Business Contract, Cooling Off Periods, Buyers Rights

seclanmorgan

I have been working in the office of a client for the past 4 weeks, I am sitting behind the sales team. They sell software that allows take away business to take orders online. It's sold in a number of countries around the world. Most sales take place over the phone, the takeaway business pays 1 or 2k signs up for a year or 2.

The salesperson gives them access to the system before (10-day trial) then they pay, In reality, a lot of people seem to buy without seeing when they get access to the trial they need to set it up for that individual take away. There is instructions online, although customers are not really told: “ go to this webpage and set the system up to make sure you're happy with it”. Last week I heard 2 sales guys speaking, one was complaining that a customer was asking for a contract before he paid and the other commiserated with him and told him about a customer he sold to who was annoying him looking for a receipt. Since then I have also heard a customer ask for a refund, to which he was told “it wasn’t company policy to issue refunds”.

I am guessing because there is no written contract the contract is the conversations with the salesperson. I have been paying more attention to them since I have overheard the above and I have never heard them mention anything to potential customers about no refund.

I have never worked in sales and am the first to say I have little knowledge in this area. But this made me think of the legality of this sales process. I was looking at the distance selling laws but came to the conclusion they would not apply as this would be classed as a business to business sale.

I would welcome your opinions on this

nuac

Mod
I have some difficulty in following this.

I para 2 what exactly is being sold and how is it delivered?

seclanmorgan

Thanks for replying, the product that they are selling is use of their software. When i say use I mean its on demand/web based so the customer pays for say 1 year and they get access to use the software. The customers are food take away business, so when they set up the software they can take online orders and payments.

Carawaystick

Ah, I thought this thread was going to be about distance selling and the cooling off period to return stuff consumers order over the internet or phone.

I presume there's a get out for the sellers of ready to eat meals?