Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Never keep your emotions bottled up

Last week I was considering the purchase of a piece of software.  I went to the vendor's website for pricing.  It wasn't there.  Annoyed, I filled out the form so that I could be contacted by one of their sales people.  The following day I got a response:

Thanks for considering (product name deleted).  Please write back to me with your phone # or call me at the # below -- we can discuss pricing as I learn about your application and how you plan to use (product name deleted) for development.

So I sent an email with the following response:

Hi (name deleted),

OK.  Please bear with me for just a moment while I vent.

#ifdef FRUSTRATED_RANT

First, I hate the fact that you guys don't put pricing on your website.  I looked up the old version of your site using archive.org, so I've got a ballpark idea of what the pricing was around six months ago.  Mostly I just want to know if anything has changed.

Second, it's absurd that when a customer asks for pricing, you won't give it to them.  Instead, you answer the question with a question.  I'm not even the slightest bit interested in telling you about our application and how we plan to use (product name deleted) for development.  I just want to know your pricing and your license terms.

And for the hat trick, it's incredibly frustrating that you want to do this by phone.  I hate phones with a passion, especially when they're completely unnecessary.

Bottom line:  I'm interested in buying your product.  The only obstacle in my way is YOU.  If your product didn't have such a great reputation, I would give up right now.

#endif

OK, sorry about that.  I figured if I get all this off my chest then I'll have a much better chance of getting through our phone call without saying anything rude.  Please call me at 217-XXX-YYYY.  I promise to be nice.  :-)

--

Eric

Fortunately, my "vent before the call" strategy worked out very well.  The sales person called me and we had a very pleasant and cordial conversation.