anyone have any luck trying to get deals that are offered by the door to door people, but initiated by yourself?
i was talking to one such dude, from mercury who offered pretty good rates and i was going to sign up but my work meeting was starting so had to tell him to come back, which he never did.
just wondering if others have had any experience trying to either reach out to those guys or negotiate a similar deal themselves directly with the retailer
Agreed, same here. For my last experience with Genesis, they gave me a phone number so i could call to verify with Genesis sales team that they are indeed part of their team, and I've managed to sign up the special deal. I'd suggest you call their sales team about the deal you have heard and see if they can transfer you to the right team.
my feeling is, if they have to come all the way to your door to sell something, its probably not worth buying
I would never deal with someone that knocked on our door cold-calling for anything of any significance.
How do I authenticate them in any reasonable timeframe / amount of effort?
Much easier for me to initiate contact with them via their website and / or phone.
It's also easier (less time consuming, and simpler to track things) to shop around electronically to get a better deal. I might use the phone to try to negotiate a better deal when I was down to the last two or three.
Last time a door knocker came to my house, I showed them my existing rates for power, and they said, "oh nah, can't beat that, have a good day".
Just had Pulse energy door knocker. Power was slightly cheaper than Mercury (cheapest I've found for us) but, on signing up got gas rates. Cost slightly more overall. Cancelled.
I've also asked person to come back in the past so I'd time to do some calculations. They never returned.
Just had Pulse energy door knocker. Power was slightly cheaper than Mercury (cheapest I've found for us) but, on signing up got gas rates. Cost slightly more overall. Cancelled.
I've also asked person to come back in the past so I'd time to do some calculations. They never returned.
This is not unusual, nor unexpected. The door-knocking channel is relatively expensive for the providers (low hit rate), so you would expect it to work out more expensive overall to purchase that way.
So why does that sales channel exist?
The reason it works is that there is a sub-set of consumers who will rarely be bothered to shop around (or who don't feel that they are able to as it seems too hard), and those are (obviously) some of the best customers to get as they have a low elasticity of demand (tolerate higher prices). Knocking on their door gets them to do a one-on-one comparison against their existing supplier, which is probably ripping them off already, and hence they move as the price really is lower (at that point in time) than they were paying before. That consumer then sits with the same supplier for many years, overpaying without being consciously aware, until some catalyst gets them to move again.
The model requires the door-knockers to be as efficient as possible (they are usually paid low hourly rates and high commissions for anyone they get to sign up), so they are dis-incentivised to come back to you later, as the hit rate even on those consumers will still be relatively low (might be out, changed their mind, shopped around and found the deal offered was not actually all that good, albeit better than they were paying etc) and hence it makes more sense for the door-knockers to just stick to going door-to-door in high density areas and sign up anyone they can there and then.
This is a great write up, I learned a lot from from peoples different perspective.
Some of the best internet, power and Sky TV deals I have ever received were all from door knockers. So I nearly always listen to them first to see what they have to offer.