No more hiding in the server room

How do you liven up a sluggish sales rep?

I work with non-profits in the US and have a teensy little budget to work with. As a result, I gravitated to a reseller that deals almost exclusively with non-profits, especially churches (as opposed to much larger non-profits like hospitals or schools).

I have a certain fondness for this reseller, but the one problem I'm having is that my sales guy is a bit unresponsive. He's not a jerk or anything, it's just that emails for price quotes go unanswered and when I'm on the phone with him he's not very responsive to my conversation. I think he's only ever answered one of my voice mails whether by a return call or an email. To his credit, he's explained the Adobe and Microsoft licensing schemes to me, but most of the time he just takes my order and that's it.Once in a while I get an email from him asking if he can do anything for me and also a monthly canned sales advert.

All in all, I'm annoyed with the state of affairs with this reseller. That's a shame too since they can get some decent prices, they understand non-profits very well and I'd like to support them with my business. Strangely, I just got an email from him saying that each year the company totals up their best customers and sends them a special gift. I somehow made it on that list in spite of not spending what I consider a large sum of money with them. So I'm a valued customer and apparently one of his better accounts... and he ignores me??

That leads me to my next dilemma: I'd like to do something about this but I'm not sure which of the following I should do first (or at all):

1. Bring this up with the guy. (Seems logical... but how to do it without coming off as a jerk?)
2. Cold call the sales number and get a new sales rep.
3. Move on to a new reseller all together. (Makes me a little =( just thinking about it)

Have any of you experienced a similar situation? How did you deal with it. I know that this situation is most absurd. I mean, seriously... how many times have you complained about a sales person not being pushy enough? =)

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Permalink Reply by John McGrath on November 23, 2009 at 4:44pm

You might have a sales rep that knows he's going to lose a customer when you move on to the new job. Some sales reps work territories, and your move might be out of his.

Ask your rep. He will be able to tell you. Remember that this is a business relationship, and while you might like him, he does make commission from your sales.

I get along with my sales reps because I am honest and straightforward with them. It helps the relationship if you are both on the same page in this. If your rep doesn't understand that, its time to look for another rep.

OTH, I once sent one of my sales reps a quote for one of these (http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-b...) as a joke. He saw the humor in it because he understood where we were in the business.

He thought it was great fun.

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Permalink Reply by Wesley "Nonapeptide" on November 23, 2009 at 7:57pm

I checked and my sales guy is a national rep so there will be no change when I move. I added an update to my comments.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Stoklosa on November 13, 2009 at 6:29pm

I'd usually just send a request for a quote to 2 competing resellers.. (even using CC) and whoever responds first, gets the sale.. as long as the price is close..

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Permalink Reply by Wesley "Nonapeptide" on November 14, 2009 at 3:05am

Oooo... CC'ing multiple sales guys. I like your style. =)

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Permalink Reply by Wesley "Nonapeptide" on November 23, 2009 at 8:04pm

Okay, here's an update. I finally got in contact with him and he said he never got the email that I sent which set this whole thread off in the first place. I suspect that maybe there have been other email issues in the past. This still doesn't address that I rarely get responses to my voicemails though, but I'll move on from that at the moment.

The conversation went well. I didn't speak directly about the sluggish service since part of the problem was email getting eaten somewhere along the line. What we did talk about, however, was just what kinds of service the reseller offers. I was not aware that they resold so much in the way of hardware and software. So, after 20 minutes of gabbing and asking him what their relationships were like with various vendors, what connections they had, what certifications they had, and giving him some sample scenarios (do you sell X brand blade enclosures? X brand virtualization licenses? MySQL?) etc. I think he realized that I was potentially a bigger customer now that I knew what they offered.

As a result, I've sent several quotes to him and received same-day replies. Things are looking up so far. We'll see what happens in the long term. Thanks to everyone for the advice on handling sales peoples. Any other tidbits that you feel like tossing into the mix would be appreciated! =)