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Little Story About a Man Named Jed

My turn for a rant!!!

 

It's late, I'm going to go through this rather quickly so please stay with me. I had an existing account that was shared with a Direct Branch. The Direct branch had the majority of the placements, while we had three units in a satellite office.  One of those placements was a 135 page per minute production system.

 

I had been in touch with the manager about the end of lease and had a good relationship with him for eight years. 

 

My guy told me that Direct would also be quoting for a new production system, since they also had a color unit at the same location.  I knew my chances to hold the account were slim to none, however I put my best foot forward, submitted a very aggressive proposal 5 months before the end of the term (as did my competitor).

 

After hearing nothing for quite sometime I followed up with my guy.  I was told that Jed in IT is making all of the decisions. My guy had heard nothing and suggested I follow up with Jed.  He gave me his contact number and off I went.

 

I left my first call with a message that we submitted a quote and I need to follow up with him about the end of term obligations for the existing system and to get an idea of where we are at with the new lease. Waited a week, and nothing, placed another call a week later with the same message. Nothing.....no return call. A few days later the same message, of course there was no call back.  All in all I placed at least 7 calls to Jed. I got nothing!!!!  Typical I thought.

 

About a month later, I had a dream that I had lost the deal. Lo and behold the next day, I received notification from our service dispatch that he had received a call from "my guy" about removing the system.  I thought, that SOB has my number and he couldn't call me?  Then I thought that he didn't want to tell me directly because I would ask him "what happened"?

 

The next day, WTF, I get a call from Jed the IT guy.  He's asking me for a copy of the cost per page lease, and looking to see if we can remove the equipment. I stated I would be more than happen to comply, however you need to call the leasing company and schedule that with them. However, I do have a question for you.  "Why, did you buy from the other company", I was told it was a price thing. Ok, I can live with that, I then asked, "why did you not return any of my phone calls".  The answer, "I'm not obligated to call anyone back".  I blew my stack!!!!!  We're an existing vendor and we wanted to tell you about the end of the lease obligations and you tell me you're not obligated to return a phone call? He went on to state that he doesn't check his phone because they are all sales calls!  However, I do check emails. I thought, you rotten $#%!!!!  I called this facility many times and you can't even get a person to pick up the dam phone, let alone find an or ask for an email address.

 

Thinking about it, you know what, I probably should have asked my guy for his email address also. But who knew that this worker was not obligated to call an existing vendor back.

 

Moral of the story, they entered into a new contract, because they didn't call me their cost per page lease went into a year roll over with some 2.5 million pages attached! I wish I could be a fly on the wall went that conversation took place that they now have to pay for two production systems for at least a year!!!!! But, I'm thinking they may just have the system forever, because their ineptness will cause them to fail to notify the leasing company when the renewal comes due again!

 

-=Good Selling=-

 

 

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Comments (3)

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I hate situations like this when you spend your time working a deal and then everything goes silent and you get the we went the stupid route call.

 

Over and over again I've found that IT guys are total email monsters.  You can call 10 times...nothing.  Throw out an email and bang they are back online.  If you can get their I try to get their attention with the subject line with a problem statement included like "Current (Ricoh, Xerox, Kyocera) Copier Lease Due With Issues Pending" for example then even better.  Analytical types can't pass up a problem.  

Last edited by Kyocera Guy

I had a similar situation with an existing account, the purchasing manager had to retire due to a medical issue.  I reached out to the new purchasing manager, calls, emails, tried to get thru IT and no return call. Next thing I know they are cancelling the maintenance contracts on their equipment.  I continue to call and finally she calls me back and says they got an unbelievable deal from one of my competitors that they couldn't afford to pass up.  I asked her how did you know it was such an unbelievable deal when you didn't even ask for comparison numbers.  I later find out they got a total of 8 machines, obviously on some type of managed print deal.  This is something her predecessor didn't believe in and saw thru all of the hype. If anyone knows of a way to compete with these "unbelievable deals" please let me know. 

I can't stand dealing with people like that. Such a pain in the ass. I recently had a lady who refused to see me when I came by, return my calls and return my emails. She went and bought a new machine from someone else but her lease had already renewed. She immediately started calling and emailing me about how to fix it. When I explained to her she didn't provide notice to the leasing company she said the lease wasn't valid because the person who signed it didn't work there anymore....

 

I very unpolitely told her that most likely the next time her current partner calls and emails you will respond, now you can explain to your boss why you are having to pay 2 leases and my bet is that her lease will renew again next year.

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