I think Tony Mannock used to get probs with people phoning up for free advice so he started using a higher rate sales line to make back the costs, but I might be wrong there.

If you are doing good business then I can understand why you couldn't compromise your cashflow by spending your time chasing after customers. And if that helps keep your prices down for the other customers then I see nothing wrong with it.

But what if someone else started up doing the same as you and took time to chase customers, respond to emails. Then just ups their costs slightly. They will take customers like this away from you. But then you don't want customers like this because you are doing good business as you are.

It suprises me that you're so shocked though. I run a marketing communications agency which specialised in the engineering sector, a lot of our clients have to bend over backwards to stay competative. Customers these days do expect to be able to send a request to be called back, after all it's a sales lead and beleive me each one is treasured.

There are a lot of customers these days in offices with internet access who are used to emailing businesses like yours and expecting a reply back. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I am find it odd you are so suprised. You can ask send a request for information to any of the large supermarket brands now and they will call you back. Almost all larger companies do this.