No I don't want to ring you, that's why I emailed

[Misty8]

Anyone else find it annoying when a company provides their email address in the 'contact us' section, but when you email them for information they write back and say " if you could please call us on this number we can discuss". But if I wanted to call you, I would have

Some examples:
When planning my wedding I sent a few very basic questions to multiple suppliers, just to compare & help decide- ie what's the cost, are you available on this date, do you travel to this venue?

Or when I was looking for a gym in the area I sent off mails to all the gyms just asking how much for annual/monthly membership, any off peak deals?

Or researching creches/montessoris and asking how much per child, do you have spaces, what hours is the creche open?

AIBU to think they should just write back with the answers?

Well in that case the business is welcome not to have OP as a client. So I guess she's not demanding they engage with her either. She's saying "if you're interested in my custom, reply to me by e-mail".

There's no coercion there either. The business is welcome to turn away custom.

pengggwn that's fine, no offence taken and each to their own. I just think they must lose a huge amount of business by not taking 2 minutes to provide some initial basic information

LannieDuck

That's not quite what she's saying. She is saying it irritates her and she thinks they are being unreasonable, when, actually, it is a perfectly rational business decision.

Misty8

Maybe. Or maybe they used to waste a huge amount of time doing that, and now they want to ascertain the seriousness of the prospect before absorbing the cost of having someone answer questions in writing.

There's also the fact that some peoples written English is excellent, but their spoken English is ... well less so.

And that goes for employees as well as customers.

I have to pull one of our customer support team on this all the time.

He's always going "oh I'll just quickly call them". Just fucking don't. Our phone number is right next to the email, if they wanted to talk, they'd have used it.

If I see an e-mail address on a company website, I assume they're willing to communicate by e-mail. What's the point of giving out the address if you don't want people to use it?

MissLingoss

Could be that there is a statutory obligation to provide it. Could be that they are happy to engage with certain issues via email but not others (like quotes). A reason for this might be that they want a more elastic pricing strategy, so the last thing they want is to be sending out thousands of emails saying X costs Y, because, next week, they may want to charge Z.

On a slight tangent...grrrr at people (and not just businesses or services) who assume that because you have contacted them through email/text/messenger/whatever, it's suddenly okay to call you straight away.

I am autistic and LOATHE speaking on the phone with a passion - I do it at work because I have to, so I certainly don't want to it in my personal time (fortunately I have an internal-facing role at work and we use Skype for Business for video-calling, which suits me down to the ground - life is a lot easier if I can see the other person's expression).

However, I have a very dear friend, who I've known for squillions of years and who knows my deep disdain for phone calls, who STILL insists on calling me if I've responded to a text or whatever. Then, if I don't answer, she messages and says she's trying to call! JUST TELL ME VIA MESSENGER!

She is lovely, but a bit scatty.

Gyms are the worst! I have never successfully found any information re: prices and memberships either by phone/web/email, apart from council-run gyms. I have seen adverts saying things like “off peak membership from £19” but no further information on what/when off peak is or what “from £19” means: £19?, £20?, £400? Always want you to “call in for a chat”. Well no, you might be a good few miles from me and you can tell me over the phone the different membership tariffs and what they include, if I like the sound of it I’ll pop in for a look round, if I like what I see then I’ll sign up. If I could only realistically use a peak membership and that was £1000 a year, I’ll just say “no thanks” on the phone.

Yes this happens to me too and I hate it. I emailed an orthodontist to enquire about Invisalign and asked three specific questions. They replied with “give us a call and we’ll talk you through it.”

No, thank you. I did not call them.

My friend is deaf and despite it saying on paperwork (utilities, furniture deliveries, repairs etc) that he is deaf and he can only be contacted by email or text, people still ring his mobile. I have had to phone companies on numerous occasions on his behalf, to be told that yes, it did say to contact by text, but they thought it would be quicker to give him a call - bloody numpties

I am sure there are a ton of timewasters around and asking people to call cuts down on that.

However, if a company doesn't have the time and courtesy to respond to a specific question
Do you have places available?
Is 17th July 2019 available?
How much is a membership?
Then they do not have the time to provide me with the service I require.

I'm pretty much never available in conventional office hours. I'm not going to chase a company to spend my money with them.

i just email back saying I am in an open plan office and cannot phone. Simples..

WindDoesNotBreakTheBendyTree

Plus, I reckon people are braver over email and will also waste a lot of time entering into negotiations, like sending one company the information received from another and saying, "Make me a better offer" etc.

People aren't trying to be dickheads when they want to talk over the phone. They're just protecting their businesses.

Gyms are the worst! I have never successfully found any information re: prices and memberships either by phone/web/email, apart from council-run gyms

Yeah gyms are horrendous for this. Not only do you get the hard sell on the phone, they often won’t just tell you simple info. My local gym wouldn’t tell me whether off-peak lasted until 4 or 5pm, without me going in for a chat with one of the trainers, let alone the prices.

I ended up going with one of those budget gyms that are £15 a month for everyone because they had no joining fee, one cost which was clearly displayed on the site, and you could sign up online! Not the nicest of gyms but so much easier.

I emailed my gym today asking how much notice I have to give for cancellation because I am having a baby in October, not because I am giving up/have an issue with the gym. I didn’t even put my number on the enquiry form, but they must have got my number off the database and called me! I didn’t answer and they didn’t leave a message, so I am none the wiser.

I work in a contact centre and all of our clients with an email team request that their agents call the customer upon receipt of an email rather than just respond to the email. If you can't get through unless it's a quick win enquiry you have to send a blanket 'we tried to call, couldn't reach you, please call on 0000000 to discuss further'.

It makes me mad! I deal in email because talking on the phone when either with a loud preschooler, exhausted after a long day or at work is near impossible. I don't have the time in the day to make or take those phone calls.

Could be that there is a statutory obligation to provide it. Could be that they are happy to engage with certain issues via email but not others (like quotes).

Then they should at least have some standard replies to send out to e-mail enquirers, instead of leaving people feeling ignored.

There must be many people who can't take phone calls at work. I can't, so anyone trying to contact me by phone during normal business hours will mostly be unucky.

Or they ring and leave a mesage, so I ring back when I can, only to be told that person isn't available right now and will ring me back, and either they never do, or they ring when I can't take the call, and so on, ad infinitum.

I can, however, read and reply to e-mails when it's convenient for me.

YANBU. I've worked in complaints for years and I've had this argument many times.
Luckily I'm in a role now where I get to resolve most things as I see fit but occasionally someone will say "Can you call this customer who's emailed/posted on Twitter/Trustpilot/etc" and I'll think FFS, why? If they wanted to call, they would have!

Baring in mind, the company that I work for sells pretty expensive products, so most people that can afford them are busy between 9-5 anyway!

I have a hearing impairment - I can talk on the phone but I don’t like to and never have. I now type “do not call me” in the comments when it forces me to give a number and also write that i have a hearing impairment. It’s made life easier- would reccomend 😂

I’m deaf and I hate this. Even worse are places like my hairdresser where you can ‘book’ online but you then have to phone to confirm.

I like Puregym because the price structure is transparent. Ditto our local council ran leisure centre gym. Phone calls are better is something is complex as quicker to sort things out than to and fro typing

MissLingoss

There is no "should" about it. They are free to conduct their business in the way that works best for them, within the law. You are free to use or decline to use their services.

I get equally as annoyed when I text someone and they call me instead of just texting back.

I hate phonecalls.