Merchants emailing potential customers with phone numbers.

[T.J.]

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Just looking into car insurance so went to test out a merchants
system.
I filled in my details, etc. got to the quote stage then aborted.
Before I had even left thir site I had an email come through saying

"PHONE US ON ***** IT COULD SAVE YOU POUNDS.."

As I would assume most people shop around rather than buying
immediatly this makes a mockery of cookies and the affiliate who
generates the lead gets nothing out of a phone sale.

Is this common practise?

[matbennett]

I wonder how common this is. When I renewed my own insurance, a couple of companies actually phoned me straight back saying that they would try to beat their own web-quote.

Didn't think much of this at the time (don't *think* that I found them via an affiliate link anyway), but I did go with one of the call backs in the end as they improved significantly on the online quote.

[T.J.]

Originally posted by matbennett
Didn't think much of this at the time (don't *think* that I found them via an affiliate link anyway), but I did go with one of the call backs in the end as they improved significantly on the online quote.

Yes, of course they can be significantly cheaper, they are possibly
pocketing the commission that was due to the affiliate.

I had a 2nd email a couple of hours after the first trying to get be
to ring them for a better price.
If they are doing this to everybody people will be more inclined
to buy over the phone rather than online.

I am going to have a look around at some other companies this
afternoon to see how many others do this.
Any body had it happen to them?