Why don't price callers buy?

Give the price, then a reason to come

The phone rings while your rep is showing someone a bike on the shop floor. "Hi, how much is the City 5?" "2,490 euros." "Okay, thanks." "You're welcome." Twenty seconds later your rep is back with the customer in the shop, and nobody will ever know whether that caller came in.

When your reps take inbound sales calls between customers, a twenty-second answer is the easy one, and many teams have stopped expecting more. They file these as price shopper calls and move on.

Listen to that caller again, though. Someone who phones about one particular model has often picked it already and is calling two or three shops to decide where to buy it. That call ended at the price because nobody gave the caller a reason to come or a day and a time, and nobody asked for a name.

So give the price straight away, the same price as on the tag in the shop, and keep the call going. Ask one question about the caller, give a reason to come that the phone cannot give, agree a day and a time, and take a name and a number. A caller who is not ready gets a callback at a set day and time. The call runs about a minute and a half instead of twenty seconds, and you end it knowing who is coming, or when to call them back.

Why do people call to ask the price?

Before people ring to ask what the City 5 costs, they have often read about it, tried a friend's or seen the price on your website.

They call anyway, because a website cannot tell them whether the bike is in stock in their size, whether that is really the price or the shop has a better offer, and whether they can try it first. Nor can it tell them whether yours is a shop they would buy from at all.

You are also not the only shop they call. Asking "How much is it?" commits them to nothing, so they ask it of every shop on their list, and a price call nobody answers goes to the next shop. Our post on what missed calls really cost looks at that side.

Where do your price calls end?

Take [shop], which sells e-bikes online and from two shops, both managed by Paul. [shop], its people, the sheet, the counts and the eight weeks in this post are an example, not real data. Paul's reps answer the phone in between serving customers on the shop floor, and the two shops get about 30 price calls a week.

Paul suspected that most of those calls led nowhere, but nobody had ever counted. So for four weeks the reps noted every price call on a sheet: what the caller asked, whether they had already seen the price on the website, and how the call ended. The shops, the team and the prices stayed the same for all eight weeks, with no campaign running.

The sheet had four endings. In two of them the shop got no name: the rep gave the price and the caller said thanks ("Price, then thanks"), or the rep held the price back and asked the caller to come in ("Price dodged"). The other two ended with a name and a number, and a day and a time either to visit the shop ("Visit booked") or for the shop to call back ("Callback set").

That makes 80 of the 120 calls with nothing agreed, 61 with a price and a thanks and 19 with the price dodged. None of those 80 callers left a name, so Paul cannot tell whether any of them came in later, and nobody can call them back.

Of the 28 callers who booked a visit, 17 came to the shop and 9 of them bought an e-bike.

Of the 120 callers, 74 said they had already seen the price on the website. After the price, callers asked about stock, a test ride and whether the shop had a better offer.

Why not hold the price back?

Some reps learn to hold the price back, hoping the caller will come in to hear it. "It depends, best to come in and we'll go through it" is the answer behind the 19 calls marked "Price dodged" on Paul's sheet.

What the caller hears is a price someone is hiding. Another shop will tell them the number on the phone, so they ring that shop instead. None of the 19 callers on Paul's sheet left a name.

The rep who says the number and nothing else loses the caller too, only more politely. The caller hears what the website already told them, says thanks and asks somewhere else.

What comes after the price?

Eva, one of Paul's reps, took this price call.

Caller: "Hi, how much is the City 5?"

Eva: "The City 5 is 2,490 euros, and that's the price in the shop too. Is it mostly for getting to work?"

Caller: "Yes, to work. It's about 12 kilometers each way."

Eva: "That's an easy distance for the City 5. The frame size matters more than people expect, and ten minutes on a test ride will tell you which one fits. We have every frame size in the shop. Could you come in on Thursday after work? We're open until 19:00."

Caller: "Thursday at 18:00 could work. Can you do anything on the price?"

Eva: "I'd rather talk about that with you here in the shop. And if you bring your old bike, we can look at it while you ride."

Caller: "Okay."

Eva: "Thursday at 18:00, then. Who should I tell the team to expect?"

Caller: "David Weber."

Eva: "And a number in case anything changes?"

He gives her his mobile number.

Eva: "Thanks, David. Thursday at 18:00, with a City 5 ready for a test ride. I'll send you the address by text."

Both calls start with the same dozen seconds on the price, and everything that brings David to the shop happens in the minute or so after that.

Before she suggests a visit, Eva asks one question about what David needs: what the bike is for. A list of such questions would turn the call into a form. His answer, 12 kilometers each way to work, tells her the City 5 suits him and that he will ride it long enough each day for the frame size to matter.

The reason to come follows from that answer, and the phone cannot give it to him. Only in the shop can he ride the bike for ten minutes, find the frame size that fits and have his old bike looked at while he rides.

When he asks whether she can do anything on the price, Eva leaves that for the shop. Whatever room [shop] has on price belongs there, with the bike in front of him. A discount given on the phone becomes the price David takes to the next shop, and all the next shop has to do is beat it.

She asks for his name and number last, once the day and the time are settled, so the team knows who to expect on Thursday at 18:00 and can call David if plans change on either side.

Some callers are not ready to pick a day. When someone says "I'm still comparing", give them a set time for a callback instead: "Of course. Can I call you on Monday at 10:00, once you've had a look around? Who should I ask for?" Then take the name and the number.

What if the price depends?

The City 5 also comes with a larger battery. When a caller asks which battery to get, Eva gives both prices in one sentence and then asks the question that decides it: "It's 2,490 euros with the standard battery and 2,790 euros with the larger one. How far do you ride in a day?"

A trade-in cannot be priced on the phone, because what an old bike is worth depends on its condition. Eva gives the price of the new bike and says the old one will be valued in the shop, during the test ride.

Either way, the price she gives on the phone is the price on the tag, and any offer comes off that price in the shop. Leave out a "from" price for a version the caller did not ask about, or the real price will feel like a rise when they walk in.

If you sell to businesses by the unit, give the price at your most common order size and ask how many they need. When the price needs a written quote, say when it will arrive; our post on why quotes go unanswered covers what comes next.

What changed after four weeks?

Paul went through the sheet with the team. For the next four weeks, every rep answered every price call the way Eva answered David, with a callback at a set time for callers who were not ready, and kept the same sheet.

In the table "Four weeks before and after", "Came to the shop" and "Bought" follow only the callers who booked a visit: how many of them came in, and how many of those bought an e-bike. Callbacks are counted when they were set, whatever came of them later.

Calls with nothing agreed fell from 80 of 120 to 26 of 116. Visits booked went from 28 to 63, more than twice as many, and callbacks set from 12 to 27.

The extra visits were not weaker visits. About six in ten booked visits happened in both periods, 17 of 28 and then 38 of 63. Of those who came in, 19 bought an e-bike in the next four weeks against 9 in the first four: ten more e-bikes from the same team at the same prices.

These counts include only callers who left a name. A caller who said thanks and walked in a week later is in neither period's counts.

The booked visits that did not happen, 11 of 28 and then 25 of 63, are a separate problem with its own answer, a reminder before the visit. Our post on when to send an appointment reminder covers it.

Where does DRING come in?

A DRING agent can answer price calls while your reps are with customers on the shop floor. It greets the caller as your AI assistant, then searches your price list mid-call and answers from what it finds, not from memory. From there it finds out what the caller needs, checks real availability in Google Calendar, offers open slots and books the visit while the caller is still on the line. The confirmation goes out by SMS or WhatsApp right away.

A caller who wants to talk to a person is handed to a rep with the conversation context attached, so they do not have to repeat anything. If nobody is free, the agent takes the name, the reason and a callback number, and sends the message to the right person by SMS or email as the call ends. Every call closes with its outcome, reason, sentiment and next step.