I'm not sure if "Customer Leads" is the correct catagory, but it seemed the closest one. I would call it "Merchant Leads".
We paid over $900.00 for a location-coordinator, namely Vendit International, to find seven merchants who would allow us to place a small vending machine in their premises. The call centre employees, we were told, are specially trained and experienced in the field of vending.
These small machines contain small capsules containing toys - one side for boys, the other side for girls. The caller is supposed to speak to person who makes the decisions and arrange for us to go to the businesss with our machines. They were supposed to send us a form with the name and address of the business, the name of the contact person, their phone number and their hours of operation. Supposedly, they would punch in our postal code and bring up suitable business locations in our area.
In the first list they sent us, two were at least an hours drive away, three had not given permission and were not interested, or they had only spoken to an employee who answered the phone, and one is a very expensive restaurant where very few kids go....So the machine just sits there.
We ask them to try again and give us four decent contacts. We finally received a list that was quickly thrown together...no phone numbers, no hours of operation. One was a restaurant and we were given a name they had never heard of, and also the owner wanted more information because he didn't understand what it was all about. Then he said he didn't have time, and there was nowhere to place it anyway.
Another restaurant owner said there maybe 2 kids a month go in with their families, but he was told the machines could be filled with candies or something (it can't be) and antoher one was a dine and drink bar - evening entertainment) (keep in mind this is a machine that dispenses small toys). The fourth one was at least an hour's drive away. We phoned and could not get an answer.
This company might have helped some people with successful placements in the past, but from what I know of call centres the employees are constantly changing. It's just a low paid job and they don't care about the consequences of their actions. We feel like we've been robbed of hundreds of dollars. Out of 7 placements we were given two that were 'kind of' OK. Now we have to do the job ourselves - which I guess we should have done in the first place.
No amount of e-mails or phone calls receive an answer. Now that they have our money we are toast! I'm not sure how they continue to do business if this is how they operate, and I can't believe we are the only customers they have done this to.
I would never advise anyone to use a locating company. As we have since found out, you can do a better job yourselves
ticked off
High River,#2Author of original report
Wed, February 25, 2015
I would like to say that today Vendit Intn'l has agreed to make amends which, hopefully, will put our problem to rest. This would be considered 'good customer service'.
Also the person I spoke with agreed that she should have done a little better job with communicating. This is all that we ask - to keep the lines of communication open so that things don't have to get to the point where it becomes unpleasant.