Either this guy's a scammer, or Scottish Power thinks we're insane

trisontana

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi trisontana

Sorry for the delay. I have been talking to a customer.

As I said earlier, there are definite guidelines which our reps must follow when dealing with customers or potential customers. If they stray outside of these then there are consequences.

All reps know this before they accept the job and must agree before they are taken on.

They take the job on this understanding and should, therefore, be prepared to follow our rules regardless of how they are paid.

Malc

But don't you agree that commission-only jobs make people desperate to earn any money at all and so are prepared to take short cuts. Why don't you just pay them an "ordinary" wage? then that would keep them away from temptation.

On second thoughts why send reps round knocking on people's doors anyway? You know this annoys many people and puts you on the same level as those scammers who offer to re-lay your driveway with some left-over tar. Why do you think there are so many "no cold calling zones" being set up?

It's because most people don't want to carry out such an important and potentially costly transaction on their door-step. If your deals are so good, just push a leaflet through the door, so that it can be studied without a salesman breathing down your neck and pressurizing you.

geordie_joe

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi trisontana

Sorry for the delay. I have been talking to a customer.

As I said earlier, there are definite guidelines which our reps must follow when dealing with customers or potential customers. If they stray outside of these then there are consequences.

All reps know this before they accept the job and must agree before they are taken on.

They take the job on this understanding and should, therefore, be prepared to follow our rules regardless of how they are paid.

Malc

The problem is you hire them, tell them all they have to do is knock on a door and tell the householder that they will save x amount of pounds if they switch, and they will make a sale. They soon find this is not true and resort to using the tactics you told them not to use.

trisontana, the reason they are not paid a wage is they don't get enough people to switch to make it economical. All they expect from these people is they will switch their own house and maybe persuade a couple of friends/family to switch then give up and try something else.

No point in paying them a full weeks wage for that, better to give them a tenner per switch.

prowla

I just say I'm not interested in changing to both cold callers and door knockers.

Of course, you could always put a "no door-to-door sellers here" sticker on your door.

trisontana

Long ago I came to the conclusion that any company that needs to employ door-to-door salesmen can't be any good.

Lil_Me_2

We had this quite a lot when we moved into our new house, it was so funny listening to sales people tell us we were paying too much for our gas/electricity before we even knew who our supplier was and had our first bill! When we pointed out that we weren't paying anything they usually bring the "so and so down the road is with X and they're paying too much" argument.

I also got very annoyed with n power who came knocking last halloween, twice in one night.

MothballsWallet

I think it's time that door-to-door sales were banned completely as it's obvious that the companies who hire the salespeople go on about "ethical procedures" and "all staff are told about our rules when they start", yet there's no real evidence that I can see of there being any repercussions on staff who break the rules.

willo65

In the past i have worked for two different energy suppliers, once in door to door sales and once in telesales if someone knocked at your door and said I'm from x company and would like ot see if we can beat your current energy deal the amount of people that just don't care is unbelievable(Sp). Most people in my experience as still with the suppliers for their area ie if you live in the north Npower may be the automatic electric supplier and as a result they tend to be the most expensive in that are and British gas tend to be the most expensive for gas, the reason they can get away with that is because they know people don't like change and many won't research it themselves.

geordie_joe

willo65 wrote: »

In the past i have worked for two different energy suppliers, once in door to door sales and once in telesales if someone knocked at your door and said I'm from x company and would like ot see if we can beat your current energy deal the amount of people that just don't care is unbelievable(Sp). Most people in my experience as still with the suppliers for their area ie if you live in the north Npower may be the automatic electric supplier and as a result they tend to be the most expensive in that are and British gas tend to be the most expensive for gas, the reason they can get away with that is because they know people don't like change and many won't research it themselves.

Or it could be because they know as soon as they switch their current supplier will reduce their prices making not worth them having switched.

Or worse, you switch and then the company you switched to increases their price to higher than your old supplier.

geordie_joe

MothballsWallet wrote: »

I think it's time that door-to-door sales were banned completely as it's obvious that the companies who hire the salespeople go on about "ethical procedures" and "all staff are told about our rules when they start", yet there's no real evidence that I can see of there being any repercussions on staff who break the rules.

That's because the staff don't stay long a enough. By the time the complaints reach the right people the salesman has realised he will never make money from this and left.

zzzLazyDaisy

I had a similar experience with a chap from N Power last year. He called late at night (about 9pm and it was dark). He demanded to see my bills, and when I refused he got more and more pushy. Eventually I shut the door on him, and left him shouting through the door 'don't you want to save money, then?'