What People Call Us About

by Gene Franks, Pure Water Products

When we say phone sales at Pure Water Products, we don’t mean telemarketing or cold calling.  All phone work here is incoming. When the phone rings, we answer it and do our best to help the caller, whether he or she wants to buy something, has a complaint, needs help installing or trouble-shooting a product, or just wants information. The only people we call are people who have asked us to call them.

Phone work is the hardest and scariest part of our business, because when the phone rings it can be anyone with any kind of question or problem. People who answer the phone learn quickly that  you can’t know everything and that when you don’t know the answer to a question the best thing to do is say that you don’t know and offer to get the information and call or email back. We say “I don’t know” a lot.

Here are some examples of things we get most questions about–not in order of frequency.

• Removing chloramines from city water.
• The kinds of plastics tubing and filter housings are made of, and don’t we have any made of glass or stainless steel.
• Removing iron, manganese, and/or hydrogen sulfide from well water.
• Removing fluoride and arsenic from water.
• Removing the newer contaminants like GenX.
• Adding minerals to reverse osmosis water.
• What are reverse osmosis tanks made of.
• Something the caller just heard on the news.
• Raising pH of well water and or reverse osmosis water.
• Salt-free “softeners.”
• Spot-free car washing (my own least favorite topic).
• Sizing everything: whole house city water filters, iron filters, water softeners, retention tanks, and a lot more.
• Troubleshooting undersink reverse osmosis. Most frequent question: Why isn’t my RO unit making enough water? And, how often should I change the membrane?
• Pressure drop questions about whole house filters.
• Country of origin of products. (There is much interest now in “made in USA” products, and they’re getting harder and harder to find. “Assembled in USA” is often offered as a substitute.)
• Help in identifying and buying replacement parts.

No, sir, I haven’t seen the video that proves that you can’t live past age 37 without a machine that makes alkaline water. Could you send me a link?

We’re proud that we answer the phone six days a week during Texas business hours and usually a couple of hours after. If you’ve tried calling other internet water treatment sources you know that we’re the exception to the usual. And people also tell us that we’re exceptional in that you can get information from us without a sales pitch.

This is a hard business and we aren’t perfect, but we do our best. Keep in mind that there isn’t a college course about how to answer questions about water treatment, so the staff who answer our phones learn to talk on the phone by talking on the phone. By winging it.  It’s like learning to swim by jumping out of the boat. Also keep in mind that our phone sales people are mainly occupied with office management, website design and maintenance, building products,  managing inventory, keeping records, packing packages, and a lot more. When you call, you’re actually talking with someone involved in the business, not a phone bank person who only knows how to take orders.

So be patient with us. Not a single one of us has a degree in phone sales.