High End Music Stores with no Toll Free

[po56okie]

Hello, I was calling a high end music store recently about a mandolin for sale [ which I purchased ] but afterwards thought about the cost of the call. Well,...you may say if I bought a high end mandolin I should be able to afford the call, and yes, that may be true.....however, in this day and age I don't see why some of these high end music stores can't provide an 800 number to call. maybe it's a way to filter out serious buyers from those who are not. Thanks

[G. Fisher]

I'm guessing the majority of people use a cell phone when calling a music store and in that case would not incur any long distance charges for the call.

[Jeff Mando]

Two thoughts......

With cell phone plans, is "long distance" really an issue these days? Not for me and how little I talk to anyone, but I do remember 30 years ago calling Europe from the USA and the rate was something like a dollar a minute.

Or, like you say, a way to filter out the tire kickers. There is an eHarmony dating commercial where the woman says something to the effect, "I like that it isn't free to join." The implication being quality is worth paying for.

OTOH, I know a lot a high end dealers from the vintage guitar business and while it appears to be easy going and all fun and games, many of them are real penny pinchers, especially when it comes to overhead, shipping, taxes, etc. I know one well-known dealer with over a million dollars worth of inventory that is paid for -- and he brags about stealing toilet paper from hotels he stays in!

[Mandoplumb]

Hello, I was calling a high end music store recently about a mandolin for sale [ which I purchased ] but afterwards thought about the cost of the call. Well,...you may say if I bought a high end mandolin I should be able to afford the call, and yes, that may be true.....however, in this day and age I don't see why some of these high end music stores can't provide an 800 number to call. maybe it's a way to filter out serious buyers from those who are not. Thanks

As has been stated with cell phones long distance os no longer an issue. 800 numbers cost the store, so why would they increase their operating cost for something that is used very seldom. If operating cost goes up prices of the product must go up to make a profit.

[MikeZito]

Keeping in mind that most people do have/use cell phones these days - in the end having an 800-number is a personal business decision that becomes a matter of simple economics and effective business management; 'Do we get enough business from the toll free line, and sell enough merchandise, to make the 800-line cost negligible, or is it cost prohibitive?'

For me personally, this would be a much scarier scenario:
In the same way that a penny-pinching dealer might question the cost of an 800 number, the expense of an individual website could also become a business cost decision; 'Should we continue to maintain a private website, or should we just move everything over to Facebook since most people are on that?' I have seen some businesses make that decision in the past - but you have to be very careful with the idea that most people do or have something - because not everyone does. I know middle-aged or older people, who have lots of spendable income, who don't use the internet - and I know MANY more who don't use Facebook.

In the end, it is all a matter of knowing your customer base, and (hopefully) making the right decisions. An overwhelming number of business that go under to not close due to a lack of business, they close due to bad management.

[Mandobar]

I don't believe that most people realize what it costs to run a truly high end music store, and the actual clientele these businesses cater to. It's not an easy business model, and for every call that makes a sale, there are at least twenty that kick tires or are "just looking". The same goes for shoppers in the store. It's like those people that go into the Bentley showroom and want to take a test drive.

With free shipping, a toll free number, and the intensity of the sales process (fielding all those calls, and entertaining all those tire kickers is extremely expensive), something's gotta give. I'm not even including the costs of shipping out instruments only to have the buyer return them, and paying credit card fees on both the purchase and the return. While some stores have strict or no return policies, as well as restocking fees, etc. it is still very time consuming and these activities all cost money.

[Steve Ostrander]

If I were in the business I would want all options for an interested buyer to contact me.

[Seter]

I used to work for FamilyTreeDNA/National Geographic Genographic Project which has a very large and international customer base, no toll free number there. We took orders by phone and online, online far outweighed by phone but the phone orders were large enough to justify having a decent-sized call center staff in office. There are ways of calling phones free without a cellphone as well, you need an internet connection though.

[Mandobar]

Define "interested buyer". I think that is the key here.

[Folkmusician.com]

I don't fall under High-end, but I do know the answer here.

Cost does come into play if you are low volume, but that is not the main reason....

My business phone bill runs close to $280 monthly with Cell. I would likely have the cell anyway, so the business phone is $100 with unlimited toll free usage (includes Canada). $100 a month to increase sales, is an unbelievable deal and I do believe it helps (a little). If nothing else it adds some legitimacy to a business. What kind of business doesn't have a toll free number, right! I would not eliminate the toll free number for the cost savings.

Some other stats... Now that my info and name are plastered all around the internet and I am getting word of mouth referrals, I get a broad range of calls.

Right off the top, 50% are telemarketers. I have filters in place and block the number each time one calls. It is getting progressively worse. This isn't directly related to the toll free number, but they are likely calling both numbers, so it DOUBLES the calls. It is a serious problem, and this alone would be a reason not to have a toll free number. Business numbers can't be on the "do not call list", so this is even worse. There are a lot of big companies that do use the "do not call list", but in the case of a business, it is a free for all. If you put a labor cost on this, it is HUGE. Especially when you have two incoming calls, answer the telemarketer, and miss the customer. Again, not totally the toll free number at fault, but it may increase the problem 100%.

Of the remaining 50% of calls, about half those are potential sales calls. The other half will be customer service and random questions (what is my instrument worth?).

Customer Service:

This comes in two parts and it seems about equal.

50% of service calls are from my current or past customers.

In my opinion, any customer should have toll free access for customer service, and they should not be discouraged from calling. This doesn't come without a cost though. In my case, I have now been at this 2 decades and I do get customer service calls for things I sold in the late 90's. It may be about the instrument, it may be asking for a copy of an invoice, or estimated asking price/insurance value, etc.. Again, I don't feel it's right to discourage this, but it is still a major resource problem. I can't even image what someone like Elderly must deal with. Keep in mind, many of the brands require the dealer to handle warranty claims (for lifetime warranties). I don't know that the toll free number matters here, it may be responsible for a small increase on less critical inquiries.

The other 50% are people calling me about things I did not sell.
What is my instruemnt worth?
Do you know anything about this model?
What year was this made?

It is not uncommon to get called for setup support for instruments bought elsewhere. Sometimes they are honest about it, sometimes not. "I purchased a #### from you and was wondering how to install the bridge" Now I know, we don't ship with the bridge rubber banded to the headstock so, I ask for an order number: Phone goes dead, or "they don't have one".

A high-end shop will have a slightly different version of this, but I bet they get even more "what is my instrument worth" calls. I don't have an estimate, but I have no doubt that this would be significantly reduced by eliminating the toll free number.

Now we get to sales which are roughly 25% of my calls. This will include tire kickers. In my case, the people that actually are calling about instruments do purchase at a very high percentage rate. I don't get a lot of tire kickers, but there are occasions where you get someone that I suspect likes to call about instruments as a hobby. These people ask a lot of questions about an instrument and do seem legitimately interested. Next week they call about something entirely different. and it continues. If this is happening to me, I'll bet it is 400% more common with a dealers selling high dollar instruments. I suspect the toll free number does contribute to this.

The well established dealers were around long before cells were widespread and at that point, whichever dealers had the toll free numbers, received all of the random inquiries. It must have been crazy to have toll free number then. I am picturing Gruhn for instance. Why wouldn't Gruhn have a toll free number? He has huge revenue.....


I have been leaning more and more toward cutting off my toll free number for the above reasons. I don't think I would lose hardly any sales, and I would save hours per week. With everything factored in, it does not make sense to keep it.

[JerseyPicker]

These days, the whole concept of "Long distance calls" doesn't make much sense. Once upon a time there truly was a need to charge for long distance. An operator had to "patch you through" to get your call to the right destination. But now that we have the internet, the world's entire communications infrastructure is different. Long distance charges are nothing more than an excuse to charge extra money these days, and there are many ways to avoid it.

If you don't have a cell phone to take advantage of this, then I would recommend dropping your land line phone plan and getting a Magic Jack or another similar VOIP phone solution.

[LadysSolo]

I have a cell phone but my cell phone does not work at my house and I have a land line. I have internet access that I pay for as an "air card." I don't mind paying for long-distance calls. Yes, there are places in the US that cell phones do not work, and some of us live there! A DSL line will not work here either, I called to see. And I COULD have cable out here, the lovey cable company will charge me by the FOOT to run over a mile of cable from their nearest access point to my house, then I get the privilege of paying monthly charges on top of that. So yes, I have land line and long distance, what if I needed 911 service and my cell doesn't work at my house? The notion of eliminating land lines is very frightening to people like me.

[pops1]

I am in one of those places where if I am by a window on the south side of the house on a good day my cell works. I have it set to use the wifi, but not sure that really helps much. I understand.

[allenhopkins]

Re-reading Robert's post above, I was thinking: dealers don't get paid for the unproductive hours spent on the phone, dealing with telemarketers and random tire-kicker inquiries, being an information source for people who won't be buying anything. And, even the "established" dealers are dealing with fairly narrow profit margins. The real bargain hunters head for the on-line discount dealers; the small, specialized dealers rely on expertise, good customer service, word-of-mouth referrals, and full-service (repairs, trade-ins, set-ups, customization and specialized accessories) availability.

They can't succeed without accessibility, but that has its price -- and, as stated, they work with narrow profit margins. We should be a bit understanding if they'd prefer that we pay for our phone calls to them. Remember, there's also e-mail, which the dealer can read and answer on his/her own schedule and respond as appropriate.

When e-corresponding with a dealer, I always include my home and cell phone numbers, so that person can call me if that's the best way to communicate. I'm currently working on ordering a custom gig bag for a mando-bass (you'd be amazed at the scarcity of commercially available mando-bass cases), and they prefer to call me -- at their convenience (three hour time differential) -- which is fine with me. I enjoy the interactivity of telephone conversation, but since the conversants on both ends of the line have demanding schedules, whatever can be handled through e-mail makes the whole transaction easier.