Do you take orders via the telephone?
Yes. As of June 1997 Kagi has started accepting orders via telephone.At present we are not promoting the service because we want to spend a month troubleshooting logic flaws in the order entry process. We are programming people and they are not as predictable as computers but certainly more adaptable.
The main Kagi telephone number is +1 (510) 658-5244. When someone calls that number they reach an audiotext system that gives them choices that can be selected with a touchtone telephone. The system provides answers to common questions and if they wish to place an order it will transfer their telephone call to an answering service.
The answering service will take their order. There is a telephone order handling charge of $5. The order gets transferred to Kagi electronically and processed like any other order. The telephone order charge includes an automatic postcard receipt just in case they do not know their correct email address.
The purchaser receives registration codes (if appropriate) in the normal ways; email, postcard.
We are not using a toll free number for two reasons; we offer plenty of no cost purchasing options and, it didn't make sense to accept a toll free call and then to charge the caller. Not offering a toll free number sends the correct message to the purchaser, we can take your order via telephone but we would prefer that you use less labor intensive payment methods. Most people who order via telephone seem to do so because they are prohibited from sending their company credit card via the internet or postal mail.
The order entry people are working with a subset of the main Kagi database. Because of this, not all new products are listed in their database. Here is how products flow into their database. Each month when we process payments to our clients, we examine all the past month's transactions and look at the prices charged for each product purchased. The price is stored and the date of the last purchase is stored. If a product was sold in the last six months and it has a price, we include it in the database subset that goes to the order entry people. This update process happens once a month.
To add a product into their database sooner, you must "purchase" it using a test registration and then once we have added it into the database, you need to ask admin@kagi.com to add the price into the database and to send a updated database to the order entry people. Yes this is not very automated and yes we will make it more automated but for now this is how you get a new product in the database used by the telephone order entry people.
Modification Date: Sunday, June 15, 1997