Cheesy Tesla Sales Call - to "make sure I'm on the right electric rate plan"

[goldengate]

I just received a call on my mobile from someone who works at the local Tesla showroom who said he wanted a copy of my most recent electric bill (among other things) to make sure I am on the correct rate plan. I knew he was selling something and asked if he was selling the battery wall, to which he said "no, those are sold out for at least 6 months".... he was a fast talker and moments after hanging up I received an automated email setting up a call with him or another sales advisor next week. When I googled the phone number SolarCity came up and I realized he was probably trying to sell me solar... which I ALREADY HAVE.

It was gross and I felt "below the brand." Tesla doesn't sell, they create demand and we come running.

Sharing as I didn't see any other threads on this and was curious what others thought of this.

 

[ℬête Noire]

I just received a call on my mobile from someone who works at the local Tesla showroom who said he wanted a copy of my most recent electric bill (among other things) to make sure I am on the correct rate plan. I knew he was selling something and asked if he was selling the battery wall, to which he said "no, those are sold out for at least 6 months".... he was a fast talker and moments after hanging up I received an automated email setting up a call with him or another sales advisor next week. When I googled the phone number SolarCity came up and I realized he was probably trying to sell me solar... which I ALREADY HAVE.

It was gross and I felt "below the brand." Tesla doesn't sell, they create demand and we come running.

Sharing as I didn't see any other threads on this and was curious what others thought of this.

1) Ick.
2) Jealous that you're in a zip code they cover while I'm still outside so can't buy the Powerwall 2 I've wanted to for coming on a year now....although according to him they're seriously backlogged now?

 

[woodisgood]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of incentive for Tesla employees to kick some referrals over to solar. When we went on a M3 test drive, our test drive employee was really excited to chat solar with us - much more so than Tesla vehicles. Had to end that line of inquiry by saying we weren't currently interested but maybe in the future. When we got home delivery of our M3, our delivery specialist also was inquiring if we were interested and whether she could provide our contact info to their solar people. Again, maybe in a few years when we re-roof but not right now.

Seemed to be a bit more than small talk. *shrug*

 

[Jedi2155]

I may have heard something along the lines as well. Been to the show room a few times and they constantly try to sell me on solar. I'm expecting a reroof in the next 5 to 10 years so I'd be interested in the solar tiles around that time frame too....or sell my house and buy a roadster to sleep out of lol.

 

[KarenRei]

IMHO nothing wrong with trying to upsell people to solar at times when they're meeting in person (showroom, delivery, service, etc), when you're already chatting with them. But phone calls? Yeah, that's crass.

 

[Gavyne]

These poor guys are just doing their jobs... Tesla is known for the car company that won't have sales people hovering over your shoulders. But it's known that they are trying to push solar to existing clients (people who are taking/took delivery).

I don't think you should feel weird or below the brand due to this phone call. You could've always just said "I have solar, no thank you".

 

[ebmcs03]

They tried that on me. I told them i charge at work. And don’t need solar. Bye.

 

[goldengate]

These poor guys are just doing their jobs... Tesla is known for the car company that won't have sales people hovering over your shoulders. But it's known that they are trying to push solar to existing clients (people who are taking/took delivery).

I don't think you should feel weird or below the brand due to this phone call. You could've always just said "I have solar, no thank you".

No I couldn't... because he never told me that's what he was selling. The entire phone call and follow up email he insisted that he 's just trying to make sure I'm on the right rate plan (I am). It wasn't until I googled the "cancel this meeting" phone number -- yes, he set up a phone meeting with me next week -- that I figured out it was solar. If he had just said "I'm calling to see how you're liking your Model 3, and oh by the way can I take a few minutes to talk about solar" I would have been totally cool with that. And I actually AM interested in the power wall down the road but he said "Oh I couldn't sell that if I wanted to... it's the same battery as the model 3 and you know where those are all going right now."

ick.

 

[KarenRei]

"Oh I couldn't sell that if I wanted to... it's the same battery as the model 3 and you know where those are all going right now."

Well, he was right about that. That's been discussed in the investor calls; Model 3 has basically been robbing Powerwall production of its cells. Powerwall production should uncork later this year as Panasonic is working on an upgrade to increase giga's cell production by 30%.

 

[ℬête Noire]

These poor guys are just doing their jobs... Tesla is known for the car company that won't have sales people hovering over your shoulders. But it's known that they are trying to push solar to existing clients (people who are taking/took delivery).

I don't think you should feel weird or below the brand due to this phone call. You could've always just said "I have solar, no thank you".

The BS "give me your power bill so I can tell if you're on the right plan" line is some seriously shady sugar. You want to make your pitch? Go ahead, straight up. Don't weasel like that.

 

[mspohr]

I just received a call on my mobile from someone who works at the local Tesla showroom who said he wanted a copy of my most recent electric bill (among other things) to make sure I am on the correct rate plan. I knew he was selling something and asked if he was selling the battery wall, to which he said "no, those are sold out for at least 6 months".... he was a fast talker and moments after hanging up I received an automated email setting up a call with him or another sales advisor next week. When I googled the phone number SolarCity came up and I realized he was probably trying to sell me solar... which I ALREADY HAVE.

It was gross and I felt "below the brand." Tesla doesn't sell, they create demand and we come running.

Sharing as I didn't see any other threads on this and was curious what others thought of this.

OMG! Tesla is actually trying to sell solar! They're probably going bankwupt soon and this is a last ditch effort.
I hope you realize that you can just say "no, not interested".

 

[daniel]

Weird. I once emailed them to ask about solar because I'm thinking of maybe moving to Maui. (No decision yet, but leaning toward it.) I never heard back from them. If I end up buying a place that doesn't already have solar I'd probably have to get the Powerwall also, because the grid is fully subscribed for grid-tied solar and there's a long waiting list. So many people in Maui have solar that the grid cannot accept any more. Apparently if you get solar plus the Powerwall it's no longer financially advantageous vs just grid power, but I'd do it out of principle.

 

[xav-]

OMG! Tesla is actually trying to sell solar! They're probably going bankwupt soon and this is a last ditch effort.
I hope you realize that you can just say "no, not interested".

The irony is Solarcity was headed right into bankruptcy, which is precisely why it was bailed out by Tesla. Their bonds were not yielding 20 percent for no reason.

 

[ebmcs03]

The irony is Solarcity was headed right into bankruptcy, which is precisely why it was bailed out by Tesla. Their bonds were not yielding 20 percent for no reason.

Someone’s going to need to bail out tesla.

I want a powerwall to charge up off the electricity grid at cheap rate. Then use it while it’s high rate haha.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Their bonds were not yielding 20 percent for no reason.

The prime reason is they were under attack by the FUD spinning short machine. The way they were structured was their business model basically made them a bank lender that based their consumer loans around solar panels. The business itself was fairly meh, marginal. However that sort of business is fairly portrayable as "normal business in terminal levels of debt". Sure digging into the fundamentals with a lot of concentrated effort a competent person can see past that but the fact of the matter is that in the face of an enormous, unrelenting wall of lies a disturbingly large slice of investors and the financial world "ain't got time for that".

It's the same thing that happened with Fairfax a decade or so back. Targeted by mostly the same group of people and entities. Industrial scale rumourmongering to make a living off the damage you do to other people's legit business, hell of a line of work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[SDKoala]

The aggressive sales tactics for SolarCity and now Tesla's solar division are the worst. I've never been called, but I hate walking into The Home Depot when they are there because within minutes, one of them will be right on you and start pitching. They don't take "no" and "not interested" for an answer and I've had them actually follow me down the aisle, still trying to sell after walking away from them. The only thing that used to shut them down right away is saying I already have solar, but now they even have a scripted response for that and start talking about upgrading for future needs.

 

[SMAlset]

I detest all the unsolicited phone calls I get now at home and on my cell. Don't recognize the number, don't pick up. If they want to leave a message I might listen and delete but not before blocking the number. On a Do Not Call List but doesn't seem to matter to the people in our gov't who oversee this kind of stuff.

I'm kind of shocked to hear that the solar panel division would be making cold calls like that. One thing if you were in the showroom and asked to be contacted later for updates on the product. If you were there for the cars and cold called from that list, not appropriate in my mind.

 

[daniel]

... On a Do Not Call List but doesn't seem to matter to the people in our gov't who oversee this kind of stuff.

It's impossible to enforce the Do Not Call list nowadays because the callers can hide their location and even spoof the "from" number so that nobody can tell where they're really calling from. And they're probably calling from another country anyway, where our government is powerless to do anything.

The real problem is with the phone system that lacks any sort of way of verifying the actual originating phone.

 

[mspohr]

It's impossible to enforce the Do Not Call list nowadays because the callers can hide their location and even spoof the "from" number so that nobody can tell where they're really calling from. And they're probably calling from another country anyway, where our government is powerless to do anything.

The real problem is with the phone system that lacks any sort of way of verifying the actual originating phone.

The phone companies could verify the originating number rather than just pass on whatever they are given. However, that would cost them time and effort and would reduce the number of calls costing them money.

 

[daniel]

The phone companies could verify the originating number rather than just pass on whatever they are given. However, that would cost them time and effort and would reduce the number of calls costing them money.

I'm not a phone IT tech, but I suspect that they cannot do this with the present telephone protocols. They would need to change the way the whole phone system works. The phone system, like the email system, was designed at a time when nobody had thought that anybody would be spoofing the "from" address/number.