How long is too long for a home visit by a sales person in the window and door industry? That was a subject that reared it’s head the other day on Twitter. It was a rather long thread, involving Brian Smith, a Director at the GGF, @DoubleGlazeHour (Garry) and myself. Well, in parts of it. A few others joined the mix as well as the thread went on.

So imagine the scenario. You’re a sales person and you have an appointment to see a home owner at their home for a full house of windows and doors. It’s a decent sized home. A three bed detached. Ten windows, two entrance doors and a pair of French doors. Here’s the question: how long should that visit take? One hour? Two hours? Three hours? Maybe even four hours?

This was the question posed to Brian Smith by Garry:

And this was the reply from Brian:

The rest of the thread is worth reading if you head over on to Twitter and scroll down the rest of the conversation. Brian clearly knew he was answering a difficult question and had to give that sort of reply to defend his defence of a four hour sit.

Pricing in the home

As the thread goes on, he explains that a four hour sit is justifiable if the sales person in the home is drawing up a contract in the home and trying to sign the customer up there and then. And that for me is a resounding indication of how disconnected organisations like the GGF and others are from a very large part of the market who does not believe in pricing or trying to sign up the customer in the home after a marathon sales process.

He explains that pricing in the home will never end as the Government would see it as a barrier to trade. That sounded a bit spokeman-like to me. Does also sound like pricing in the home and the accompanying high pressure tactics it comes with is being defended behind this stance. Not a high quality approach.

So as you can imagine, the conversation moved from the length of a home visit by a sales person to the ethics of pricing in the home and all that comes with. As many of you will know, I am not a fan of it at all. We don’t do it at our place, and have traded profitably and strongly for nearly 36 continuous years. So don’t tell me that by not pricing in the home and pushing the home owner on the sale there and then doesn’t work because it does.

Now, I do accept, not that I like it, that pricing in the home by a glazing rep, or rep from any other industry, will continue. There will always be glazing companies of a certain type who do that. There is however a very large portion of the industry who do things differently. Who don’t use the much despised hard-sell tactics that have helped to shape a negative view about our industry. It’s these companies that are in total and utter contrast to organisations like the GGF, who seem willing to hide behind various chunks of legislation so as to defend the position that four hour sits are OK.

It was suggested further down the aforementioned Twitter feed that pricing in the home would be OK so long as the sales person left it at that and didn’t then go down the hard-sell route. A nice sentiment. However, I think we can all honestly say that in almost all occasions that does not happen. I know from my own personal experience that it doesn’t happen. Week after week I speak to home owners who have had other reps in who have priced in the home and have then proceeded to drop that price from a great height. Said that it’s only available if they sign it now. Said they would ring their “manager” to get a better deal. Accused the home owner of wasting their time by not signing now. Dear Brian, if a four hour appointment involves any of this, and you think this is OK, then you or your organisation are severely out of touch from a much more educated, savvy general public who wish not to be subjected to these sales methods.

DGB Tech

Your opinions valued!

I don’t want to turn this into a rant about the hard-sell again. I’ve already got plans for a very outspoken attack on that in the New Year. However I do want to know what you all think. Should a home sales visit for an average sized house full of windows and doors take four or more hours? Personally I think not and I’ll already be voting No on my own poll. But please spend a second to vote on this before you go ahead and read something else. Here it is:

I think it’s very concerning that a Director of the GGF would justify a home visit of more than four hours. He knows as well as we all do what is happening in that home if it’s taking that long, and I can assure him and everyone else that it won’t be down to the fine tooth-combing of design and aesthetic details.

I will say this. It was nice to get some engagement and interactions from Brian, a top-level member of the GGF, on Twitter. Much gets discussed on the in our industry on there and the more it happens the better in my eyes. However the thread did only highlight to me what I, and perhaps many others thought.

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