One of our products is C It Now. In order to work we need a consumer camcorder to stream live video. To date we've been making do with high street retailers but we need to change that.
So we decided to contact Sony, JVC and National Panasonic.
This exercise started by visiting their web sites to find a contact number. Sony and JVC both offerred these which turned out to be call centres. Neither knew how to answer a trade enquiry (I can't believe they don't get these) but in Sony's case they gave me the switchboard number at H/O, which I knew, JVC gave me a fax number and NP had nothing. After some searching I managed to find switchboard numbers for all three.
And then it got better and worse. Sony and JVC rose to the challenge. Sony switchboard, congratulations. I was put through to product marketing and was able to leave a voicemail request and send an email. JVC were equally helpful although I had to go through their professional business to find the right consumer contact.
When phoning the NP switchboard I was simply told that marketing do not accept phonecalls and I would have to write in. Enough said.
We will continue talking with Sony and JVC.
I guess these companies are typical of what happens today. Barriers are deliberately in place to protect the marketers from individual consumers; talking to punters would be deemed time consuming and inefficient. But I can't help but feel that they're all missing an opportunity.
The call centre phone numbers should be prominent all over their web sites - please phone us we want to help, not deliberately almost begrudgingly placed in a quiet corner. I suspect they don't do this because they worry about the volume of calls that would be generated?
There are a few points here:
a) Given the current climate, they should welcome the volume
b) The reason people are calling is because non technical consumers cannot make a buying decision based on a massive 'features fest'.
c) Well trained call centre staff could effect buying decisions far better than their high street resellers, especially if they had the right tools.