Consumers : Got a Problem? No Problem--Just Dial 800-U NAME IT

Call it a phenomenon of the ‘80s: Not only can buyers now get almost anything they want via toll-free numbers, they also can obtain advice on products, complain about them or find someone to service them--all by phoning 800 lines.

Before the proliferation of 800 numbers--there now are more than 500,000 of them nationwide--consumers might have gone through ordeals trying to call the right department at a large appliance store to ask about a product or to learn how to get it serviced. They often had to go through dealers first, because only rarely did a customer get to talk directly to a manufacturer.

Now, however, more and more dealers routinely refer public inquiries to company 800 numbers, which in most cases favor customers who like getting manufacturers’ attention, industry experts say.

“Today’s consumers have more expectations of a company, are more discriminating in shopping, want more information before purchasing the product and they don’t have time to get it because they’re working. So they talk to the company,” said N. Powell Taylor, manager of the GE Answer Center, manufacturing’s largest telecommunications operation, which fields 3 million calls a year on its toll-free lines.

On GE’s part, Taylor observed, “we’re putting a face on the company, trying to make a large company a small one, like your neighborhood store.”

Plus gaining points with customers by attending to their needs, GE also increases sales. Powell explained: “The purpose is not only to care about the consumer, but we’re also selling more products. We’re offering them full service and we believe that makes them want to buy more GE products. We’re like a security blanket for them.”

Headquartered in Louisville, Ky., the GE center, which opened in 1982 with 20 representatives answering about 1,000 calls a week, now runs 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Its 220 representatives talk to 70,000 consumers every week.

Taylor said that GE dealers nationwide seem to like the company’s concern for consumers, “because they’re glad to have customers off their backs. We pre-sell customers on the product so they go to the dealer and the dealer doesn’t have to do a lot of selling. We’re trying to be accessible and convenient at the customer’s convenience.”

Although some appliance dealers are still unhappy that manufacturers took over the consumer service that they had preferred to maintain themselves, others said they’re happy to have a toll-free number to give to customers so they can express their ire directly to manufacturers.

“Customers seem more satisfied calling (on a toll-free line) and talking to the manufacturer,” said Eloy Rios, customer service manager for Snyder-Diamond in North Hollywood, an authorized GE refrigerator and freezer dealer. “With us, it works well, because it takes some of the pressure off the dealer. It solves a lot of problems for us.”

Toyota USA, which installed a nationwide 800 number for its customers in December, 1987, reports success with its service, which fielded 250,000 calls in 1998.

“The way you’re going to be successful in the automobile business is to service your customers to the best of your ability,” said Ray Lindland, customer operations manager at Toyota headquarters in Torrance. “Customers call and ask for just about anything--a brochure on a new model, the dealer closest to them, complaints about a dealer, service, sales, parts, the company; 55% are inquiries, 45% are of a complaint nature.

“Of the majority of complaints, they want to confirm something the dealer told them,” Lindland said, noting that in most cases, Toyota’s 800-line representatives direct the consumer right back to the dealership.

Toyota tells customers that a dealership representative will call within 48 hours; it then sends the respective dealer a computer message to do so. The dealer has 14 days to resolve the matter and report back by computer to corporate management.

When Toyota first installed its toll-free service, its dealers were not happy, Lindland said, adding, “We had some growing pains. But now the dealers wholeheartedly support it. Sometimes a dealer feels like Big Brother is watching him. . . . It has caused heartburn with dealers.”

Though they can be upsetting to some vendors, more and more companies are having 800 numbers installed each year, reported John Goodman, president of Technical Assistance Research Program Institute, a research and consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

Goodman noted that when AT&T; introduced 800 numbers in 1967, there were only about 650 nationwide. But now, toll-free numbers, also available through MCI and Sprint, AT&T; telephone competitors, are mushrooming.

Big businesses also aren’t the only ones using them; small companies are using them, too, said AT&T; spokeswoman Kelly Williams, explaining, “Many small businesses are now getting our new 800 Ready Line services. They are a lot less expensive and they can have them on a home phone on an existing line.”

A recent study by the research institute showed that 50% of 500 companies responding ran toll-free customer service lines, an increase of 12% over a similar 1983 survey; 7% of the surveyed manufacturers also reported they were installing or considering 800 numbers.

Careful consumers--who can find the listings on the products themselves or in their packaging, through dealers or even in published toll-free directories, which often are available in local libraries--may want to check out an individual company’s varied 800 numbers because some firms, frankly, have too many of them. And that has created confusion.

“Some companies are sort of running amok with consumer response,” Goodman said. He pointed out that one New York bank has more than 350 toll-free lines, while an industrial company lists more than 700. “It ends up creating a tremendous mess.”

Other companies, though, may have insufficient lines to meet the consumer demand; consumers in this case may encounter a busy signal more often than not when calling an 800 number. Just call the Internal Revenue Service lines, for example.

From surveys by the research institute and other manufacturers’ studies, Goodman said consumers seem most satisfied with companies having one, 24-hour toll-free number where representatives handling the gamut of product questions, whether it concerns refrigerators or light bulbs or television sets.

There also is a trend in 800 numbers to longer hours, no longer 9 to 5, Goodman said, adding, “The companies also have found they can charge more for a product because consumers perceive they are getting more value and are also buying a 24-hour-a-day answering service. The 800 number fits totally into today’s general strategy of customer service and marketing.”