Wlauzon - 11:09 pm on Jan 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

I plucked this snippet from another thread here about handling bad customers, but I think it goes far beyond that.

.. just saying that inaction (99.99% of the time) is absolutely the wrong solution...

We are a small company, only a dozen people or so. But we buy over $8,000,000 a year from various vendors, distributors, etc. Many of those are competing with each other selling the same or similar products.

The #1 reason why we buy from one vendor vs another one is ... INACTION...

Failure to respond to emails, or to return calls, or far too often - failure to do anything at all to even let us know that they got our message or call or whatever.

And recalling my own buying habits - whether online or in a "real" store, I do the same thing.

We have found that quite often responding to an email - even if the original sender is asking about something you don't have a clue about - will generate sales. In short, telling them you don't carry that item is better than no response at all.