If you are proud of your products, your services, whatever your offerings are, you should take every opportunity to spread the message, right now, not later. I reached out to one of the Social CRM vendors, back in October, to ask for a demo of their product. True, I was not interested in buying, just interested in learning about their offering and sharing my thoughts with you. The reaction at the time was simply:
“I appreciate the kind words for #######. However, I must apologize. ###### had made it sound as if Swimfish was looking for a set of solutions. As such, I’ve forwarded this on to some of my colleagues to get the ball rolling on this. I’ll be in touch when I have something.”
Two months later, after no follow-up, I reached out once again, this time hearing:
“###### alerted me to your lingering need for some demos. Our functionalities our best framed out by much of the collateral available on our website. You can find a wealth of information here: …”
Lingering needs…. I did express disappointment, frustration, and, as someone who believes in telling it like it is, I told them like it is… 
The follow-up, another head scratcher…
“…without a verifiable project or pressing need with a company or division therein, it is difficult to put together a demo for you as our capabilities would necessitate a demo that would literally take days. Further, our technical resources are at a premium at this time of the year.”
Two things:
- If setting up a demo takes you days…. Well…. You are doing something wrong. Helpstream has a demo environment (free trial), Gist does, CoTweet, Salesforce.com is literally sign-up and give it a whirl…..
- If someone wants to write about your product, put it in context for a broader audience, why would you pass up that opportunity. I know, my blog is only read by three people outside of my immediate family, but come on, they need to know what is happening, right now, not later.
What do you think? Am I missing the mark? Are my expectations too high?
John
January 4, 2010 at 7:04 pm
John,
this is such old school software sales 101 BS. I’m guessing it has nothing to do with resource constraints (maybe too complext for simple demo is true but then that’s a failure by itself) “back in the day” the Demo was the “closing tool” Enterprise sales people were drilled never to demo unless you first qualify fir budget, timeline blah blah. Sounds like some of those tired tactics may still be alive at this company. (respect you not takeing the opportunity to rat them out)
January 4, 2010 at 5:04 pm
John, I’m a little surprised that you feel the need to obfuscate the name of this vendor. After all, you would likely have mentioned it had they given you the time of day
That would indeed be a service to your readership IMO.
January 4, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Thanks Jerome…. I am on the fence on this one but trying to determine which is right way to go. Perhaps the rigt thing is to share the company name and, of course, leave the individuals name out of it…. Asking for feedback on Twitter as well.
Also, I always appreciate your feedback, thank you for raising the question, will decide today.
John
January 2, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I think you are right on the mark. If they are worried you would give a poor review then maybe they need to take another look at the product. And if they have no demo already put together, I don’t know how they can make any sales.
PhaseWare not only offers online demos as part of our site, we are offering a test drive of our latest tool, a web-based version of our main app. As do most other vendors in the space.
If they stay in business long enough, maybe someone will notice and say, “What was I thinkin’?”
January 2, 2010 at 5:26 pm
You are right Jody, very well said.
John
December 31, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Hi John
Likewise happy to Share CRM and extension products
Happy New Year
Alistair
December 31, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Thanks Alistair. If possible, please drop me a note after the new year, would love to chat.
John
December 31, 2009 at 8:37 am
Maybe they want to create very customer specific demo
But yeah, general demo should be always available as this is great way to push customers away by saying we’ll get back to you in two week for five minutes demo.
December 31, 2009 at 4:26 am
Oh Gosh, I remember those types of comments. Basically they don’t have a developed demo, or even worse, real product to show you. I am so familiar with this “tell us what you want and we will give you a demo” response of CRM companies; mostly the small CRM companies. I would be shocked if this was an enterprise level CRM provider.
Were the people you dealt with programmers? If the answer is yes, then enough said
You are too kind not mentioning the vendor here. Toooo kind.
And I applaud your sense of humor after this experience.
December 31, 2009 at 4:28 am
Anna, it’s painful to say but the person I was dealing with is in business development. Sometimes real life comes jammed pack with it’s own punch lines….
Happy New Year.
John
December 31, 2009 at 4:17 am
Hi Jon,
As one of your “three people outside of [your] immediate family” that follow your blog (kidding), I think that you’ve touched on a great point here. I don’t think that you’re arguing that each sales rep should also be an evangelist, rather that they should show more of an interest in engaging with the community, even if the [prospect] doesn’t fit into an immediate sales cycle. After all, it only takes one dis-satisfied customer to post a youtube video (e.g. “United Breaks Guitars”) to sour your reputation.
Great thoughts,
Dik Whitten
December 31, 2009 at 4:21 am
Yes, exactly. This is especially important when the contact into the organization flows in from an internal source. In the case of my “example” I was connected to the person via someone they work with, someone who felt it made sense for both of us to talk.
The new social norms are often missed even by those who sell the strategies and the solutions.
Thanks for stopping in and commenting, always appreciated.
John
December 30, 2009 at 11:40 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tweet CRM, Good CRM. Good CRM said: Dear CRM provider, are you proud of your products? « Random …: I reached out to one of the Social CRM vendors, b… http://bit.ly/89IKbz [...]
December 30, 2009 at 11:36 pm
John
Fair comments and not at all unreasonable – as you know we have set you up a Pro Networker account and are happy to talk you through it anytime (I know you are not talking about us
) AND there is a great video on our site to walk new users through the whole process if it seems daunting in any way….and if that fails, we are happy to pick up the phone to anyone!
Chris Butler
COO
WeCanDo.BIZ
December 30, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Thanks Chris, once we get into the new year I’m going to take you up on the open door policy as I am looking forward to taking a closer look. Happy New Year. -John