Window Game

Bang! Bang! Bang! Somebody was pounding on my front door. (This happened last night just before dark.) I went to the front door and two men stood there. They were window salesmen. Ordinarily I would have grabbed my shotgun and ordered them off my property. I didn’t do that, for two reasons. One, I don’t own a shotgun. And two, I’m thinking about buying new windows for my house so I was willing to listen to their spiel.

At some point I asked what their windows would cost me. “We can’t tell you that until we measure your windows.”

“But they’re ordinary casement windows,” I pointed out, “they’re 35 by 48 inches.”

“We have to measure them precisely," one man said.

“You see, our windows are custom made,” the other man added. I looked at him.

“All replacement windows are custom made,” I pointed out.

“Technically that’s true,” he admitted, “but …”

“So you have to come inside my house and measure all the windows before you can give me even a ballpark figure? You can’t tell me if it’s going to be three fifty per window or two fifty per window? There are window companies advertising replacement windows on TV for one eighty nine. There’s a place on the Boulevard that advertises windows for two twenty-five. You can’t give me a number?”

They were adamant that they could not. However, lucky me, there would be an installation guru in my neighborhood in a few days and if I would provide them with my phone number their office would call me and schedule an appointment for window measurement. And the window guru would have a sample window with him.

“If I buy windows I want a local company to do the installation,” I told the guy who seemed to be in charge.

“We’re local,” he said. “Look at this flyer.”

He handed me a flyer and while it showed their address as Virginia Beach, it also listed several other locations including Richmond. Not exactly local, but close enough. I gave them my name and number. They left happy.

I went inside my house and immediately started getting an uneasy feeling about the whole window thing. Things didn’t add up.

I googled the company. They did have a Richmond location, but it was a suite in an office building. It didn’t seem to me like window installers would be working out of an office suite. Wouldn’t they need a place to store windows, parts, tools, materials for trimming the windows, and so on? I suspected the Richmond location was a sales office. What good is that to me? If I have a broken window I want them to send an installer to fix it, not a salesman. But the installers are probably working out of their home base in Virginia Beach. So where the rubber meets the road: not local.

And why did they have to make precise measurements of my windows to tell me the price?  Supposedly they have a lot of experience installing windows in all kinds of homes. Surely they’ve replaced casement windows in a brick-over-block house before. (If they haven’t, I don’t want them to start learning with my house.) And if they have done that job before, why don’t they know what it costs?

Then a thought struck me. Their sales program is designed to get me invested in the sale: they walk around measuring the windows, discussing various models of windows they sell – casement, single hung, double hung, and so on, and the different configurations I can order – for example, do I want “dividers” inside the window to make it look like six small panes instead of one large pane, or do I want one horizontal divider, and so on. This is time consuming but must be done. They’ll have a model window with them and spend some time showing me all the features of their replacement windows (I think they’re called “window systems” now). By the time a person goes through all this to get a quote, most people are probably ready to tell them to go ahead with the installation.

I call that a game. They may think of it as a sales technique. But to me it’s a game. I’m not playing games with these people.

One more thing bothered me. The sales guys said their windows were triple glazed. I have an old house which, despite weather-stripping, has its share of air leaks. The hardwood floor has no insulation under it and gets very cold in winter. The outside walls have no insulation, nor any way to add insulation. Triple glazed windows cost more than double glazed windows and are better at stopping heat loss, but considering all the ways an old house loses heat, will I even see the difference between double and triple glazing? Doubtful. Going from single-glazed to double glazed windows is where I will get maximum heating/cooling savings per dollar spent. Triple glazed windows are overkill for this old house.

All of these factors were on my mind this evening when a woman called to set up an appointment for the window estimator. I told her that I was disappointed that I was unable to get a price out of the salesmen who came to my house the previous night.

“The windows have to be measured,” she began. Déjà vu all over again.

“I’ve ordered replacement windows before,” I told her. “I’ve gotten quotes before. The way it works is: I get quotes, I decide who I want to install the windows, then they measure the windows exactly. When those guys told me I can’t get a price until someone comes inside and precisely measures the windows, they’re playing a game with me.”

“No, it’s just that all our replacement windows are custom made,” she began again.

“All replacement windows are custom made,” I told her. “That’s why you have to measure them so precisely. Now you’re playing a game with me.”

“Have a good week,” she said.

I knew what was coming next and I hit the End Call button. I was a little surprised she gave up so easily. I think these people must work from a script, even if it’s in their heads. Bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. Customer has this objection, answer it this way. Customer has that objection, answer it that way. Scripted, all the way down to getting the customer to sign on the dotted line. But how do you handle a customer who points out that your script is bogus? Abort the call and call the next phone number on the list?

Of course, they could tell the potential customer, “Ok, give us the approximate dimensions of the windows and we’ll get you an approximate window cost.” But I bet these guys are selling some very expensive windows. They know if they tell someone the cost up front, that someone is likely to tell them, “Adiós muchachos.” So they have to come into your home and sell these windows. They have to use incentives (if you buy today, you’ll get fifty percent off the labor!). Only then do they finally reveal the cost of the project.

I guess it works, most of the time.