Do Vendors Want Your Business?
June 7, 2000
by Eric Svetcov
Certainly the question appears ridiculous. The answer should be an unqualified and resounding YES!!! Sometimes, though, there are days when you wonder if it really is worth the trouble to deal with a particular vendor or if it’s just time to take a nice long vacation in Hawaii.
Over the past few days I have wondered about this more than once when a single individual in the accounting department of a major computer system reseller in the midwest made my life more difficult than it ever needs to be.
A few weeks ago I decided to purchase a few AMD Athlon based systems to determine if it’s worth making them my new corporate standard (see my previous article, Is IT ready for AMD?) . During the course of my evaluation, I began to look for reputable vendors who were shipping Athlon systems. I looked at some of the very largest AMD vendors and some of the smaller vendors who rarely do business with corporate customers. I settled on Midwest Micro, a mid-size vendor with a good reputation, reasonable prices and the flexibility of configurations that I require on my systems. I even lucked into a responsive and friendly sales rep there, Brent Shanahan, a person I would recommend to anyone in our industry (call him at 1-800-871-9133 x5065 or e-mail bshanahan@mwmicro.com.....and no, I don’t get a kickback).
Unfortunately, my pleasant experience with Midwest Micro ended when I had to begin dealing with their Accounting Department.
Before I made my first order, I went ahead and submitted a net 30 account application. I sent Midwest Micro my bank references and vendor references and the various other pieces of information that they require in order to set a company up on terms. Shortly thereafter, I placed my order. So far, so good.
The next day, I gave Brent a call and asked him how things were progressing and did he receive my order. He indicated that he had received the order, but that the accounting department had not processed my order because they had not completed processing our account application. That bothered me because I actually was (and still am) kinda interested in getting those system in house because I have new employees starting soon (doesn’t everyone). At that point I asked him what options I had for getting the systems into production so that they could ship when the processing was complete. He said that we could process the order as COD (cash on delivery) or use a credit card.
Well, seeing as I didn’t really want a 3 computer purchase on my credit card and I didn’t want to run over to our finance group for a credit card (OK, I confess, I’m lazy at times), I told him to go ahead and process the order as COD knowing full well that I would not have them ship it COD, but rather hoping to get the system into production and turn it into a Net 30 order once accounting cleared our account.
Brent went ahead and processed the order as COD and I went home for the weekend in a blissful state of ignorance to the trials that faced me come Monday.
Late in the afternoon Monday I received a call from the Accounting department at Midwest Micro on my voicemail asking me to give them a call. I immediately complied and returned the call. I was told by the individual on the other end of the line that in order to complete a COD order, they needed to have a copy of a utility bill at our address in order to send the order. On the face of it, this request doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable, except that we are subleasing office space and none of the utilities are in our name. And the accounting person at Midwest Micro was completely unwilling to accept any alternative method for determining that we actually were a company where we said we were located (for instance during the Net 30 approval process they had already contacted and received verification of our banking information at our current address).
This isn’t too big a deal, I told her that I would have no problem grabbing the company credit card and processing the order on that. I ran down to Finance, grabbed the company credit card and returned to my phone call. I was asked the typical things one would be asked and then came to the name on the credit card. The name field has our VP of Finance’s name and our company name. And she immediately was bent out of shape that my name wasn’t on the credit card. I tried to rationally mention that it doesn’t matter whose name is on the credit card, since she wouldn’t know if the person I put on the phone was the VP of Finance or not. So what was the point. And this is when things went downhill quite rapidly.
There was nothing that I or anyone could say to this lady that would convince her that the credit card actually belonged to someone at our company regardless of whether it was the VP of Finance or the janitor speaking to her on the phone. After more than a few minutes of going back and forth about the various incredibly asinine reasons that I couldn’t have my COD order or use a corporate credit card I finally gave up.
I broke down and told her to go ahead and I would use my own credit card. I gave her all of the information and told her to go ahead and phone my bank and to call me immediately if there were any problems. She indicated that she would call my bank and give me a call if there was a problem.
I waited patiently by the phone for the next three hours, hoping that no call would come in. I went home assuming that all was well.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Around Noon the following day I decided to call the folks at Midwest Micro to see how things were going. I called the accounting department and asked if my systems were now in production. I was told they weren’t. This irked me and I asked why. The lady I was speaking with couldn’t tell me and after having me on hold for about 15 minutes was still not able to tell me and asked if she could hang up and find out what the situation was.
About 30 minutes later the person from the night before indicated that she had called the billing account number for my credit card (my home number) and left a message on the answering machine with instructions on how to proceed with my order. I told her that since she left the message after I left for work, would it be possible for her to tell me what she wanted me to do. And she indicated with just a hint of glee that she wouldn’t. She indicated that I would just have to go home and find out what the instructions were to get the systems released for manufacturing.
I explained that I was at work and that I couldn’t take an hour out of my day to drive home simply to answer a question that I could answer right now and even if I left to get the message, by the time I got home, Midwest Micro would be closed (it was near the end of their day out in the eastern time zone).
And so, another day was wasted. Could she have left me the message the night before....absolutely, but I’m convinced she had more fun waiting until she knew I had left for work to call and leave the message on my home machine.
So, what is the moral of the story? I guess I would suggest that you only work with your sales rep. If the accounting group calls, have your sales rep talk to them. I won’t ever again speak with a person in the Midwest Micro accounting department. If they are interested in speaking with me, they can work through my single point of contact - Brent Shanahan. At least I know for certain that he is interested in my business.....just like any good sales rep should be.