Well I think it's safe to say I'll not be buying a thousand dollars of fencing equipment from you
There’s this fencing company in a town about an hour south of here that I found advertising on Craigslist. I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to do that, but hey, I need fencing supplies and they claimed to have good prices. They had an online “request information form,” which I filled out. I asked the price of pickets, galvanized steel posts, and a double drive-through gate.
Here’s the reply I got from an e-mail account with the name Diane attached to it:
d/drive 10′ opening $182.85. post are 8′ and a structural .116 wall at $12.95 each are 2anbtr 1x6x6′ d/e real cedar this is old growth cedar doing a 3 rail ( includes fence boards post, 2×4′s, hangers,& screws) estimate at $8.20 per foot for more info call toll free 1-866-xxx-xxxx.
Whoa. Paragraphs are your friend, Diane, and I recommend some punctuation, too, while you’re at it.
Anyway, so I puzzled over the reply for a long time. I figured out that the double drive-through gate was $182. Got it. The posts are 8 ft (which I already knew — that’s standard); d/e means dog-eared, which I don’t want; but after that, WTF? “2anbtr”?
I could have called at this point, but the reply was so ambiguous that I thought I’d better see if they even had the type of products I wanted. Simple question. So I e-mailed back and said,
Diane, thank you for your reply. However, I’m having trouble understanding the information you sent.I need about 150 ft. of fence, which I believe is about 300 pickets. I do not want dog-eared pickets, and I do not want to buy pre-made fencing. Is it possible to buy 300 non-dog-eared cedar 6′ pickets through your company?
Is it possible to get a double-drive gate with square-topped pickets instead of dog-eared?
Thank you.
The reply I got said,
FOR MORE INFO CALL TOLL FREE 1-866-xxx-xxxx mike
*sigh* Dude. First of all, I don’t know why “mike” is answering “Diane’s” e-mail, but WTH, I don’t really care. Second, don’t yell at me. Third, on your website, you have an e-mail form for questions. Clearly you have an e-mail account for receiving and responding to said questions, so you should be able to handle e-mail queries. I prefer to e-mail than call, partly because I have a mild phone phobia and mostly because it’s just faster, and ESPECIALLY WHEN I’M ASKING FUCKING YES AND NO QUESTIONS. I don’t think my expectations are out of line: is it that hard to say “yes,” “no,” or “we might be able to work something out, but please call us to do that”? Can you really afford to give bad customer service in this economy?
At any rate, we got a $50 off Home Depot coupon in the mail yesterday, so I’ll save myself the trouble of calling for more information.