Waiting for answers

[OneMoreFarang]

Recently it seems nobody answers emails anymore.

In the last weeks I contacted several companies on their websites and/or email addresses with emails like: "I am interested in buying your product x. How much does it cost?"

And what is the response? Often no response at all.

Very few companies respond relative fast with the requested information.

One company answered with "contact us on Line. Our line ID is ..."

But I guess in maybe 70% or more no answer at all.

And these were all so called brand name companies in Thailand.

 

What is your experience with this?

If you want to know i.e. a price of a product what do you do? Call them? Email? Facebook? Line?

 

 

 

 

[KhunBENQ]

Facebook or LINE.

Many email boxes are dead like a dodo. Probably sunk in zillions of spams/hacked etc.

Just two days ago: some pizza place on the darkside answered on Facebook within two hours or so.

On LINE I also got quick response from misc businesses/services (although these were template style answers in Thai language).

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[nikmar]

yep, trying to source some products for the company I work for. minimal response from - Chinese, Indian, American and thai companies. 

[BenDeCosta]

In my experience I very, very rarely get responses from companies or businesses here when sending emails. Two exceptions are a legal firm in Bangkok who I was paying a lot to deal with something for me, and a guesthouse in Ubon owned by a farang and his wife. I don't know whether it's because of a language problem, or if maybe they just don't check their emails and rely on Line instead, as has been mentioned.

[RichardColeman]

54 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

If you want to know i.e. a price of a product what do you do? Call them? Email?

You are assuming you can find their e-mail address - many companies these days seem to hide their email address as much as possible.

[fondue zoo]

If you are referring to companies based in Thailand....

 

So many are not interested in talking on the phone or corresponding via email, in Thai or English.

It's Line or nothing it seems sometimes or Facebook messaging. And even then getting the information you want can be like pulling teeth.

[OneMoreFarang]

15 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

You are assuming you can find their e-mail address - many companies these days seem to hide their email address as much as possible.

Yes, I agree with that problem.

But often they still have a WWW online form to contact them - and then they also don't answer. ???? 

[KhunBENQ]

Just came to my mind: an insurance broker (foreigner) from Hua Hin reacted well on email.

The last one I can remember.

And an IPTV provider located in Pattaya (foreigner of course).

Edited March 26, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[CharlieH]

In my experience with Thai companies, unless its written in Thai, you might aswell not bother at all. That doesnt matter if its LINE email or whatever, if its not in Thai, it didnt exist.

 

The other issue somewhat associated is, yes they may be able to speak English, but its so limited, their comprehension beyond very simple basic expressions is ZERO.

 

Same app,ies to my Thai, I can speak a few things well, and make myself understood in most situations BUT the danger there is they think I can understand everything and start babbling away and I miss alot of it. I suspect the same is happening in reverse.

[OneMoreFarang]

3 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

In my experience with Thai companies, unless its written in Thai, you might aswell not bother at all. That doesnt matter if its LINE email or whatever, if its not in Thai, it didnt exist.

 

The other issue somewhat associated is, yes they may be able to speak English, but its so limited, their comprehension beyond very simple basic expressions is ZERO.

Obviously that might be true. But I am sure it is not true for many of the companies which I contacted.

I.e. an email to a well known Japanese bookshop in Bangkok. "I like to order this book ..." No answer. They all know how to read and write in English.

My issue is not about a little motorcycle shop who fixes the bikes from the local guys. I contacted i.e. the head office of a big motorcycle company, international tools supplier, Thai head offices of well known international manufacturers and companies like that.

 

I know from a luxury hotel I work with that they have a 24h rule. Every mail (to any manager in that hotel) should get a reply within 24h. And they take that serious.  

I also accept if sometimes it takes a few days to get an answer. But no answer at all not even after a week or more is just unprofessional.

Let's not forget my mails were basically "I want to buy something and give you money". If they don't even reply to those mails how will the situation be after I bought something and I write to them "I have this problem with you product, you should fix that"...

[Odysseus123]

I found that Line was the only way to go....

[Johnny Mac]

Yep my experience too. if I LINE a firm and I can see they have read the message and not responded I sometimes send them sarcy messages like 'hello. anybody there' 'can you not read' etc. Yea stupid i know, but sometimes it does GARNER a response.

[BenDeCosta]

Sometimes when you go into a store in person and ask a basic question even in Thai, they look like a deer in the headlights and try to avoid having to deal with you by saying "mai mee" or "mai dai", because they don't want to deal with a foreigner. Obviously with an email it's much easier for them to do the same thing and simply ignore the email. 

[Saltire]

I think the problem today is there are just too many options for communications, especially from customer to supplier.

 

Is the supplier supposed to monitor Line, FB Messenger, WeChat, WHatsapp, Skype, ...... and many I probably never used so don't know of.

 

EMail is the oldest of all these platforms and now I don't even need to check my spam mailbox as there is virtually none nowadays.

 

Email has many advantages still but I fear it may be on the way out for many newer companies.

[rumak]

check me out on my App    "Vats D Woild Coming 2 "  

[mogandave]

I think they often get overwhelmed with emails, and often the questions and requests for additional are endless. 

 

I worked for in operations for a manufacturer with a plant here. Once some people get your email (usually someone in sales gets sick of them and forwards them to you) they start asking for all manner of nonsense. 

 

Like everything else, the few ruin it for the many...

[Hayduke]

 

Send them an email saying you found a bag in a taxi that had their contact information on it. The bag has a million Baht cash in it. Ask them to contact you immediately so you can return the money.

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Hayduke

[Golden Triangle]

I have to agree with many on here and the comments made, however, we were pleasantly surprised by one company. 

 

We have a Franke cooker hood, when we moved into this house the filters were in a dire mess, dropping a nasty white/grey powder all over the cooker below, including food being cooked.

 

A quick Google search showed suppliers in the Pattaya area, long story short, no one kept the filters in stock nor were bothered with obtaining them.

 

I happened to find a Facebook page for the manufacturer, sent a message, in no time at all I had a reply, including price and availability, all paid for online and delivered within 2 days.

 

I sent a message to the company praising them and their staff for their efficiency.

 

If anyone needs a couple of filters for this make of hood, I have 2 going spare ????????

[recom273]

FF S .. Do you have LINE? Can you add this number on LINE? Mee LINE mai?

 

I mentioned here before I hired an architect, im paying him 5.5% of the total cost of the house. He point blank refuses to use email  - "I don't really check my email" well, for 5.5% I would start .. It took two weeks to teach him and get him on zoom. "Can we do this on FaceTime?" "Can we show you what an interactive whiteboard is first?"

 

The reason I use email on projects like this, everything is threaded, everything is searchable - when he started using LINE the wife was scrolling through trying to find messages where we asked him questions that he didnt respond to, looking for photos. We would also get messages at 9.00 pm at night when we are turning off for the night. Its not a healthy communication method.

 

So we went down the route of emailing him then sending him LINE, then he started replying on LINE, so we blocked him and he moved to facebook messenger, now we are on emails and phone calls.

 

Its just a cultural thing that irritates me to .. LINE messenger is OK for initial or quick contact, its fine for chatting to mates, but its not acceptable business communication. I wish the locals would understand this.

 

 

[tgw]

2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Yes, I agree with that problem.

But often they still have a WWW online form to contact them - and then they also don't answer. ???? 

 

email in Thailand is for professionals.

most people aren't.

 

[Kwasaki]

4 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

What is your experience with this?

Thais like using 'Line' which I don't like.

They either use email or messenger or they lose a sale.

[OneMoreFarang]

About LINE: I think its acceptable to communicate with some birds with pictures and lots of stickers.

But it's unprofessional.

I ordered a device from the Thai supplier of a German company per email. He asked me to pay and send him the payment info per LINE. Ok, fair enough, that's what I did. And then? Now I get constantly advertisement about lots of products which I don't care about. But because from time to time I still want to order supply for the device which I bought I have to keep that LINE account and look at it from time to time.

And the same is true with other companies on LINE: Advertisement, advertisement, advertisement, ignore, ignore, ignore, oh, I should not have ignored that one because it was a personal message. Annoying!

[faraday]

33 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

About LINE: I think its acceptable to communicate with some birds with pictures and lots of stickers.

But it's unprofessional.

I ordered a device from the Thai supplier of a German company per email. He asked me to pay and send him the payment info per LINE. Ok, fair enough, that's what I did. And then? Now I get constantly advertisement about lots of products which I don't care about. But because from time to time I still want to order supply for the device which I bought I have to keep that LINE account and look at it from time to time.

And the same is true with other companies on LINE: Advertisement, advertisement, advertisement, ignore, ignore, ignore, oh, I should not have ignored that one because it was a personal message. Annoying!

 Just block the timeline adverts, it doesn't affect communication should you need to contact them again.

[DerbyDan]

Usually if something can be ordered online they don't bother answering these days. For example Amazon, everything you need to know is there. Most calls are not worth answering because it's looky loos, people who are unsure of a purchase, need to be convinced etc. Time wasters basically.

 

If the business needs calls to survive they will be answered. If not, your usually barking up the wrong tree.

[OneMoreFarang]

10 hours ago, faraday said:

 Just block the timeline adverts, it doesn't affect communication should you need to contact them again.

Unfortunately some are so "smart" that they send all those advertisement directly to me. ???? 

[OneMoreFarang]

34 minutes ago, DerbyDan said:

Usually if something can be ordered online they don't bother answering these days. For example Amazon, everything you need to know is there. Most calls are not worth answering because it's looky loos, people who are unsure of a purchase, need to be convinced etc. Time wasters basically.

 

If the business needs calls to survive they will be answered. If not, your usually barking up the wrong tree.

Lots of online pages miss important info like prices. I would love it if they would put all the info on their websites. But it seems for many products it's pictures these days. Huge pictures show on desktop PCs, all optimized for smart phones. It seems I am getting too old for this s$#@.

[mogandave]

22 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

About LINE: I think its acceptable to communicate with some birds with pictures and lots of stickers.

But it's unprofessional.

I ordered a device from the Thai supplier of a German company per email. He asked me to pay and send him the payment info per LINE. Ok, fair enough, that's what I did. And then? Now I get constantly advertisement about lots of products which I don't care about. But because from time to time I still want to order supply for the device which I bought I have to keep that LINE account and look at it from time to time.

And the same is true with other companies on LINE: Advertisement, advertisement, advertisement, ignore, ignore, ignore, oh, I should not have ignored that one because it was a personal message. Annoying!

 

You mean the people with all that beeping going on in the restaurant aren’t really important? 

[topt]

On 3/26/2021 at 1:48 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

Recently it seems nobody answers emails anymore.

My only surprise in this thread is that you used the word "Recently"

8 years ago I was trying to source some product (container loads) and from memory from about 5 suppliers I received one reply.....

 

An earlier poster mentioned an Insurance broker and likewise that is one of the few I communicate regularly by email.