Why do so many organizations and individuals who have an online presence make it so difficult to contact them?
I don’t try to hide. Just the opposite. I want people to be able to contact me. It’s simply good business. That’s why my blog “my 2 cents” is clearly marked with my contact information. It’s all right there on the page. You don’t have to click anything to find out how to reach me. If it means I may get an unsolicited call from someone looking to sell me life insurance or stockbroker services, that’s the chance I’ll take. It could also be a call from a prospective client.
I’ve always wondered why some bloggers and plenty of company websites don’t offer a clue as to how to call them or write to them by snail mail. It makes me wonder if they’re operating from home, and they’re trying to hide that fact. Or maybe they’re located in a small town or small city rather than a hub of business—and they’re trying to project a “big” image.
I don’t know why, but I’ve often wondered.
And then this week, some of my colleagues and I ran into a stone wall called Google. We’ve been trying to contact someone there on behalf of a client to see about running a promotion on its photo-sharing site. We understand there might be a fee to do so, and we’ve been trying to find out how much it is and make arrangements to pay it.
I responded to the spot on the site where it invites you to ask about “commercial partnerships.” That was more than a week ago, and I haven’t heard a peep in response. The next logical step would be to call the company.
Have you ever tried to get information on who to contact at Google? For a company that is all about sharing information, Google is one of the most secretive or closed companies I’ve ever seen. Its website has no phone numbers and no hints of whom to contact for various purposes or how to reach them. I tried the PR department. Left messages and no response. Maybe I should have lied and said I was calling from PC Magazine or The Wall Street Journal. Or maybe even that sneaky tactic wouldn’t have prompted a response.
We had similar experiences when we tried to contact Yahoo.
Someone suggested that, since these are companies who give away much of their service free, they tend to give priority attention to the smaller group of people who pay for premium services or those who are advertisers. But here’s a situation where I want to become a paying premium service user, and I can’t speak to or hear back from anyone so I can begin to pay them.
So my plea to businesses and bloggers alike is: Please don’t hide. Unless you’re doing something illegal, why put up a wall so it’s difficult for people to find you? It’s kind of ironic and a bit antisocial in this “age of conversation” or “age of connectivity” for companies to deny input, feedback or legitimate business queries.
Tags: customer service
I agree. Even a company as big as Google shouldn’t be hard to contact. It’s all about customer service, after all, even if many customers aren’t paying customers. They are still eyeballs that Google counts when it sells ads.
David, you pose a question in your post… “Why?”. I have an answer… It’s because they either don’t care or they don’t know.
They Don’t Care – Companies who hide their contact information don’t care about people contacting them. They’ve got so much money and so much business that customer service and allowing their prospects to call them takes a back seat, and it doesn’t bother them a bit. I’m sure there are people inside the company who want to let customers contact them… But the people who make the decisions don’t care because their pockets are full and they’re more worried about keeping shareholders happy, rather than customers.
They Don’t Know – Unfortunately, I think this is where most companies are. They either are oblivious to the fact that their customers want and need to speak to someone and receive fast answers, or they’re oblivious to just how big of an opportunity they’re missing out on. It seems like some of the greatest (arguable) companies in the world don’t understand the basic principles of customer service, or their not willing to make the investment in maintaining those principles.
I’ve heard the excuses; resourcing, costs, time. But if a company truly knew the power of creating personal connections with their prospects and customers they would hire the people, spend the money, and make the time.
Zack, you are probably right in your assessment that some of these companies are so big that they just don’t care about enabling people to contact them. But Shelly raises a good point too — for businesses like Google and Yahoo, where it’s about eyeballs, you would think they would want to encourage input from people, whether paying customers or not.
David, I agree wholeheartedly and I’ve blogged about this, too. Frustrating, isn’t it? I found this for you:
Our headquarters are located in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone: +1 650-253-0000
Fax: +1 650-253-0001
Thanks Elaine. I was able to find their address and main phone #, but try finding the name of someone in a department, like PR. Without a specific name, you can’t get anywhere.
A simple Google search of “Google Office US” will give you a complete list of Office locations around the world and contact numbers for each office. I am sure that at least one office will be able to help you.
Yes, Geremy, one would think that would be the case. But when I finally did get through, I got a voicemail and have not heard a word from anyone there. It’s been two weeks today.
One other reason that I’ve heard expressed by clients is the desire to protect individual workers privacy and not open team members up to being tracked down on their personal social profiles. Obviously a challenging situation when the company also wants to be (or at least appear to be) open and engage with their consumers.
In mid February, I was asked by the National Kidney Registry, where I do volunteer marketing, to contact Google regarding an award that they wished to present to them. It seems that because of $50,000 donation by Google of “Adwords” numerous people were able to receive kidney transplants resulting in approximately 50 lives being saved. A letter went out February 16 for a May 1 Awards presentation at the American Transplant Congress meeting in San Diego. Governor Schwarzenegger had accepted to be our keynote speaker. Over 5,000 organ transplant professionals attend that meeting. We received no response to the letter. Numerous phone calls ended up in a general mailbox as did emails.
After finally reaching someone at Google, he was very apologetic and delighted to receive the award. Google has substantially increased their “Adwords” donation and is working close with the National Kidney Registry to create language that will help direct people in need of kidneys or those who wish to donate a kidney to our website, http://www.kidneyregistry.org