Kitchens Direct Cold Calling

Enough is enough. For the last couple of months I've had many calls from this number:

0845 055 4454

I picked up a couple of times but the call went dead. I did the obvious thing and Google'd it a few weeks ago, which took me to the brilliant website: "Who Calls Me". It's a simple system where people can log the phone numbers of cold callers and share it with others who may be unaware of the dangers or worried about a possible scam.

When I first found it, the 08450554454 page was quite short and had a few people claiming this number to be from Kitchens Direct (http://www.kitchensdirect.co.uk/). I was quite happy to know who was calling me and wait for the next time they called so I could ask them not to call me again - which I did.

A few weeks on and I was still getting calls (and ignoring them) so I went to their website and looked for a way to remove myself from their list. I found nothing (this is obviously something they're not proud of). So again, I resorted to my good old friend Google. I went back to the Who Calls Me log and found that on page 7, "Sarah" was kind enough to this page, where supposedly I would be able to remove myself from their list. Guess what? This didn't work. And I wasn't alone:

3 times over the last few months i have asked these nerds to take my number off their database but still i am getting calls. with each call they make i call watchdog. could we take them to court for harrasement?

They will keep ringing
They dont seem to understand GO AWAY !!!
Anyone else hate kitchens direct ?

After a while, it seems users started to get pretty annoyed - and even post their own methods to stop Kitchens Direct from calling you:

If they call again ask them to remove your details from their data base. If they call again after that tell them you have requested for your details to be removed and as such they are now in breach of the data protection act for calling you. Tell them you will now report them for this. Trust me they wont ring again. If they are just hanging up repeat this process on the website. I hope this helps

Kitchens 'Crap Ones' Direct call, 08450554454 on my company mobile!!
LOOK KITCHENS DIRECT, IF WE WANTED YOUR KITCHENS WE WOULD CALL YOU!! ALL YOU ARE DOING IN CHEEEEZING PEOPLE OF COLD CALLING - SO SOD OFF!!

Amazingly, in the past few weeks since requesting not to be called again verbally over the phone and via their website, I've received calls every other day, sometimes several calls on the same day, and I've had many late evening calls at around 8pm and a few calls as late as 10:30pm from this number. Today though, I've had enough. It's 1:30pm on Sunday June 29th (Glastonbury Weekend) and they have just called me again.

I couldn't be bothered before, but now I want say that Kitchens Direct are the lowest of the low in my opinion and have resorted to pathetic immoral methods of marketing to drum up some business. It's sad to see that a company of their size have yet to catch up with the the wonders of online marketing. They are obviously blindly unaware of how efficient it can be, as well as how damaging it may be to their brand.

Here's an example: Google "Crest Mounthwash" and you'll see that results #1 and #2 of the organic search point to the company website (which is very nice), but result #3 is a different story. "Crest Pro Health Mouthwash Turning Customers Teeth Brown" is not the best of marketing. Whatever effort Crest put into their marketing to make me want to Google their product crumbles miserably because of a customer's disatisfaction with their product. Here's the screenshot if you don't believe me:

Here's a free lesson in marketing to Kitchens Direct:
The growth of blogs in the last couple of years have given a voice to individuals to express their opinions side by side with £million brands. These individuals are called "speakers" and their blogs, along with the support of other internet users who share their beliefs, have the power to damage a company's brand (beyond repair in some cases).

And the thing is, speakers don't set out to cause damage. I've seen some research somewhere that shows around 90% speakers will first contact the relevant company and visit their website in the hope of resolving the issue. Unfortunatelly, many large companies such as Kitchens Direct are indifferent to their customer's concerns and their voices are drowned out in endless hours on the phone to call centres. Worse still is the fact that some of these have not caught up with time and don't realise that these unsatisfied customer have a new medium in which their voice is heard - and just as loudly as the company's own marketing - the internet.

Had Kitchens Direct stopped calling me when I asked, I would not have been pushed to the point where I'd take 1 hour of my holy day of rest to write this. More importantly, had they taken the time to review their marketing strategy and considered the side-effects about their called calling, they would have found this page with almost 200 potential customers ranting about them.

Related links:

• "Who Calls Me" page for 0845 055 4454
  
• Kitchens Direct Unsubscribe Page
• Kitchens Direct Website