Ventura County Computers Eletter

It had to happen sometime, but why me.

Hello faithful readers. I'm not quite sure how to start our on this rant but here goes. The computer industry SUCKS! We are quickly headed down a slippery slope that leads only to agony and despair. You know what I'm talking about, the sad and getting even sadder state of competent support for computer problems. And please hold the jokes that I never met a computer I couldn't screw up. Thank you.

All of you I'm sure have had this sinking feeling of malaise and nausea every time you even think about picking up the phone to ask for some kind of help, support or even return of product issue. You know what I mean. You would avoid it if you could just to not to have to deal with the nuisance factor of endless phone trees, endless hold times, non-interested techs and just plain hard to talk to and understand people who English is a second language. So we only call when we're REALLY in a jam and Toby's not around to help. Which makes matters worse because we REALLY do need some help? And we're willing to put up with all this crap just to get some enlightenment on how to extract ourselves from the predicaments we find ourselves in. So many of us start finding ourselves even thinking about talking to the neighbors kid as an option. Sheesh!

So I sit here in my ivory tower and watch you the helpless masses scurry around till finally you come to me and say help me please. Well, my days of self importance are finally over as I find myself down in the muck with the rest of you. The only thing about letting your ego gets so high is that it REALLY hurts when you fall all the way down to the bottom. OUCH! So let me finally get to the point. My beloved company that I buy most of my computer hardware from has finally let me have it. They have resigned my account to a foreign country, CANADA! For those of you who have no idea of what the industry is like I'm about to give you a few inside clues of the working of the computer sales industry. Volume is EVERYTHING. If you spend enough money you get preferred pricing, service and sales and technical staff.

There was a time when I had it all. My own private sales team with a direct line. Unlimited Pre-sales technical support for purchasing proper product and aggressive discount pricing. But what happened? People like me made the company a success and they grew and became a leader in the industry. And as their sales and prestige grew my service and support started to get shaved away. The first was the minimum order for free shipping. To entice greater sales they offer shipping discounts for volume. Well, the bar gets higher and higher to the point that when I don't want to have to pay $50.00 to ship a large item from the east coast and past the cost on I buy lots of extra stuff. Get the picture? Well, it just got progressively worse to where I lost my direct line and then the direct line for pre-sales support all because my volume was just under the bar they set. I have spent almost a million dollars with this company.

I was not happy but I stayed a loyal customer because of one thing. PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS! By getting to know the people in the company and understanding their jobs I found a way to get what I wanted and do business. I can be quite charming when I want to and by respecting the people I worked with they RESPECTED me. What a concept? But all of that changed this week as I sadly found out that my account was transferred to the CANADA office. What? When I was placing a order I noticed something was funny as I could here all the background noise that you get when you talk to a telemarketer. Excuse me I said, are you new to my sales team? He answered, yes. What is your name I asked? AMIR he said. I had to ask him to spell it as I couldn't understand him very well.

He went on to explain that all the small and medium accounts were being transferred to the Canada office to give me better service. I won't have to wait on hold for my call to answered. What a line of crap I thought. I want to talk to people who I can be comfortable with and maybe even ask about the football game last night. This guy couldn't even give me a total dollar amount on a three item order without asking me to wait. And when I asked to talk to his supervisor about getting some quotes for a network scanner she told me that I needed to give her more information.

Wait a minute! MORE INFORMATION! That's what I'm asking her for. If I could of figured it out on my own I would have. I told her my old team would have helped me and she quipped "Well, we don't do that!" Which brings us full circle to where we started, I'm no better off than all of you. All my special privileges are evaporating as is my own self importance. I used to have salesman that would tell me, "You're a good client; you don't waste our time and spend a lot of money and are easy to deal with! We want your business and I like working with you." Gone! You know what? It made me fell good to be appreciated to have business people, managers and employees tell me that they like doing business with me. It's all over now. I'm to feel good being told that I'm being served better by having some idiot pick up the phone quicker. And oh yeah, don't forget the last issue of this rant. Someone in the United States just lost his job to Amir in Canada. Go figure.

Home Sales Networks ISP Web Services Resources

For comments or corrections, please fill out our comments form.

It had to happen sometime, but why me.

E-Letter listing