This is a very interesting problem you're describing, but rest assured, you're not alone in it. In fact, it's not specific to any one country or industry. I know, I know, I start every sentence with "I run a material handling information portal...etc.", but darn it, it's the truth, and it's actually where I get all this industry experience from.

So!

Reasons that have led to this situation:

(Conscious hacker programs embedded in individuals' price quotes): There are a lot of fake, and I mean really convincingly forged, quote requests being created by malicious companies. These are emails that ask for a quote on a forklift, for example, and they ATTACH a description, parameters, what they're looking for. The attachment contains malware.

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are also carried out, scheduled weekly or daily with various time-consuming but potentially lucrative quote requests (this also slows down and makes customer service departments distrustful).

The manufacturer/brand - for statistical reasons (and this is bad practice) - directly refers you to the local dealer, but the local dealer is busy because, for example, they are only a reseller and it's not their main focus.

Poor statistical and business analyses and statistics. The bosses sit down and measure. Which inquiries bring in the most money? The big ones! Which ones don't bring in much profit but take the same amount of time to answer? The small ones!

What's the end result of all this???

Companies use overly strict spam filters, so sometimes they don't even notice that they've tightened things up so much that they consider even a @gmail address a suspicious quote request, even though it might be a legitimate one.

They're burned out, they're in no hurry, they only believe it's you if you contact them a second time, but then they think they didn't leave a good impression on you.

My opinion: CRM systems, unfortunately, are consuming intuitive relationship management, meaning gut feeling. Because that's important.

It's not important to get an email within an hour saying, "Thank you, we received your request," but rather to get a response within 24 hours.

And unfortunately, there's a very, very, very bad habit that I hear about from every country and every place: "Don't reply, it's not important."

This is a mistake!

And to be brief and to the point: "When this phenomenon appears in an industry, it means that the industry has aged! It has become isolated and specialized in a certain target audience, but there is no new entrepreneurial and service provider layer: medium and smaller companies that are still agile, fast, communicative, where the customer, the person, the evaluation, and the quality of service are important."

The business reasons for this: The virus and the war have made things difficult for those who were in the middle or smaller service provider layers.
They either gave up their businesses and went to work for the larger companies mentioned above, or simply became employees.

So the layer that values even the small customer has shrunk, and thus there is no market competition to help retain customers.

I don't know if what I'm writing is this complicated, but if 5 large global companies remain in a region and there are no medium and smaller service providers, then they consider the sale of 20-100 machines to be business. You are not business.

And do you know what that means? It means they don't really need smaller sellers anymore.

So what's the right thing to do in this situation?

Find a company that is an independent dealer.

I hope I haven't written too much nonsense; I've tried my best to translate it into English.

For now, I can only suggest the following:

Call them.

Don't attach documents or images in emails.

Be formal, like a company.

If possible, avoid requesting quotes from free email addresses.

And importantly, use a little sales technique: "If I don't receive a response to my request within 7 days, please consider my request void." - This serves to convey a sense of loss and feedback to the recipient - that is, not responding means losing this business, which is entirely their responsibility. Then, the reader, since they don't want this or won't take responsibility (e.g., a sales assistant), will be forced to contact you.

I'm sorry, but nowadays, even those requesting quotes need to have some self-defense, commercial, and minimal sales experience.

Most companies are already burned out. You need to rekindle their interest, like, "Hey, you might be tired of what you're doing, but I'm not, and I want to work!"

Maybe I've given you some good ideas!

Just get a quote from the local distributors. Been that way since Hector was a pup. The only direct sales is if one is a qualified National Account (fleet users).
Heck I can't buy a new car/pick-up or suv directly from the manufacturer either - gotta go to the dealer. Same for a riding lawn mower. or a farm tractor
Life is just not fair - get used to it.
BTW - Started in the F/L business Dec. ' 67, that's the way it was back then. The. local dealer often will often suggest added features that will make your operation more productive, safer or features that reduces maintenance costs,, programs, services , finance options etc, etc after a survey of your operation.

Good afternoon we see this all the time folks put requested out electronically and because they are so busy and don't want to talk with a rep. Pls Google forklift dealers in my area call 4-5 of them and ask for sales dept and get 2-3 reps to come see you and confirm what you need. When you take delivery, you will be so much happier. OEM's are never going to call you back they deal primarily with national accounts not smaller businesses. If you were in Georgia, we would help you. Good luck.