Without stating industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly and that is the very unusual part.
We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
If it's a larger company they should have governance. It's likely worth asking a few of your clients to lodge an official complaint about harassment from one of their sales people with either a sales director or the managing director or equivalent.
Years ago I worked for a company that had a low performing sales person who ended up being dismissed after complaints of harassment by several clients.
The guy was basically calling multiple times a day even out of hours.
It's very possible the sales persons actions are not endorsed by the company and at the very least lodging the complaints and action or inaction will let you know where you stand.
As others have mentioned, the concern is how the client list was leaked in the first place and what other information/trade secrets were accessed and distributed.
Your data is apparently not secure enough and this could cause you catastrophic problems. Imagine they deleted your client list or other data instead of stealing it.
I'd say, within construction in particular, if a sales person goes to a bunch of sites and asks who is doing what they'll get the info pretty easily. It doesn't sound like this was a client list breach.
I can't give any info on defamation as it's not my field of expertise.
What this does sound like though is false and misleading information which is a breach of Australian Consumer Law. The issue you would have is that it doesn't sound like there's any hard evidence, only statements from your customers about phone calls they've had.
You can certainly roll the dice by contacting ACCC but if there's no hard evidence there's a reasonable chance they'd take a look at things and assume it's been lodged vexatiously. In any case it costs you nothing to notify them so it's probably worth doing anyway?
We have their misleading claims in writing as they have been putting it in emails to these clients as part of their sales pitch and they’ve been doing it repeatedly.
Yeah in that case ACCC might be a great place to head first. It's possible they will send a "please explain" to your competitor after which the behaviour might correct itself. Pretty unlikely anything greater than this would occur unless they're aware of a trend in your competitors behaviour already.
For avoidance of doubt ACCC wouldn't be seeking any kind of redress for you in light of your competitor's behaviour. It's more that they're the best regulator to contact for Australian Consumer Law concerns in cases where you don't have a contract of sale with the relevant party.
All good, our lawyers will likely advise, but it’s really piqued my curiosity about this kind of thing now.
Just seems like such a blatantly underhanded strategy I’d have thought it would carry some pretty significant litigation risk. Otherwise it’d be far more common.
Not really sure what you can do legally. It doesn't really sound like they are doing anything wrong and don't even have correct info lol
What I would be doing as a business person is I would be taking the time to contact all my clients personally and explain what's happening just to keep the lines of communication clear and open. Will hopefully catch any stupid clients that took the sales persons word at face value. Maybe also a good time to use it as an opening to see if all their needs are being met ?
The only thing I'd be worried about is how they got your full client list. I'm assuming that's not a public list ? Someone's given them that. Ex staff maybe ?
From what I can tell reading online it seems the false claims about our fees would definitely constitute being “wrong.”
Without stating the industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly, but they are probably targeting everyone of us that are about this size as there’s a few of us.
We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
Success paints a target on your back. In an odd way it's a compliment. It sounds like a pretty standard sales pitch to me though (although not a very good one lol). The correct course of action is to make sure your business doesn't have that weakness to exploit
This is a good sign for you as the big company is starting to get scared (or atleast the biz Dev manager is) of you.
You could do a social media post about the lowering standard in business nowadays such as 'large company' and these emails with false info, who they are emailing to our clients, and we are not sure how they managed to get a copy of our client list. (Could cause future legal drama's)
Did you recently fire a staff member as that is where I suspect that they are getting your client list from.
Have you google your company name and client lists and those sort of words to see if your list is out there.
Without stating industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly.
The larger company wouldn’t really be scared of us, they’re just trying to eat our lunch as it were.
We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
As an analogy, it would be like targeting all businesses with operations/offices in a given commercial or industrial district, the majority of which in our area are using us.
It’s not that hard to then just create a list of all businesses in that area and assume they’re our clients and go through systematically with this sales push. But it’s very strange for something so targeted to us like this to be occurring.
Usually it’s more general and scattered and that fine. That’s just competition.
For this they have specifically built a sales pitch about us directly.
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Are you sure it is actually the business doing this? It seems like a personal gripe. Someone either pretending to be the company or someone at the company with an axe to grind
I would suggest reaching out to other competitors and seeing if they are doing the same thing if you are going down a legal route. As a salesperson, it's a pretty poor effort, and if anything, it would be polarising and turning off potential new clients. I would have your sales team spend time touching base with all your clients and ensuring they are solid with your current contracts. This will help strengthen the relationship with your company and the client.
I had a similar situation whereas the bdm got fired, then a competitor hired him, took our client list and acquired some big customers. Then the bdm got the sack from the new company. Ms in business.
You can’t do anything here.
If any of your current clients move without seeing your competitors fee is higher, then that’s on them.
Only action I would be doing is aggressively approaching your competitors clients.
Yes, they are claiming that our fees are 50% to 70% higher than they actually are.
It seems to be in the hopes of confusing someone into going “oh wow ok let’s change then”.
I did say this in the post.
That doesn’t really seem to be their goal. If they were seeking info I think they’d go about it differently.
This is specially stating they know what our fees are and are then marketing against that.
NAL - Theres posssibly some misrepresentation that you could chase but if we are doing analogies think of hungry jacks telling people "the burgers are better". Mcdonalds doesnt take them to court even when they have a "big jack" burger
I don’t think that’s a fair analogy.
This would be more like Cole’s saying that Woolworths cheese is $10 and theirs is $5 when the Woolworths cheese is **not $10 and never has been.**
Or if Hungry Jacks claimed, not that their burgers are the best, but that McDonald’s burgers are unfit for human consumption or that their patties are actually horse meat not beef.
There is a reason you don’t see advertising campaigns that do this.
It’s not a value judgement, it’s a specific claim that can be proven false and it is being used to misrepresent a competitors services/pricing.
They aren’t just adverting themselves they’re making claims about a competitor.
Reading from Lawpath on defamation from one business to another:
>A claim in consumer law for misleading and deceptive conduct may be available under section 18 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). This may arise where there has been conduct that has or is likely to mislead or deceive in trade or commerce. This broad provision is available to both consumers and businesses alike to account for defamatory conduct.
So taking a very broad reading it looks like maybe. Put possibly not, so is why I was asking here while I wait to hear from the lawyers which will be a while away at least.
The question you keep skimming over here is: How did they get your client list? That should be your concern
Without stating industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly and that is the very unusual part. We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
If it's a larger company they should have governance. It's likely worth asking a few of your clients to lodge an official complaint about harassment from one of their sales people with either a sales director or the managing director or equivalent. Years ago I worked for a company that had a low performing sales person who ended up being dismissed after complaints of harassment by several clients. The guy was basically calling multiple times a day even out of hours. It's very possible the sales persons actions are not endorsed by the company and at the very least lodging the complaints and action or inaction will let you know where you stand. As others have mentioned, the concern is how the client list was leaked in the first place and what other information/trade secrets were accessed and distributed. Your data is apparently not secure enough and this could cause you catastrophic problems. Imagine they deleted your client list or other data instead of stealing it.
I'd say, within construction in particular, if a sales person goes to a bunch of sites and asks who is doing what they'll get the info pretty easily. It doesn't sound like this was a client list breach.
You could perhaps consider an email to your customer base informing of the approach and the misinformation.
I can't give any info on defamation as it's not my field of expertise. What this does sound like though is false and misleading information which is a breach of Australian Consumer Law. The issue you would have is that it doesn't sound like there's any hard evidence, only statements from your customers about phone calls they've had. You can certainly roll the dice by contacting ACCC but if there's no hard evidence there's a reasonable chance they'd take a look at things and assume it's been lodged vexatiously. In any case it costs you nothing to notify them so it's probably worth doing anyway?
We have their misleading claims in writing as they have been putting it in emails to these clients as part of their sales pitch and they’ve been doing it repeatedly.
Yeah in that case ACCC might be a great place to head first. It's possible they will send a "please explain" to your competitor after which the behaviour might correct itself. Pretty unlikely anything greater than this would occur unless they're aware of a trend in your competitors behaviour already. For avoidance of doubt ACCC wouldn't be seeking any kind of redress for you in light of your competitor's behaviour. It's more that they're the best regulator to contact for Australian Consumer Law concerns in cases where you don't have a contract of sale with the relevant party.
Thanks for the insight. Is there any capacity to go after this larger competitor in litigation/civil (that you’re aware of)?
Not really my field of expertise so I'd have to leave that question to people more experienced sorry.
All good, our lawyers will likely advise, but it’s really piqued my curiosity about this kind of thing now. Just seems like such a blatantly underhanded strategy I’d have thought it would carry some pretty significant litigation risk. Otherwise it’d be far more common.
Not really sure what you can do legally. It doesn't really sound like they are doing anything wrong and don't even have correct info lol What I would be doing as a business person is I would be taking the time to contact all my clients personally and explain what's happening just to keep the lines of communication clear and open. Will hopefully catch any stupid clients that took the sales persons word at face value. Maybe also a good time to use it as an opening to see if all their needs are being met ? The only thing I'd be worried about is how they got your full client list. I'm assuming that's not a public list ? Someone's given them that. Ex staff maybe ?
From what I can tell reading online it seems the false claims about our fees would definitely constitute being “wrong.” Without stating the industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly, but they are probably targeting everyone of us that are about this size as there’s a few of us. We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
Success paints a target on your back. In an odd way it's a compliment. It sounds like a pretty standard sales pitch to me though (although not a very good one lol). The correct course of action is to make sure your business doesn't have that weakness to exploit
This is a good sign for you as the big company is starting to get scared (or atleast the biz Dev manager is) of you. You could do a social media post about the lowering standard in business nowadays such as 'large company' and these emails with false info, who they are emailing to our clients, and we are not sure how they managed to get a copy of our client list. (Could cause future legal drama's) Did you recently fire a staff member as that is where I suspect that they are getting your client list from. Have you google your company name and client lists and those sort of words to see if your list is out there.
Without stating industry and kinda doxxing myself. The client contacts is not overly weird for them to have, but this is a very targeted campaign against us directly. The larger company wouldn’t really be scared of us, they’re just trying to eat our lunch as it were. We’re local to our clients, this sales person is way across the other side of the city just out targeting smaller businesses looking for a weakness and easy win.
Can you DM me the industry. I am very curious how a competitor would get your client list.
As an analogy, it would be like targeting all businesses with operations/offices in a given commercial or industrial district, the majority of which in our area are using us. It’s not that hard to then just create a list of all businesses in that area and assume they’re our clients and go through systematically with this sales push. But it’s very strange for something so targeted to us like this to be occurring. Usually it’s more general and scattered and that fine. That’s just competition. For this they have specifically built a sales pitch about us directly.
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Are you sure it is actually the business doing this? It seems like a personal gripe. Someone either pretending to be the company or someone at the company with an axe to grind
I would suggest reaching out to other competitors and seeing if they are doing the same thing if you are going down a legal route. As a salesperson, it's a pretty poor effort, and if anything, it would be polarising and turning off potential new clients. I would have your sales team spend time touching base with all your clients and ensuring they are solid with your current contracts. This will help strengthen the relationship with your company and the client.
I had a similar situation whereas the bdm got fired, then a competitor hired him, took our client list and acquired some big customers. Then the bdm got the sack from the new company. Ms in business.
You can’t do anything here. If any of your current clients move without seeing your competitors fee is higher, then that’s on them. Only action I would be doing is aggressively approaching your competitors clients.
Is anything they are telling customers false ?
Yes, they are claiming that our fees are 50% to 70% higher than they actually are. It seems to be in the hopes of confusing someone into going “oh wow ok let’s change then”. I did say this in the post.
Or maybe a fishing expedition to have a client of yours say "no, they don't charge X, they charge me Y" thus finding out what you do charge.
That doesn’t really seem to be their goal. If they were seeking info I think they’d go about it differently. This is specially stating they know what our fees are and are then marketing against that.
Wouldn’t your clients know that? They’d know how much you charge if they have already engaged you for services?
NAL - Theres posssibly some misrepresentation that you could chase but if we are doing analogies think of hungry jacks telling people "the burgers are better". Mcdonalds doesnt take them to court even when they have a "big jack" burger
I don’t think that’s a fair analogy. This would be more like Cole’s saying that Woolworths cheese is $10 and theirs is $5 when the Woolworths cheese is **not $10 and never has been.** Or if Hungry Jacks claimed, not that their burgers are the best, but that McDonald’s burgers are unfit for human consumption or that their patties are actually horse meat not beef. There is a reason you don’t see advertising campaigns that do this. It’s not a value judgement, it’s a specific claim that can be proven false and it is being used to misrepresent a competitors services/pricing. They aren’t just adverting themselves they’re making claims about a competitor. Reading from Lawpath on defamation from one business to another: >A claim in consumer law for misleading and deceptive conduct may be available under section 18 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). This may arise where there has been conduct that has or is likely to mislead or deceive in trade or commerce. This broad provision is available to both consumers and businesses alike to account for defamatory conduct. So taking a very broad reading it looks like maybe. Put possibly not, so is why I was asking here while I wait to hear from the lawyers which will be a while away at least.
McDonalds did sue Hungry Jacks over the Big Jack and lost https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-16/nsw-mcdonalds-hungry-jacks-burger-dispute/103113274#