I needed to call a construction equipment company. (Why is too complicated to get into; I just needed to). I had to speak with its marketing director. His name is Edgar.
Not having Edgar’s direct contact information, I did the obvious thing and went to the construction equipment company’s website, looking for contact information. Here’s where the fun began.
You know how, when you look at a company’s website, you can usually find a link titled “Contact Us”? Except when you don’t. You know what I’m talking about. If you look around at business websites at all, you know a fair number either have no contact information, or make what little they do have impossible to find. Such was the case with the company in question. It offered the following links: Products; Parts & Service; Used Equipment; Merchandise; Dealer Locator; News; and About Us.
Oh, and Search. You think I got anywhere by typing in “phone numbers”? Of course not.
Obviously, I wasn’t going to find Edgar’s phone number by looking at Products, Parts & Service, Used Equipment or Merchandise. Dealer Locator? If you’re lucky, it might include a corporate office, but not this one. It wants your zip code, and it will only direct you to dealers in your area. No help there.
News? Well, I did find a press release announcing Edgar was the director of marketing, but did the press release contain a phone number for Edgar? Or anyone else at the company, for that matter? No.
So all that was left was About Us. This section explains that the company is a “ground-breaking” company, which must be literal and not metaphoric, because a metaphorically ground-breaking company would have contact information on its website. So this obviously referred to moving dirt.
About Us also explains that the company has been in business for 100 years, which is good; it’s apparently also how long it’s been since the company updated its website. But if you keep reading and reading and reading…you’ll finally get to the reward. Such that it is.
You will find this: For information, call (866) XXX-XXXX, or email customer.service@constructionequipmentcompany.com. Oh no.
This is worse than finding no contact information at all. Would you like to know why?
I need to speak with Edgar. There’s no getting around that. But if I found no contact information at all on the company website, I’d have an excuse to look up his home phone number or his property tax records, Google his name in cross-reference to male ballet companies, just about anything.
But having found the customer service number, I was obligated to use the customer service number. That’s not good. I’m not a customer. I don’t need service, which isn’t to say I’d get any if I called this number. But what I want—to speak with Edgar—is a far cry from what I’m about to experience. Come with me on the journey…
“Mumble mumble mumble customer service. May I have your first and last name please?”
“D.F. Krause.”
“Do you spell that D-I-E-F-F?”
“Spell what?”
“Dieff?”
“No. I spell it D-F.”
“What?”
“It’s initials.”
“I thought you said it was Dieff.”
“D.F.! I’m known by my initials! That’s what people call me! D.F.!”
“That’s D as in dog and F as in Frank?”
“Yes!”
“I see, sir. I’m sorry, sir. Middle name?”
This wasn’t going to get much better. Once I’d given him my phone number (“in case we get disconnected,” as if I would want him calling me back) and my zip code, I finally got a chance to tell him what I wanted.
“I need to speak with Edgar, your director of marketing.”
“Let me give you another number, sir. This is the customer service line.”
“I know, but it’s the only number I could find on your website. Why don’t you put corporate contact information on your website so people won’t have to call customer service?”
“Oh no, sir. This is customer service. We couldn’t do that.”
“What?”
Maybe companies don’t put useful contact information on their websites because they’re afraid loons will call and bug their executives. (And I might!) Maybe they just forget to include it. Maybe they let some too-clever-by-half Web developer design the site, and he convinced them that customers would truly love them beyond all logic and reason if they made said customers jump through hoops.
I never cease to be amazed by how poorly many businesses make use of this weird technology called “the Internet.” If you’re going to forget something as basic as how people can contact you, why don’t you go completely retro and put up one of those mid- ’90s sites with the pattern background and giant floating Times Roman type exclaiming, “Welcome to our place on the World Wide Web!” That would at least be quaint. Or charming. Or something.
Actually I suppose it would be really stupid. But at least it wouldn’t try to call me Dieff.
