Email enquiries - Why don't they care?

[12DrinkMore]

Over the decade plus I have been living in LOS (Land of Smiles) trying to get responses by email has resulted in a very poor response.

Why is this?

The reason I am posting is because I have just fired off around twenty requests for hotel room availability and prices for a two month stay in Bangkok.

A week later and I have received two replies and one "undeliverable" response.

Going through the web booking companies works, but they only give daily rates.

I have to assume that the person responsible for reading the email

- can't be bothered

- can't read basic English

- is pre-occupied with Farcebook

- is cutting her nails and worried that using the keyboard might smudge the varnish

I'll go for "couldn't care less" because it means more work to reply, and she will get paid just as much whether the emails are deleted or replied to.

And I also had the joy of waiting for twenty minutes on the Bangkok Bank helpline. Once the "English Speaker" managed to get around to answering, I was subject to, "what is my telephone number you?".

The Thais just fail to get their act together.

There is little hope. Time to move on for me.

[Broken Record]

It's time for you to move on, surprised it's taken this long for you to get the hint.

[kannot]

I once went to Global House diy shop and asked about Upvc plastic windows for my padded cell, the sales guy was outside leaning on a pile of them as I asked him, he told me they didnt have any........

Heres the windows that they didnt sell and where I didnt stick them, in the house I didnt build by myself

[kkerry]

Still waiting for a reply from a well known hospital about some procedures that would be very profitable for them no doubt. English website help section etc. but still no response. I'd say over the years I've received an average of one reply for every ten e-mail inquiries I've made. Some have been sent to large companies, looking to make fairly large purchases if only i could find where their products were available from. Happens outside of Thailand as well but not as bad as here, can't all be blamed on lack of English skills because asking in Thai isn't much different.

[FritsSikkink]

Over the decade plus I have been living in LOS (Land of Smiles) trying to get responses by email has resulted in a very poor response.

Why is this?

The reason I am posting is because I have just fired off around twenty requests for hotel room availability and prices for a two month stay in Bangkok.

A week later and I have received two replies and one "undeliverable" response.

Going through the web booking companies works, but they only give daily rates.

I have to assume that the person responsible for reading the email

- can't be bothered

- can't read basic English

- is pre-occupied with Farcebook

- is cutting her nails and worried that using the keyboard might smudge the varnish

I'll go for "couldn't care less" because it means more work to reply, and she will get paid just as much whether the emails are deleted or replied to.

And I also had the joy of waiting for twenty minutes on the Bangkok Bank helpline. Once the "English Speaker" managed to get around to answering, I was subject to, "what is my telephone number you?".

The Thais just fail to get their act together.

There is little hope. Time to move on for me.

thais fail to get their act together? you live here over a decade, get your act together and learn the language

[Broken Record]

I always receive return emails from Thai companies, Birthday Cards and Christmas cards too.

[swampdonkey]

can't read basic English

You should learn basic Thai. A simple phone call would have gotten you an answer

[kannot]

I always receive return emails from Thai companies, Birthday Cards and Christmas cards too.

Of course you do on an anonymous internet forum

[lostinisaan]

Are you a troll?

[Paul888]

If you can't speak the language, and don't have a wife/girlfriend/boyfriend or friend that can help you just find anybody in any travel agent, or tour company that can speak English and offer them 200 to 300 baht to call the places on your list and get the prices for you.

They could probably get you a better deal even with their commission than you could get direct with your existing game plan.

[Chicog]

Send an email with delivery and read receipt, and High importance.

When someone does something with it, even if they delete it, you'll know their email address.

Then you can pester them personally.

[kkerry]

Most efficient response I've had in Thailand to e-mails have been from Dell and American Express. So many other multi-national companies seem to have no procedures in place to respond to e-mails sent in Thai or English.

The problem with ringing some companies is to get to speak to someone who has any idea of what you are seeking. You get transferred a few times, waiting, waiting, call dropped.

Try ringing a store like BigC to ask if they have stock of a big ticket item like an tv advertised in their catalogue. Fifty-fifty at best of ever speaking to someone who can help you.

[cyberfarang]

Hardly any companies can be bothered replying to emails, it was the same in the UK.

Easy to solve, pick up the phone, tap in the number and ask them.

[bluesofa]

I think it's happened to a lot us us, to varying degrees.

Yes, I've emailed various companies - in English as their website had an English section - but quite often with no response.

If there were no English pages, I'd agree that then you'd maybe get less chance of a reply to an English email.

There was one company baking fresh bread with a website that had an English section. I emailed twice to ask why they had stopped putting the sell-by date on the plastic clip that keeps the bag closed.

I resorted to the phoning them, and did get to speak to someone with good English who explained they now printed the sell-by date on the side of the bag itself, (but not easy to see unless you knew it was there to look for).

The guy I spoke to was helpful and guided me to the relevant English page which had a small slideshow of four/five images, one showed the new sell-by date on the side of the bag.

The obvious thing they had missed was they had used the same images on the English page as the Thai page, The image had additional text with it - but in Thai, which was no good if you couldn't read the explanation.

I pointed that out to the guy who only then realised it did need changing. He said they would do it. Needless to say, three months later it's not changed.

Going slightly off-topic, but still ranting about websites and local designers. About ten years ago looked that well known fried chicken website to see what meals there were, and the prices.

The website had a wonderful flash-type introduction, with music and gawdy animations. There was no option to skip the intro, it took about three minutes to finish playing.

On the main website there were very nice images of chicken and meals to take out, but no specific details of what the meals were, their names or the prices.

To me, surely the point of a website is to impart imformation to the customer. I emailed the customer care department to say I thought they'd missed the obvious - no details about anything they had for sale. I did get a reply - telling me to contact the firm contracted to build the website. No reply from them, though. The customer care department should had passed the information to the marketing deptartment, in my opinion.

OK, rant over!

[faraday]

Yup, blame those "pesky thais"....

Bollerques.