Just received one of the most unbelievable email form-letter responses I’ve ever encountered. Had filled out a web form to find out more information about a product we were considering integrating into a solution for a client. Here was the response (details changed to protect the guilty):
“Dear Mr. Carfi,
Thank you for your email and your interest in viewing (company/product name) Demo. My name is Chuck [redacted] and I’m Director of Sales.
As you can well imagine, we get more then 50 contacts a week from folks like yourself who are interested in our software and we normally reject more then 80% of those folks we speak with because we do not feel we have a business fit or we do not feel they will be succesful [sic]. In this regard, I would need to speak with you first, to see what you are looking to do and to see if we do in fact have a business fit before we could discuss our demo.
I’m available to speak with you tomorrow (Friday) or next week.
Please let me know of your availability and we can take it from there.
Thanks again for your interest–
Chuck”
The hubris of “we’re doing you a favor, and if you’re worthy we’ll talk to you” blows me away. Why make it harder for your prospect to learn more about your company, your people or your product?
What are you hiding?
Chris:
UGH!
He has the right idea, just the wrong message!
First, on the web form there should have been a field or pull down box for you to tell them what you are hoping to accomplish, your goals, or the reason for your inquiry.
Then, he should have taken a less is more approach: “Thank you for your interest in our product. When can we set up a time to chat about how our products help our customers?” That’s it.
Someone needs to teach this company to “just shut up!”
TOTALLY agreed…the whole tone is, for lack of a better term, repellent. Your “thank you, when can we set up a time to chat?” ‘graph above is spot on.