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This post originally appeared on my 2 cents. Reprinted with the author’s permission.
I don’t understand why so many organizations and individuals who are online make it so difficult to contact them.
My blog is clearly marked with how to contact me. Right in the left column are my email address, street address and phone number. My company website also has all that info plainly marked, not hidden away somewhere. If it means I may get a call from someone looking to sell me life insurance or stockbroker services, so be it. I’ll deal with those sales calls.
I’ve always wondered why some bloggers and plenty of company websites don’t offer a clue as to how to call them or write to them by snail mail. It makes me wonder if they’re operating from home and they’re trying to hide that fact. Or maybe they’re ashamed they happen to be located in a small town or small city rather than a hub of business like New York, Chicago, etc.
I don’t know why, but I’ve often wondered.
And then this week, I and some of my colleagues ran into a stone wall called Google. We’ve been trying to contact someone there on behalf of a client, to see about running a promotion on their photo sharing site. We understand there might be a fee to do so, and we’ve been trying to find out how much it is and make arrangements to pay it.
I responded to the spot on the site where it invites you to ask about “commercial partnerships.” That was a week ago, and I haven’t heard a peep in response. The next logical step would be to call the company.
Have you ever tried to get information on whom to contact at Google? For a company that is all about sharing information, Google is one of the most secretive or closed companies I’ve ever seen. Their website has no phone numbers and no hints of whom to contact for various purposes or how to reach them. I tried the p.r. department. Left messages and no response. Maybe I should have lied and said I was calling from PC Magazine or The Wall Street Journal.
We had similar experiences when we tried to contact Yahoo.
Someone suggested that since these are companies who give away some of their service free, they tend to give priority attention to the smaller group of people who pay for premium services or who are advertisers. But here’s a situation where I want to become a paying premium service user and I can’t speak to or hear back from anyone so I can begin to pay them.
So my plea to businesses and bloggers alike is “Please don’t hide.” Unless you’re doing something illegal, why put up a wall so it’s difficult for people to find you. It’s kind of ironic and a bit anti-social in this “age of conversation” or “age of connectivity” for companies to deny input, feedback, or legitimate business queries.
David Reich, a 35-year public relations agency veteran, is head of Reich Communications, a boutique agency in New York City.
