When “0” fails, Companies Lose Business

Announcing the 2017 Business Deterrent Awards contest.

This prestigious award goes to the company that excels at deterring business by ignoring customers.How do some companies stay in business? The lengths they go to keep customers from speaking to a human who wants to place an order.

It’s the same story. A company invests big bucks to advertise and market their product, causing you to call to buy, but instead of speaking to a human, you hear a twenty second message on how they value your business and to “listen closely as our menu options have changed.”

Yes, there are still companies employing this sales deterrent tactic, but what’s even more surprising are the companies that place additional hurdles for the customer by disabling the ‘0’ option. Zero has always been the salvation for the customer. It’s the customer’s way of saying, “I’m not going to listen to this long recording of extension numbers any longer.”

Just connect me to a human.

But when they hit the infamous “0”, the recording continues letting them know that there is no such extension and starts the recording over.

“Please listen closely as our options have . . .”

I can understand this for the IRS or government offices, organizations without competitors. Organizations where consumers have no choice but to play their game. But for the rest of the business world, where hungry competitors are born every day and are lining up to earn your business, they make sure their “0” button works to get you to a human.

When FocusLCDs.com converted from landlines to VOIP, our first task the day of the switch over was to make coffee. After that was completed, our second task was to make sure that pressing zero woke up every phone in the office. — Every phone—

We did not transfer them to a drone, or to a recording, not to something driven by an eight-bit processor. 0 took them to a human.

Business Deterrent Award

So, I was thinking of having a monthly award. The rules are simple, in fact there is only one rule: send us examples of companies that excel at deterring business. That is, putting as many obstacles in place to discourage customers. Let us know what they are doing.

At the end of the month, we will announce a winner and will send them an amazon gift card or bag of coffee.

Just say “YES” to 0

Call us today, and talk to 0 robots!