality for a few seconds. The problem gets worse when you decide to buy.

It’s as if the business world were conspiring together to keep you from spending your money.

You search the manufacturer’s website for the contact information. But you search in vain for that sales phone number. In many instances, you will never find the contact address or phone number because it isn’t there. If it exists on the website, it is often hidden under layers of clicks.

I think that many companies today make it quite clear they DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO YOU.

Companies apply the same losing approach to existing customers. This kills present and future sales to save money.

The company actually increases it's sales costs when their product finally does sell. Such behavior reduces sales. Frustrated customers call the service or warranty departments rather than sales.

That’s a no-go because you do not have the product serial number allowing you access to a live person.

If you're a customer, the problem continues. The service group wants you to pay a service fee for product support first before they will talk with you.

This bad behavior weakens brands and causes the loss of many customers.

Why are companies so inept at customer service? Don’t they get it? Will they stay in business or prosper for long in a society that demands service above all? In your view, do companies understand that the prospect and customer are the bosses?  

Ted Grigg
What Ted does best is increase response by beating controls, applying multiple channels to target markets, profiling customer databases and generally improving sales results using deep direct marketing principles. Regard Ted as your personal “think-tank” for your direct marketing planning and strategy development. After analyzing several hundred million dollars of direct response testing in all channels, he brings with him the knowledge accumulated from seeing what tends to work and what does not. Having worked on both the agency and client side of direct marketing, Ted understands the unique challenges faced by agencies and their clients. Agencies need to sell themselves and deliver sales results. And clients not only require results, but need ideas they can implement while focusing on tracking response using a relational database. If Ted brings nothing else to the table, by profiling customer databases and creating response propensity models, he quickly becomes the clients’ expert on their own customers. His formal training includes a BA from Abilene Christian University and two years of graduate work at Texas Tech University. For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, Ted developed a revolutionary direct mail format that beat most standing direct mail controls for this company. He also generated more profitable business for this firm by expanding compiled list circulation of less than 10% to more than 30% of total direct mail circulation within a year. (Insurance business generated by direct mail demonstrated higher persistency than customers coming from other media such as print and DRTV.) Ted’s plan and implementation of Medicare lead generation campaigns for over 60 regional and national HMO/PPO organizations combined multiple channels that surpassed some sales projections by as much as 60%. Additional industry experience over the last 30 years includes B2B or B2C for finance, securities, home security, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, government, technology, nonprofit, retail, transportation, communications, and multiple categories in the services industry. As the founder of Wyse Direct (a division for Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, OH), he successfully launched and branded a new technology product for Seiko-Mead by supporting a nationwide sales team with a predictable flow of qualified sales leads. While a VP of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, Ted acted as the direct marketing strategist who refocused the agency’s culture to attract new commercial and fundraising accounts. At the time, Grizzard was essentially a direct mail fund raising production operation. His leadership and team building effectiveness prepared Grizzard for the eventual Omnicom acquisition and Grizzard’s successful integration into Omnicom’s large group of advertising agencies. An independent DM consultant, Ted continues to write numerous articles and conduct webinars on direct marketing techniques. He also wrote The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan — A Step-by-Step Guide publishing it through Executive Enterprises in New York City. During his youth, Ted was raised in Lille, France with his missionary family attending French schools becoming fluent in reading and writing French. Away from the job, Ted is a computer geek, blogger and science fiction buff!
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