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Any web sites in general that require me to give personal information in order to receive their information, I move on to their competitor.
I was just browsing some of the spa manufactures sites out there and noticed that some of them ask for your name, address, phone number, email, buying cycle and other things before they will even give you dealer information! I find this practice invasive and even a bit stupid on their part...What do they have to lose by pointing someone to their dealer without knowing who they are? How do you as a customer feel about it...Would it make you just keep shopping? What about on other products? If you where looking at a new car and they did this would you give the info or would you just fill in the page with made up stuff to find out who the dealer is? Think about this…What if you had to give your phone # and address to someone before you could get a phone # out of the yellow pages?
I am amazed at how many times I filled these out to receive info on a competitor and get nothing!Personally I like the idea because it saves me a trip to the store to get info on a competitor, I just wish they would follow through. Maybe I am on a DO NOT MAIL list
In an age of identity theft, do not call lists, computer hacking and telemarketers I can't see why any hot tub company thinks it would be appealing to the average consumer to give away personal info just for a dealer location. A zipcode locator and an 800 number is enough.
For example, I went to get a couple of batteries for my wireless mouse at Radio Shack a while back. Two batteries - that's it. But the salesmen wanted WAY too much information! Where I live, phone number, favourite colour etc. I haven't purchased anything from them since. For larger ticket items that have a warrenty, I can see this information being relevant for after the sale, but not for a couple of batteries.Jc
As for RadioShack - I shop there quite a bit. The reason they want where you live and phone number is not to track your purchases but it is try and understand why you didn't use the store closest to you. Was it because they didn't have the item, lousy customer service, etc... I even wrote them wayback when to verify this and that is the response I was given. Now I don't know if that is still true today. If the data they collected can actually make my store better, I generally don't have a problem with it. But then how can I tell if my store improved? I don't know.r100rs