Had to get new tires on the truck a few days back so got online and checked some prices. A couple of National vendors with fairly local (60-mile round trip) stores had easy access to their tires, sizes and prices and out the door pricing.
I thought I would check out the locals first and of the three tire stores, only one had a website. It looked pretty cool and had a selection system of drop down boxes for Make, Model etc for "Get a Price."
I clicked all the appropriate things and was taken to a page where they wanted me to fill in about 20 things, Address, phone etc and then this would be emailed off and I could expect a price within 48-hours. HUH! AArrrgggghhhh.
Plan B: Drive into town and ask. In a fit of pique, I decided not to go to the one with the crappy website. So, at the first place, "sorry boss is out, can you come back tomorrow." OK, so I live 20 miles out of town, probably not going to make a special trip in. Second store was $100 higher than the National guys including the cost of 4-gallons of gas for the 60-mile round trip.
In exasperation I went to the one with the website and their price was good and the tires are on. After they had fitted them I spoke to the Owner and said "your website sucks." He said, "yeah, I am not happy with it, all I want is a page with the phone number."
DUH! I said, "people are not going to get on the web and go through the tire size process just to then get a phone number page. You need to check your web stats for how many people leave that email-page as I did. They are customers you will probably never see." Over 50% of Americans are using the web for their purchases.
I said you are competing with the National guys with very slick websites and yours is almost there. He thought for a moment and said, "yeah I gotta get them to put a phone number on that email page." {sigh}
Some people will never understand why there are no Dinosaurs left.
Hi Pinkerton!
Very nice "story"!
I hate the websites that send the price by mail!
Have a good week end
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