Door to door Utilities salesmen

masonic

broxis11 wrote:

Research by the OFT reckon that doorstep selling is worth £1.2bn to the industry every year.

I'm not really sure how to put that figure into context. For example, what's the industry's annual turnover? (edit: from the figures I've just looked up, doorstep selling would account for about 5% of the market, and given that 4 million people switched supplier last year, say 20% of households(?), it would certainly appear that the majority switched by other means).

I have 8 years experience with 2 major suppliers and this channel was the most successful by far with them.

Again, I don't really understand what that statement means. Are you saying more people switched to them from doorstep sellers than did so via comparison sites? Because one possible explanation for that would be that they were not the cheapest.

I really don't know where doorstep selling fits in here, hence my question, but I really wouldn't have thought the majority of people who switch energy suppliers do so through doorstep callers; maybe in the past when switching was difficult, but not now.

broxis11

Again, speaking from my own experience working across Scotland, whenever I speak to somebody who has changed supplier, I would say that maybe 8 out of 10 customers who have changed company have made that decision after being contacted by a sales agent.

It would suprise you how rarely someone mentions that they would deal with it themselves online.

Biggles

masonic wrote:

The problem is, from bitter experience, I know that is not the case. You simply cannot end a conversation politely with some of these people: you have to close the door on them or wait until they have exhausted their entire salespitch at a great cost of time. I always try the "Sorry, not interested" line first, but few take that as a signal to stop, so I end up rather rudely closing the door on them mid-sentence. Is that bad manners on my part, or theirs?

I fail to see the problem here. Salesmen (of whatever product) are immediately obvious, all you say is, "No thanks" (no explanation is required, it's your house, after all) and gently but firmly close the door.

Why is this difficult?

broxis11

Ken68 wrote:

Be careful also of marks they leave on your property,signs to the next rep. that say you are rich, friendly, gullible, whatever.
This was and still probably is an old travelling folk custom.

I missed this earlier


What sort of `mark` could someone leave?

masonic

Biggles wrote:

I fail to see the problem here. Salesmen (of whatever product) are immediately obvious, all you say is, "No thanks" (no explanation is required, it's your house, after all) and gently but firmly close the door.

Why is this difficult?

It isn't and that's exactly what I do. However, it has been suggested above that people should listen to what they have to say first out of politeness, and I disagree.

ben500

broxis11 wrote:

The majority of people choosing to change supplier use the doorstep channel. The sales agents encourage people to think about changes in the market and not to become complacent which many people have throughout rising prices etc.

Since 2003 there has been a 90% decrease in complaints from direct selling and more than half the population have changed supplier.

Providing the agent is doing their job properly, encouraging people to think about saving money is fine by me.

Fair enough if you do not wish to engage in a conversation but again, manners cost nothing.

The majority of fraudulent supplier transfers are also committed at the door by the way.

As for doing the job properly anybody who leads with the line "I'm not trying to sell you anything" is inviting the door to be slammed in their face.

To anyone out there deciding to engage in idle chat with these predators think before you allow them to see a utility bill or look at your meter, the only reason for them to do this is to gain your mpr number in order to make a switch of supplier without your knowledge, this practice is rife and many thousands of people have found themselves being supplied by a total different supplier shortly after such a visit.

ben500

broxis11 wrote:

I missed this earlier


What sort of `mark` could someone leave?

Quite often a small coloured chalk mark for instance an arrow at the end of your path would indicate to the next that you are worth a knock, a certain double glazing company used to use "sos" to indicate believe it or not that the occupant was "soft as !!!!!!" and up for a punt.

broxis11

ben500 wrote:

The majority of fraudulent supplier transfers are also committed at the door by the way.

As for doing the job properly anybody who leads with the line "I'm not trying to sell you anything" is inviting the door to be slammed in their face.

To anyone out there deciding to engage in idle chat with these predators think before you allow them to see a utility bill or look at your meter, the only reason for them to do this is to gain your mpr number in order to make a switch of supplier without your knowledge, this practice is rife and many thousands of people have found themselves being supplied by a total different supplier shortly after such a visit.

BG have ran a trial that instead of using simply a signed contract, the agent explains everything to the customer and if they are happy with everything and are happy to transfer the agent writes down all of the details and phones them through to the office.

The office then call the customer back straight away and go through about a 5 minute verification call making sure that the customer is fully aware they have committed to a contract and that they understand everything.

The only thing they sign is the confirmation sheet, confirming they understand details like the 7 day cancellation period.

This is a much better system and should have been implemented long ago to protect the people who do the job properly. A lot of good agents get a bad name from the `cowboys`.

rio

Tell them that you rent the property and that obviously you can't agree to anything - that normally gets rid of them whether the renting bit is a lie or not.

ben500

broxis11 wrote:

BG have ran a trial that instead of using simply a signed contract, the agent explains everything to the customer and if they are happy with everything and are happy to transfer the agent writes down all of the details and phones them through to the office.

The office then call the customer back straight away and go through about a 5 minute verification call making sure that the customer is fully aware they have committed to a contract and that they understand everything.

The only thing they sign is the confirmation sheet, confirming they understand details like the 7 day cancellation period.

This is a much better system and should have been implemented long ago to protect the people who do the job properly. A lot of good agents get a bad name from the `cowboys`.

It's about time seeing as BG was one of the biggest offenders, they had a whole department dealing with inbound complaints and the team were targeted on conversions ie it was their role to convince the caller it was a good thing for them and not switch back to their original suppliers, salesmen were regularly identified as being the authors of rogue/fraudulent contracts but no action taken against them, some of their commissions ran to thousands of pounds per WEEK as a result.