Guest post by a potential double glazing customer:
Had a double Glazing salesman round at the house on Saturday morning. I’d gone through the web pages to request a brochure and lo the phone calls started, telling me there was a team in my area and they’d be happy to pop round to give me a quote. Well, says I, “I’d love to get a quote, but I won’t be signing anything on the day”. “Oh now sir, that’s not how we work these days.” she assures me. We’ll see! Anyway, couldn’t do it the week they said there was a team in my area, but by amazing coincidence there was one im my area the following week too – how lucky am I?
Anyway, the guy appears at my door bang on time, with a big bag of brochures and a laptop and printer. 45 minutes later and we still haven’t seen a brochure, never mind had the windows measured. 1 hour in and he’s just coming back from the car with the demo material – a corner piece. At 90 minutes in he’s now retrieved the demo window with the locks. He’s assuring me that although some companies might quote about 5 grand for the windows on the front of my house, that’s far from realistic and here’s all the ways they’ll be ripping me off.
Come 12:30, we’ve finished measuring the windows and he’s putting together a great quote for me. He’d love to have one of the company vans in my street, there’s plenty people needing window replacements and I could be the one to kick off a lot of sales in the area – I’ll get a great price based on being the conduit to all these sales.
My wife is now putting on her jacket and getting the wee man ready for going over to his Grannies. At 12:45 he prints out the 1st quote just a ba’hair under £14k. I stifle a laugh… I thank him for his time and go to get my own jacket. He’s mumbling something about window scrappage scheme and Barclays finance package. I’ve got my coat on and he’s furiously typing away at the calculator.
“I can do this for you at £7900 but you’d need to sign up today and don’t tell anyone I’ve offered you this price.”
“Well, thanks for your time. We’ve got to go to the Grannies now, I’ll be in touch next week if we decide to go with you.”
“Aye, well, it’s not for everyone. Some people just can’t afford the best and take short sighted decisions due to financial constraints, I understand that”, says he in what I’m beginning to suspect is a bit of an indignant manner.
“Do you need a hand carrying your stuff back to the car?”
Now, the question I have is, why should he be shitty with me? He was supposed to take 45 minutes to demo his product and measure us up for a quote. The fact that he took 3 hours isn’t my fault. I said right up front that I was after quality and a good value for money quote. I explained to him that I was web savvy and had been doing a bit of research on double glazing. I had decent question to ask him about his product, but I’d told everyone I wouldn’t be signing up on Saturday. How disrespectful is it of him to think that I’d change my mind based on his wasting an extra 2 hours and 15 minutes of my Saturday morning? Giving me a quote that can immediately be reduced by over £6k is exactly what I told him not to do.
This is a genuine example of a customer receiving a quote for double glazing in 2009. Not 1989. But 2009! Is this acceptable? Is it time that our industry accepts this type of sales practices? Your comments are welcome (without naming names)…
All joking apart, I can only imagine that Anglian are doing a very good trade as a result of jumping on the GGF’s petition. I can only suggest that should the government take the decision to support the window industry with such a scheme, then consumers will definitely be very responsive. Just what the industry needs!
