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If I Could Reach Through the T1 Line and Strangle You...

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  • If I Could Reach Through the T1 Line and Strangle You...

    I know I haven't been around much lately. We've been busy and work's been kicking my ass to the point where I don't even want to think about it when I'm not there.

    Not that being busy is a bad thing...

    Anyway there's this one newish reseller in Europe who pulled enough annoying stunts that he's earned a thread.

    Holding a Customer Hostage and Blaming Us

    The first stunt was when he trying to help a customer activate who was behind a fire wall and couldn't activate by internet. Our communications were all by email.

    He insisted on acting as go-between because it's "good" customer service. That's not normally a problem. But...

    1. I'd ask for information I needed and send detailed instructions to get that information from the customer.

    2. I wouldn't hear from him for weeks. And instead of supplying the required information I'd requested he giving me grief that it was taking so long and the customer was very upset.

    3. Repeat 1. and 2.

    It ended up taking three months to get a task accomplished that could have been done in less than an hour if he'd actually cared to help his customer follow directions.

    I don't know if he thought I could magically do something without that information (I couldn't) if he made enough fuss or if he was trying to impress the customer by acting tough.

    Passing the Buck Attempted...And Failed

    The next time he was somewhat hostile right out of the gate and stated that he hoped we'd be more helpful than the last time.

    Oh, hell no.

    My response to that was a little more blunt:

    "We have dozens of dealers and thousands of customers who activate by email due to fire walls or lack of an internet connection. The usual turnaround time is less than one business day, often less. How seamless the process is depends on following my directions and responding with the correct [information] in a timely manner. The time frame in which you do that is completely up to you."

    To my surprise he sent the information right away and I generated a code from it and sent it back within an hour.

    Unfortunately he'd sent the WRONG INFORMATION and the code I generated from it didn't work. I didn't hear of this for four weeks when he again sent a nasty gram blaming us for the problem. And it took another two cycles where he kept sending the exact same wrong information and demanding I send back a working code RIGHT NOAW!

    Which just isn't possible. Period.

    I got through to him again by pushing back:

    "You have sent me that same incorrect and expired [information] on [date], [date], and [date]. As I have explained to you repeatedly I need the new, correct [information] in order to generate a code that will work.

    But, since you insist I send you a code today, I will. The code, which is 100% guaranteed not to work, is:

    [same code I'd already sent him the first time]

    When you have tried it and found it not to work, please do come back to me with the new, correct [information] and I'll be happy to generate a code from it that should work."

    I did clear it with Mark before sending. He laughed and said to go ahead. Apparently he'd been butting heads with this same dealer on the sales front and was fed up with them.

    That message got through. He tried the code. Found it didn't work as promised and finally sent me the correct information. He was an asshole about it, but the customer was finally up and running.

    I couldn't figure out his motive. Why would he choose to be obstructive and lie to his customers? He doesn't make himself look very good by recommending our product to them, taking their money, and then trashing our product and us like that. He just ends up looking foolish and making his customers upset.
    The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

    The stupid is strong with this one.

  • #2
    Quoth Dips View Post
    He just ends up looking foolish and making his customers upset.
    No he doesn't. He puts the blame all on you with the customer. Are you able to contact his customer directly? If so, you might want to send an explanation of the REAL story.
    Last edited by Dave1982; 05-08-2014, 03:56 PM. Reason: please use QUOTE tags when quoting
    "All I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who out-drew ya"

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    • #3
      I am curious about this "wrong information". Is it from the wrong machine? I am wondering if he is trying to get two activation codes out of you.
      Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
      Save the Ales!
      Toys for Tots at Rooster's Cafe

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      • #4
        Quoth csquared View Post
        I am wondering if he is trying to get two activation codes out of you.
        Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by sheer stupidity.

        Sheldon - I'm guessing Middleman looks foolish because he recommended Dip's software (and sold it) in the first place and now it looks like it's tough to start/maintain.

        Dips, nice to see you back, even if just for this cretin. Although I do my best to follow rule two and never try to parse sucktomer logic, this one was intriguing enough that I had to try, but I came up empty. I just can't see any way for Middleman to profit by this. Hence my quote to csquared.

        Comment


        • #5
          Maybe he charges the customer by the hour?
          "Redheads have at least a 95% chance of being gorgeous. They're also concentrated evil." - Irv

          "This is all strange, uncharted territory and your hamster only has three legs." - Gravekeeper

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          • #6
            Let me guess: this guy is in Latin/South America.

            Why do I guess that? Because this is exactly what our Latin and South American resellers do to us all the time. It's got to be a cultural thing. I never have this problem with customers from any other region. They take days, sometimes over a week, to respond, and then suddenly everything's URGENT MUST BE FIXED PLEASE YOUR SUPPORT NOW! ....and then the cycle starts over again.

            Now though, we have a policy of not letting cases sit around like that. Three days, ping the customer. Another three days, ping them again. Another three? Case closed.
            Supporting the idiots charged with protecting your personal information.

            Comment


            • #7
              But Wait, There's More

              But That's...Work!

              I mentioned that Mark had butted heads with this guy who I'm now calling Butthead.

              Butthead had purchased five one-user licenses and found out that one 5-user license costs less. So he wanted to return them and buy a 5-user license. There was one problem. The five one-user licenses had already been sold...to 5 different people/organizations. And only one person/organization may possess a 5-user license. Mark explained this to Butthead who said that all 5 people/organizations were all affiliated with one organization, who would be the licensee for the 5-user license.

              So Mark explained that these steps would need to be taken for the deal to work:

              1. All of the people who had purchased and registered the one-user licenses would need to remove the product from their machines. This is ALWAYS done when someone returns a license either for a trade in or a return for a refund. We process these all the time.

              2. We would need full contact information for whoever was going to posses sole rights to the subsequent 5-user license. This was purely to cover our ass and to ensure that the dealer wasn't planning to sell one license to 5 different people/organizations. For some reason Mark got suspicious and wanted to make sure of that.

              3. All of the people/organizations who had purchased and registered the one-user licenses would need to fax signed letters permitting us transfer their license rights permanently to the organization who would possess the 5-user license. This is also normal. While our licenses are transferable we certainly are not going to honor a license transfer without permission from the person on record who has the rights to the license.


              The reaction Mark got was way over the top. You'd think he'd asked Butthead to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. It was "ridiculous!" "Impossible!" "[We] couldn't possibly expect customers to go through ALL THAT!"

              OK, then Butthead could skip all that work and pay full price for a 5-user license without a trade in credit. The choices are Pay More and Do Less Work OR Pay Less and Do More Work.

              Butthead's response was to go to three other employees to get around Mark. They merely copied and pasted the same information back to Butthead that Mark had helpfully cc'd them.

              True to form, Butthead waited 6 weeks after that, then tried again. He claimed nobody had answered him and he was still waiting. So Mark copy/pasted the same thing with apologies that Butthead's email filters must have blocked it.

              A few weeks later Butthead tried again only enough time had passed that the 5 one-user licenses were no longer eligible for trade in. So we gave him a full-price quote for a new 5-user license without a trade-in credit as the ONLY available choice.

              Now I See What He's Up To!

              The next time I helped Butthead he was being typical Butthead. But I had learned to keep it simple and blunt to avoid wasting my time.

              Butthead starting hinting that activation was far too arduous for his customers who were behind a fire wall. He dropped hints that he wanted something without copy protection.

              Right. That's not going to happen. At all. Ever. Especially when we're talking about a handful of users at best. Anyone who would even propose such a thing should expect to be spending upwards of $100,000 for us to even think about maybe considering it as a remote possibility.

              So I just told him that his customers were no different than the many thousands of other customers who worked behind firewalls or didn't even have a web connection. And that, if he was asking for a version without copy protection, that was never going to happen.

              So what about a different way to install?

              I sent him the link that I send to all customers who ask that. It lists every supported installation method.

              Butthead says, "Well, what about this way?"

              I don't play "what about" games. I told him if it wasn't in that link, it was not supported. If he wanted another installation method we could discuss drawing up a contract to hire us to program a custom version. $3000 retainer up front before we would even discuss specs.

              He finally dropped it after that.

              Mark says that he thinks Butthead made promises in a bid without checking with us that it could be delivered. That's probably why he's playing games.
              The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

              The stupid is strong with this one.

              Comment


              • #8
                When a reseller stands in the way of getting a purchaser of your product up and running (and I'm assuming blames you for the delay), it gives the customer a bad impression of your product and company. Why doesn't the company protect its reputation by dropping these incompetent/shady resellers?
                Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I've worked with shady business partners before; they have one of two motivations:

                  - Because their customer selected you instead of a competitor he's gets better discounts from.
                  - They are totally screwed up internally, so they've decided that "blame the vendor" makes them look less bad. (Eventually enough customers are going to call the vendor directly and learn the real story; I've personally poisoned about a half-dozen customer/business partner relationships this way, with the full backing of my boss. In my old job I dealt with far too many "shove it off the back of the truck and head off into the sunset" business partners that needed to be thrown overboard.)

                  You need to try and get your management to kill this guy as a partner unless he's really driving high volume. It's almost certain at least some of his customers are bad-mouthing your "horrible" service to others they speak with.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    The Last Butthead Story. I Hope.

                    Back in January we released a new version. Well ahead of the new release we notified all of our resellers of the upcoming release and provided the details like "What's new," pricing, etc. We gave them a 30 day grace period AFTER the release so that they could complete any pending sales with customers they'd already given quotes to, etc. and give their customers who had to conduct tests on software time to test the new version etc.

                    After that grace period old price quotes would expire and the old version would no longer be for sale.

                    Three weeks ago Butthead tried to get me to help activate the OLD version for a customer who had purchased the NEW version in April.

                    I thought it was an honest mistake and simply directed them to download the new version and I'd help the customer activate it.

                    Last week Butthead replied to tell me this was "unacceptable." You see, he'd given the customer the old version to test and now the grace period had expired and the customer had to activate to keep using the program.

                    Well, whose fault is that?

                    If it had been anyone else, I might have spent time trying to reassure them and to find some solution that would keep them up and running while they got the tests done on the new version. That's because I trust most everyone else.

                    With Butthead I decided to turn his own words right back on him.

                    You don't "accept" what you sold to the customer? No problem. You are within the warranty period. The customer can remove the program, return it to you, we'll issue a refund for what you paid us for it or issue a replacement license you can sell to someone else who wants the new version. Your choice.

                    I have no idea what he will do next.

                    For those of you who are wondering why we haven't cut them off or found a way to work with their customers directly...

                    We've tried working with the customers directly. We don't have a means to contact them directly most of the time. When we do, it hasn't done any good. The customers haven't responded and have always deferred back to the dealer.

                    My theory is that they have a contract with the dealer that either prohibits dealing with us OR they are paying this dealer big bucks won't deal with us because they're paying someone else to do it. We can't do anything about it if the customer chooses to keep getting fucked over by whatever the situation is.

                    This dealer sells hardware that used to come with a free software package similar to ours. It sucked but it was free. Then the hardware manufacturer realized that he'd have to sink money into his "free" software to make it workable. Instead the manufacturer decided to stop making it. They didn't drop the price of the hardware, though. So his dealers have to resell paid software along with higher priced hardware than their competition.

                    Most realized they can give better functionality and still make money by selling our software and have been enthusiastic about it. We make a damn good product and give our dealers a nice incentive to sell it. I don't know why Butthead is choosing the difficult route. Some people just enjoy conflict and drama.

                    I have talked to Mark about dumping them as dealers. He's afraid that such a move might foster even more bad will and make things worse. I guess he has a point. But he reserves the right to change his mind if this bullshit keeps up.
                    The best karma is letting a jerk bash himself senseless on the wall of your polite indifference.

                    The stupid is strong with this one.

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