In our day and age of ubiquitous mobile phones, it is quite natural to be sold ‘exclusive’ offers by sales people over the phone. It seems convenient to be sold such offers but a lot more difficult to retrieve yourself from the mess created if the received product / service is not what was promised. One must think of the ‘total convenience’ that results from a sale made by phone. From my experience, here are some guidelines to be followed:
1. Do not take an offer on face value. The phone sales are made by giving some rosy pictures, and the expectation is that fine print may never be read by customer. Else how do you explain offers like 3 month EMI with 0 % interest, by the same financial companies which charge 2.95% finance charges on credit cards? There are always hidden conditions somewhere which will levy heavy penalties on delays and other circumstances.
2. Know your rights and conditions of offer. It is almost impossible to get to know the fine details of offer over the phone. In fact, the sales people will tend to revert to the tried and tested sales pitch rather than answer straight questions. So insist on some kind of trial period, return / refund for any product / service being offered. E.g. insurance products are being sold by telephone these days. For insurance policies, IRDA regulates that the customers have a free 15 days look through period from day they *receive* policy document. One must go through the received insurance policy and accept it only if the contents of policy are as per promised offer on phone.
3. Ask for written offer For some kind of sales offers, get the person to send you a written offer, by email or letter as per your convenience. In most of the ‘hustle’ sales, the sales person will never agree to sending you a written offer. Instead they will talk you down with the ‘exclusive’ nature of offer, and how you may not want to miss on this opportunity.
4. Check out the product or service offered. E.g. for a club membership, wouldn’t you like to visit the facilities and see it for yourselves. If you miss on due diligence due to lack of time etc, what may appear cheap may really turn out to be ‘cheap’ in the end.
5. Do not decide now! Even though that’s exactly what the sales person tells you. A very useful idea is to tell yourselves never to make an on the spot decision on the first call. Let the caller know that you have heard him/her, and will like to be called again at a certain date and time. By that time, you may have thought about it and probably discussed with others too.
6. Use phone for information, but make purchase decisions ‘offline’. Especially For higher end services /products, it is your right to let the sales team send a representative to your home/ office to explain the product. This way you save time by getting basic information on the phone, and able to screen lot of information without doing legwork. Personally I think this is one redeeming feature of tele sales which helps me keep track of the latest offerings.