IT BS thread

One of my old customers was pretty dense. She opened a spam email one day and clicked on the link--popup pr0n galore. She was adamant she did nothing wrong-right She was a little confused about the whole animal pr0n thing that happened the second or third time...

 

A nice man from india told me to send him the computer, along with my SSN, drivers license, birth certificate and bank account numbers.

Seemed like a nice fellow, hope my credit card slot gets fixed!

 

We had a boss at a company get a malware pop-up for fake antivirus. He put his CC number in to "renew the subscription"

 

zomg, I've never heard of anyone actually falling for that fake antivirus software... I know a lot of people who have gotten it, but never heard of anyone actually trying to renew it, lol.

One of my buddies got an email from "his bank". Dipshit gave ALL his info in a reply and the next day $1500 gone from his checking account...

He got it reimbursed eventually for fraud, but damn. He's paid pretty well, but that doesn't mean he's smart

 

I don't think we ever had that.

 

Interested in what you IT folks look for and expect out of your vendor. Any thoughts? I have been doing IT sales for 3 years and just trying to continue to adapt to the ever changing IT field.

 

I expect a lot from our vendors. They usually way over promise and way under deliver... Most of 'em really need to figure out how to do the other way around. Don't promise more than you can deliver.

Not sure what specifically you're looking for, it really depends on the project and its scope for my expectations. If we're not paying for it, I wouldn't expect the vendor to bend over backwards to try and make a product work that isn't scaled properly or we're trying to force it to do something it was never designed to do... But that really goes back to the whole over promise thing. We've had many vendors come in and say "oh yea we can integrate with that system" and when it comes down to it, the integration is totally unsupported and hokey. We were implementing a call center solution that shall remain nameless... let's just say they promised a lot and delivered very little. We threw a lot of money and resources at it, and came to the conclusion we didn't want an unsupported ball of duct tape of a system at the end of the day .

 

That is the kind of feedback I am looking for. I deal with ITs on a daily basis and just trying to improve that process for which I interact and inevitably build relationships. Personally I love the IT industry and have been working outside on certifications to may e transition to another portion of the field. After all behind it all is technology.

 

We had a small company that we supported. This was 7 years ago so the spam blocking wasn't as good as it is now. It was pretty much just keyword blocking. This lady at the office would forward the emails that she got to us so we could fix them. She forwarded a gay porn email she got to my co-worker. It was all in german so the keyword blocker didn't block it. It was funny as hell to watch my co-worker open the email. From that point on he really had to watch where he opened emails that came from her.

 

I expect a lot.

1. Stand behind your products. I don't want to be mentioned in an earnings call. Ever. Except maybe in a good way.
2. Don't bullshit me or anyone on my team. I made an investment in you, please do what you said you would.
3. If I ask if something can be done in my time frame, don't say yes unless it can. If it cannot or my expectation is unreasonable, tell me.
4. Support is important to me. I run 24/7. Most of my people are experienced and very good at what they do-I'd like to go beyond the first level support when we do call.

There are probably a ton more but these are things on my hot button list at the moment.

 

Yup...been working in IT for a long long time. One of my favorites was when I was working as tech support, IT director, phone guy and resident statistician. We had a huge copier that required you to fill the toner by rolling out the toner filling mechanism out of the copier and filling it up with toner-pours similar to the gas cans you see in Indy car. Well the 'big' secretary called and said it was low and needed to be filled. I said I'd be right there...apparently she couldn't wait. On my way down stairs we all heard this blood-curtiling scream from the copier room. The secretary tried to do it herself, didn't seat the toner pour correctly and it shot all over the place. She looked like she fell down a chimney ! No one but me touched the copiers again.

 

copier toner is a nightmare if not done right. They all have precise pictured instructions on how to replace them. Tell the "big" secretary to read it next time.

 

I'd review their SLA or support agreement before signing and amend it as needed. If they won't meet your expectations or the cost is exorbitant, then tell them you're not interested. If they really want your business, they'll be flexible. Just get it in writing with penalty clauses.

 

The problem i've seen from a lot of sales guys is that they aren't technical and they are trying to sell to a technical group of people. Or, they are selling it to the upper management and they fluff it to sell it. The upper management believes it will do one thing and the engineers know it can't do that. Nothing more frustrating than trying to make a product do something that the sales guy says it can do, but it doesn't do.

My Advice, Know your product inside and out. No BS.

Here is a perfect illustration of some of my encounters with sales guys.

 

those comics are awesome, and really do hit the nail on the head.

Pretty much echoes what I said as well - don't make promises you can't keep. Know your audience - if they're technical, you better have some knowledge about the product or have someone around that does. If they're management, don't blow smoke up their asses because if you promise something to them, they are going to expect it - and will hold you to it.

 

I could not agree more. A lot of my coworkers are exactlly that mold. I was just trying to see if ITs still saw value in a sales rep going above and beyond, knowing the product, and knowing when to say I don't know but I will find out. I wanted to get some external IT feedback from guys that will give me the truth.

 

My view is that sales people will be sales people, their lively-hood hinges on making big promises that may or may not be attainable.... My complaint about sales people, is that they like to use a lexicon that doesn't make sense to anyone outside of a management or sales level, using words like "verticals" or over dramatizing different parts of the business, for instance "been working outside on certifications to may e transition to another portion of the field. After all behind it all is technology." means absolutely nothing to me... Like Krappy said, know what your talking about, on a technical level, and don't make yourself sound like an idiot by using 'fluff' words to make you sound smarter than we know you are....

But then again, you are asking sales questions in a highly technical thread, haha, so my apologies for that.

 

I apologize if I sounded rude there.... I do have utmost respect for sales people, its not an easy job to get tightwads to open their wallets for solutions that they really do need.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Re-read your post and had second thoughts? hahaha