Just the other day I had to contact a company about a billing related inquiry. Thing is, they don’t have a toll free number for that department and to get support for this particular issue you have to phone in. Therefore, you have to literally pay the long distance fee yourself in order to contact them. This isn’t a small company either incase you are wondering.
At times like these I guess it is easy to see why certain companies are able to offer products or services for less as its overhead isn’t as great. I guess what you can learn from things like these is what exactly you can neglect in order to run a business. I’m sure many people would say that you have to have like a toll free number if you are running a global operation. But examples like these show that is not necessarily the case.
When you think about it, in most other cases a company would factor in fees like this into the actual product/service price and hence they sell it for a higher price tag to accommodate things like a toll free support line. Whereas in examples like these they pretty much make you pay for it instead. I suppose it depends on the type of volume and services you are offering.
Although, times like these would me wonder too if a company is actually losing more business but not having features like that even if it is just to give people the sense of security to do business with them.