Well folks it is indeed October already and cooler weather is making it's first appearance. The mornings have been decidedly cold around here and that has set Mike and I to thinking about the long heating season we have coming up. Currently we heat our older home with an oil furnace. The cost of operating this furnace for the last couple of years has really been more than we can afford. For those of you who have ever visited us in the winter you know we don't even keep our house that warm. So basically we're going broke every winter just to keep cold. We have discussed in previous years of having a new natural gas furnace installed, but it always seems like something else has come up and the money just wasn't there. This year, no matter what, we decided had to be the year. The cost of fuel is just spiralling out of control and with me leaving work in the not too distant furture.... well it just makes sense to start cutting corners where we can. So while the out put for a new furnace will be high, it will certainly save us in the long run.
We have a heating/cooling guy. A friend of Mike's Dad. He's done all the heating and cooling work in our house for us so far. For some reason Mike felt it would be a good idea to get a quote from our gas supplier and see about putting the payments on our gas bill. So Mike made the appointment for a consultation. One thing about Mike, he doesn't make major decisions quickly. Even when he knows what he wants he needs to mull it over, discuss it, worry about it before he finally makes his decision. I'm sure if you asked him, he'd be happy to tell you that I've pushed him to make many a decision before he thought he was ready. Most recently the van we purchased. We both loved it, his dad had been with us to check the whole thing over, the dealership was willing to fix the defects we had found on it and it was in our price range. There's Mike saying I'll come back here 20 more times if I have to until I've decided. Did I mention this lot was like a 30 minute drive from our house and this wasn't our first trip out there? I finally put my foot down and made him decide. We purchased the van at 8:15 and the lot closed at 8:00. He's been very happy with the purcahse ever since.
But now I've gotten off track, so the guy shows up for our consultation and Mike tells him as soon as he walks in the door, I'm not buying anything tonight. I don't like high pressure sales tactics, I'm just interested in the quote. So off they go to check out our current furnace and then the three of us sit down to discuss what we'll be looking at for a new furnace. He shows us two models one a name brand with a high sticker cost and the gas company's brand with a cost that's $2000 less than the name brand. Then he starts with his sales pitch.What do I have to do to make you purchase tonight he asks? Mikes tells him nothing we won't be purchasing tonight, but give us what the cost will be if we buy outright and what the payments will be if we go financing. What's the interest rate by the way? Oh a very reasonable 18% he tells us. Reasonable? Oh yes that's a much better rate than you'd get at most places such as Sears, they're 28%. That's a great comparison. Why not compare it to a line of credit that most people these days have. Ours right now sits at 6%. Doesn't seem so reasonable to me.
Well if you sign tonight I can give you a 5% discount or you can defer the payments for a year. Mike tells him that we'd just have to eat that 5% discount because we aren't making a decision tonight. Well why not? Mike says he needs to discuss it with another party. Mike likes to run most things by his Dad and get his take on the situation. Well that's why we tell you to have everybody involved in the decision making process here for the consultation. Well no mention of that was made to us when Mike booked to apointment. Can you call the other party, he wants to know. Nope. So now he doesn't understand what the hold up is. They're a great company, represent 40% of the market and their customer service is great. Mike tells him frankly the price he just quoted us was more than we were anticipating. Well you can get cheaper, but you'll get what you pay for he warns. Now he offers us the 5% discount and deferring the payments for a year. I'm not even sure I'm allowed to do that, he says, but until somebody tells me no.... That was just to let us know what a huge favour he's doing for us. At this point I could tell he was beginning to wear Mike down because Mike looked over to me and asked what I thought. You know we can't do this tonight I reminded him.
I could tell the guy was getting more than a little annoyed with us and he started to go a little harder at the net. Telling us no deals would be available if we decided to buy tomorrow. That his office was half an hour away and he didn't want to have to come back for our cheque. Mike offered to bring it to him if we decided to buy, oh no you couldn't do that I'm not in one place very long. Apparently "they do okay" and if we weren't buying tonight well they didn't really need our money anyway. See there's that excellent customer service he was talking about. He started going over the deals he could offer us again and I told him as firmly as possible that in no way was a deal going through tonight. Mike backed me up by indicating we'd come to the end of our meeting and he would be in touch with him tomorrow. That's when the backpedalling started and if we call to buy tomorrow he's not going to be a jerk (oops too late for that) and tell us no on the 5% or deferred payment deal. Well isn't that mighty nice of you.
I think that some sales people are really just bullies. Mike tried to be upfront with this guy from the second he walked in the door, there would be no purchase made that evening. This guy obviously took that to be a challenge. It truly was an offensive approach and I would actually go somewhere else and pay more than give him any of my business. As it is, we're going else where and paying less. Having the work done by a company that actually does have excellent customer service. I thought we should call the guy from the gas company back and let him know where he went wrong, but Mike's not into complaining even when it's justified. It's a hang up from his childhood, but that would be a whole other topic!
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