Beautifully said!!

+1 I couldn't disagree more! And I find it very judgemental to have one convo or receive one email from someone and determine that they aren't worth your time. When someone is coming to you for a quote, you give it to them, period. That is your one opportunity to get their business. If you come in a little higher than they wanted, but if they are comfortable with you and if you have provided great service, they will probably go with you.

I worked selling window treatments for many years. People would come in talking about they have 5K for their house and they wanted a product I knew would cost 10k. Never, in my wildest dreams would I tell them, I can see you dont have enough so Im not even going waste my time on a quote. I would still work up the quote, then either sell them up or work with them to find something they loved to fit their budget. When they would get other, less expensive quotes, I would explain the difference in products and services. Again, when a customer is in front of you, its your chance for you to make them your customer.

Sometimes people may not have the funds to complete the project right then and there but that doesn't mean they never will. How do you know how much you need if you have no idea how much its going to cost? Yes, endless quotes are annoying BUT they are part of the job!

It wasn't personal or judgmental (how could it be when they don't know you or anything about you?) so I just don't see the point in taking it so. The lack of an initial quote bothered you and you let them know and having neither a quote nor a satisfactory apology you will now never work with them. I don't see any winners here. You could have just as easily let it go or e-mailed back that you understand they may not be the cheapest but you are considering other factors and would appreciate a quote. Chances are they would have obliged. They could have tried harder from the start but they didn't, but that doesn't make it personal. You'll have no trouble getting someone else to make the ring so what's to be upset about? Some things aren't meant to be....so it is with you and this particular vendor.

Customer service is more art than science and there is no way to get it right 100% of the time. What pisses off one customer is no bother to another. I hate to think anyone would be so personally offended at my tone when it isn't meant as they are taking it. I'm not all touchy feely so I know that puts some people off even if I mean well. I can't do anything about that...if they want to spend their time being upset about it so be it. I guess it's good I don't work in customer service, lol.

And I didn't get the idea that NatalieStar was talking about door to door sales but a business where they have to go to the customer's home to give a quote. Be it siding, windows, gutters, flooring, paint or blinds/draperies...all of those sorts of things require the vendor to visit the customer and not just do quotes over the phone/internet. That's even more of an investment for the business upfront...and then have people try to play the vendors off each other...I can see why they wouldn't want to invest the time giving 'free quotes' (they are only free to the potential customer but it costs the business real money!!) just to play around!

When someone goes to someone's house to sell something isn't that door to door? ANyway, sorry if my terminology was wrong. I still had a point though

And I don't think she took it personally per say... just that the sheer lack of customer service that she expected from the vendor was not met, and that bothered her.

And frankly...branding all customers who ask for a quote as time wasters? No one, not even the best sales person has a crystal ball to see if someone if just asking for a quote and has no intentions of following up, or just asking for a quote and then giving you business.

It's amazing right? I want that ring so much!! Its a Bvlgari ring and probably wayyyyyyyy out of my price range, so I'm not gonna waste their time for a quote

No but seriously, it's on my project list now. Repro will be made!!!

Door to door is selling just that...knock on a door and pitch your product or service, unsolicited. Move on to the next house and the next and the next.
When I call 3 hard wood floor companies to come and see my floors to give me a quote on refinishing they may come to my house but they are not door to door.

In the end I guess I will be wasting the time of two of the vendors as I will only choose one. I may call 10 on the phone first and get as far as I can, then choose 3 to actually come and quote the work. Hopefully one of them will work out. I am not at all offended if someone does not want the business for some reason. I have been told for other sorts of jobs something similar to what OP heard from the jeweler...that the charge for X service will be much more than most other providers (for whatever reason). Not that they won't do the work, but just a heads up. I'm always glad for the information and don't feel judged or upset by it. I just move on to the next option. But again, that's me...I'm not that sensitive of a person to begin with.

Interesting to hear such varied opinions on what customer service means to people!

To me, it means putting the potential customer second to none (no exceptions), to others it seems to mean making the potential customer feel valued only if you've deemed them worthy.

Who said anything about being worthy? Not every customer/job is a good fit for every vendor...and the same is true the other way around. It isn't personal.

OP - I hope you don’t take any of what I am saying personally or as directed at you because it isn’t, now I am just debating on the internet :P and after your clarification I do understand your point of view.

Anyhow "Worthy" doesn’t come into it at all, that is taking a potential business transaction unnecessarily personally. Think about these things, don’t feel about them. If from initial conversations someone does not qualify as a potential lead, it makes no sense to waste your time quoting and pursuing them.

Everyone is worthy of a quote yes, if the business has unlimited funds to pay their sales and admin Staff so that they have an army of sales and admin staff at each member of the public’s beck and call. Unfortunately in most small businesses I have worked with at least that is not the case.

Also I am not branding all customers who ask for a quote "time wasters". That would be completely silly and I have not said anything at all like that.

I am talking about customers who don't give a damn about quality, service, speed of delivery, workmanship, warranty or materials only caring about price, and then contacting every vendor they can think of to get a quote so they can pick the cheapest one, or worse, take the cheapest one and put pressure on the vendors with the best quality, service, speed of delivery, workmanship, warranty and materials to lower their price to match someone with shitehouse quality, service, speed of delivery, workmanship, warranty and materials but the cheapest price.

They have the potential to waste lots of time and cost businesses money in an already difficult market.

I can see some people are getting offended at the words "Time Waster" but that’s what you are doing, wasting someone’s time because you want a quote from every vendor in the market to play them against each other. You don’t need a crystal ball, you just need to ask some qualifying questions and base your actions on what the person asking for the quote tells you.

I also do commercial quotes often at work at my PC, and they can sometimes take in excess of 2 hours, especially if you need to get other suppliers involved for bits and pieces. Would you like to pay someone for 2 hours (say $60 if you include superannuation and insurance) to quote something that you KNOW will never become a sale, to make the person asking for the quote feel warm and fuzzy?

If someone tells me that they have got several quotes and are looking for the cheapest option then I would say to them "Well we have the industries best warranty and our product is the strongest and best performing on the market, but we are not the cheapest, so good luck in your search".

Even if they told me that they have several quotes and not mention anything further I would ask more questions to establish the reasoning for collecting quotes before I went any further with offering them a quote.

We will not even hand out the contact details of more than one dealer at a time to homeowners when they call and ask, we don’t want our dealers to have to compete against each other.

Also, just to clear it up, our dealers are not door to door sales people, they are tradesmen who work for themselves, and supply and install custom fit products for people’s homes.

It’s not much different to a jeweller who is custom making a ring for your hand, and I am sure a similar amount of work goes into the quoting process.

The dealers who do the best are the ones who work on referral business only, because most referral customers do not find it necessary to contact every dealer in Brisbane for a quote and then pit dealers against each other.

I don't know. If someone was making assumptions about my ability to pay for their services or product and didn't want to give me a quote because they thought I was a waste of time based on those assumptions, well, not for sure, but I most likely would think that they aren't worthy of my business. Ever.

I have no clue who lucky b is talking about, but I would *guess* that person's only job is to give quotes. I could be wrong!

This has been a nice discussion!