"There are industries and products where it's possible to get away with telephone sales, but not support. But, it's not the business I'm in, and it's probably not the business most of the folks here are in."
I think it's a matter of how you set expectations around the number and whether you have a PBX. I ran a web dev / hosting company.
Contact page read: "To keep our prices low, we currently only offer support via email unless you have a dedicated server with a support contract." Or something to that effect.
Phone maze said: "For sales, press 1" (that went to a person, when we wanted to be available). For Support, press 2" (that went to a message that said "To keep our prices low, we don't offer telephone support. Head over to www..."
If someone circumvented it and got us on the line somehow, we'd say it verbally.
You're right, it probably pissed off the people who read the clear verbiage around the phone number on the site and chose to ignore it... But I was happy to live with that. And the phone number landed me plenty of high profit customers that I was glad to have.
Of course, this only makes sense if you have SOME premium offering and a generous margin. Most real businesses WANT to talk to a salesperson rather than buy online.
If we didn't have dedicated server hosting (thousands per year in revenue), that number never woulda seen the light of day. ;-)
I think it's a matter of how you set expectations around the number and whether you have a PBX. I ran a web dev / hosting company.
Contact page read: "To keep our prices low, we currently only offer support via email unless you have a dedicated server with a support contract." Or something to that effect.
Phone maze said: "For sales, press 1" (that went to a person, when we wanted to be available). For Support, press 2" (that went to a message that said "To keep our prices low, we don't offer telephone support. Head over to www..."
If someone circumvented it and got us on the line somehow, we'd say it verbally.
You're right, it probably pissed off the people who read the clear verbiage around the phone number on the site and chose to ignore it... But I was happy to live with that. And the phone number landed me plenty of high profit customers that I was glad to have.
Of course, this only makes sense if you have SOME premium offering and a generous margin. Most real businesses WANT to talk to a salesperson rather than buy online.
If we didn't have dedicated server hosting (thousands per year in revenue), that number never woulda seen the light of day. ;-)