I'm sick and tired of companies that make products, have a web site, sell you and market you on the web, and then don't put any pricing on their web site. What do these companies have to hide?
Now I'm not talking about people who sell their services or do contract work. I'm talking about companies who sell product A and charge X for it. How simple can that be?
Three companies that come to mind (mainly because I'm frustrated this very minute with them) is SWSoft, Iron Mountain, and Compellent. I really hate wasting my time and if I'm checking out a product and trying to see if it is a fit for the company I work for, then I want to find out if it is within our price range first. If it is, then I'll pursue it.
SWSoft sells virtualization products. How hard can it be to provide a list price? I need X servers licensed and it will cost me X. If you want to know more then contact a reseller for better pricing. Easy enough.
Iron Mountain sells off site storage and backup. It should be $X/GB to backup. So tell me already and stop playing games! This isn't a thriller or suspense story.
Finally, Compellent sells a SAN solution for storage. Their site should have a configuration utility where you drop in drives and controllers and figure all that out and it gives you a quote. It shouldn't be more complicated than that. If you want better pricing then contact a reseller.
Server manufactures have been doing this for years and they seem to have no problem at all. There are tons of components and options too and they seem to be able to handle this. Why can't others? Don't tell me the product is too complicated or we need to consult on the solution. We're not stupid and your product is not that complicated. If I have trouble, I'll call. Trust me.
So, would everyone out there who sells something please stop wasting my time and give me what I, the customer, want!! Thank you.
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3 comments:
Thanks for including Compellent in the conversation. Your pricing suggestion is spot-on for any company that sells directly to end-users.
There's really a simple reason why we don't provide detailed pricing on our website: we exclusively sell our SAN products with automated tiered storage through a global network of solution providers. Typically, we announce basic pricing when we launch a new product - such as when we announced our QuickStart ILM bundle that's about $50,000 excluding service and maintenance.
We let our end-users know they should work with a solution provider, with our assistance, throughout the sales cycle. The VAR has an intimate understanding of the end-users' needs and can make the best IT recommendation based on this knowledge and expertise, and can provide all the pricing, not just the "best" price. Compellent is always there to provide additional technical recommendations on our SAN system.
We think that this 100% assisted sales model provides the best experience for our end-users, and doesn't confuse the market like other vendors who have mixed direct and reseller sales channels. The question is: why aren't other enterprise storage vendors dedicated to the channel?
First, let me just say that selling exclusively through the channel is admirable and something every manufacturer should do when they use the reseller channel. Having mixed sales channels (i.e. direct and reseller based) is both counter productive and undermines the product. How can a reseller dedicate the resources necessary in today's market when they risk having the sale stolen from them. Worse, they are usually stolen when the opportunity becomes a large one and there is real money to made. I've been in the reseller channel and we asked for this kind of dedication from every vendor we chose to represent.
Selling through the reseller channel however is no excuse for Compellent not having some retail or list price sheet. In fact, if you look at your web site, you can't even tell what features are included with the product and which are optional. Every product has a high side to it usually referred to as list and is a target price everyone works from. I've absolutely never seen a product sold on a cost plus basis only with no suggested sell price. If you have a bundle that is about $50K w/o maintenance, then say so. But I'd add that you should also include what maintenance costs and what the other options, features, and other hardware costs.
Everyone, no matter who you talk to, thinks their product is special or different or can't be handled the way every other product is handled. Well, I beg to differ. I think this product and every other SAN out there whether it be EqualLogic, NetApp, or EMC, can be priced out on a spec sheet with part #'s and descriptions. Nothing is that special.
As the perfect example of what a waste of time something can be without pricing, I recently spent days going through options and configs and discussing possible scenarios on the NetApp product only to find out the thing was 3 times what every other solution was going to cost. What a waste of time. Had I been able to see a simple price list, I would have saved everyone a whole lot of time and personally, I have very little of it to waste.
Web users expect complete communication.
Now this does not mean you need to post your prices. But it DOES mean that in the absence of some critical piece of information (like price), you need to take care of your web user.
Make it clear why information is missing. Make it clear what the web user can do to obtain that information. Make that process easy.
The bar for the success of a web site is not set by the owner. It's set by the user. Meeting and exceeding expectations is everything. Failing to do that results in a frustrated user, who immediately becomes a frustrated customer or potential customer. And that is a bad thing.
If your user expects prices. Post prices. If you can't, make it clear why you can't, and what the user can do about it.
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