Exhaust etc.

[shermarama]

So last week my exhaust fell off, and I got an RAC man out to deal with the immediate problem, and then a few days later had a new one stuck on by Kwikfit. Today I have been called by both RAC and Kwikfit, ostensibly to enquire about the service I received but actually to give me hard sell; RAC to try and get me to upgrade to a more expensive plan and Kwikfit to tell me about their car insurance. I got quite short with both of them, and asked Kwikfit to take my number off their system and never call me again. I wasn't aware that I'd given permission for call centre sales harassment when I gave my local garage my number so they could tell me when the car was ready.

I'm seriously going to avoid using Kwikfit again on this basis. I don't get how companies don't realise that this sort of rubbish puts people off. Both of them were effectively calling to tell me I'm an idiot; that the breakdown cover and car insurance I've bought *wasn't* a researched choice of the best balance between cover and price, that when I decided I didn't need home cover that was clearly me just being stupid, that if only I let them know when my car insurance is due, they'll be able to quote me a price which clearly, me being so stupid, I won't be able to find elsewhere. I don't get it. I don't get it like I don't get chuggers; I automatically don't want to donate money to a charity who will waste the money I donate to them on paying people to harass people in the street. Just, really, why?

Comments

[giro-playgirl.livejournal.com]

I worked as a Chugger back in the Summer of 2003 when I was so poor I was living off tins of 15p chopped tomatoes and stale bagles.
They all earn in the region of £10 per hour minimum (you get more if you hit a weekly target), although some of your wages go towards paying for your Hi Viz tabard and piss poor training.
Basically, it's a nasty business which doesn't do nearly as much good work as it would like to think it does. Hence why I now go out of my way to avoid each and every charity which utilises it as a way of making money.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I've always found it inexplicable but I assume it must work somewhere along the line or companies would stop doing it? Maybe you and I are not their target demographic?

Sadly, I think the scale of personal debt in this country demonstrates that a significant number of people *have* been won over by the hard-sell for products and financial services they don't need.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

i too hate chuggers. they make me angry when i was having a perfectly pleasant walk down the street.
however, i've recently responded to a couple of phone calls from charities i've donated to previously, in one case to increase a regular donation, in the other to start a regular donation. it kinda works in a "you may have vaguely been thinking about it but make a decision now please" way, and generally you can just tell them to go away, or listen politely for a few minutes then say no. they aren't too pushy. i'm not sure what the difference is but they don't leave me with rage. perhaps it's the way they open with "do you have time to talk about this now?"

[vardebedian.livejournal.com]

I wrote to Amnesty International a couple of years ago to say "hello, I used to give you fifty quid a month. Today one of your chuggers pestered me in the street so I won't be any more. Work out how many people have made the same decision but not bothered writing to tell you, and just stop, please". I got a reply that basically said fuck you we're going to keep doing it. And because I know how businesses work these things out (it's easy to measure the upside from chuggers cos it's a number of pounds you can see, it's hard to measure the downside of people put off by chuggers cos it's donations that disappear mostly without explanation and how do you really isolate or quantify that?) I can see how they decided it, and how hard it would be to get to the opposite decision via evidence (not that I couldn't put a piece of research together that would tell them, but it'd cost them best part of fifty grand) but still. Just because getting to the optimal decision is hard, it's not exactly great policy to just do the easy thing instead.