Yeah once they have your money don't expect anything from them. Thats how it goes today.

I'm really surprised by that. The printers I work with are usually very prompt. Are you using small printers, or Kinko's/Office Max style printers? The small, local guys are usually faster and cheaper (and do a better job) than the nationwide ones.

Anyway, how did you find these vendors? These guys certainly don't seem to have your best interests in mind. I find that I get the best service through vendors I've met at networking meetings; they treat me nice because if I'm pleased, I act as their salesperson to other prospects.

Sucks that your opening had so many things go wrong - but hey, Murphy got it all out of his system now. You're bound for some smooth sailing ahead.

I am sorry to say that once they have your money all bets are off. I love the line about how the salesman "misrepresented" the features of the software you were buying. Smells like fraud.

As a new business owner the only advice I can give you is to hold on to your money as long as you can, because that is what your customers are gonna do to you. Stretch out payments as long as you can and even hold back payments if the vendors promises are not delivered in full.

Business is definitely a different reality. Preserve your capital and track the numbers every week (or even daily!) In business its all about the numbers and whether more is coming in than going out.

Luck

There are always problems. Find the guys who are relatively easy to deal and get rid of the others. We seem to always be getting rid of some vendor and adding somebody else, or farming out an in house operation, etc. Unfortunately, the easiest way to get a vendor to pay attention is to be a big chunk of revenue for them, and there's nothing you can do about that right now.

Where possible, we seem to have the most success dealing with smaller vendors. It's easier to get someone to talk to, and they care more if we exist or not. Plus, you're helping your fellow small businessperson out.

Vendor management sucks. I live in this world as well and it eats up way too much of my time.

It does seem like there's a lot of margin pressure these days, and most businesses don't exactly view customer service as a profit center. So, yes, I'd say that these kind of issues have been on the rise.

Like others have said, this isn't entirely uncommon. In the business I work in, which is very dependent on contractors and vendors, we don't pay a cent until at least 30 days after the work/inventory is done and we have an invoice. It's a tough lesson to learn starting out, but you're going to find that clients (including yourself) that pay within 30 days are exceptions. That's the way the business world works now and any provider that demands payment in full earlier than that would best be avoided.

You have to have a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other at all times until you're completely done with a given phase of dealing with your vendor. Most of the problems you have listed are easily solved by withholding payment

What separates good businesses from bad ones is what you do after the money is in the bank. You're going to be successful and get great word of mouth when you deliver service above and beyond anything you've seen coming your way so far.

My father runs his own IT business and I've done some work for him when he needed an extra set of hands. Every single job, this kind of thing happens at least twice. People just don't do what you pay them to do anymore, and get surprised and nasty when you're upset about it. Genuine work ethic is a rare thing.

We are using a small local company that's actually owned by someone Stylez used to work for. I originally had them quote out the printing about a year ago. They got back to me super quick and their pricing was about 40% less than anyone else which is why we wanted to go with them. These guys don't have a cent from us yet. I'm just trying to get a quote and a lead time out of them so I can get Elysia to send them our graphics. We are about ready to go somewhere else and I'm telling them that if we don't have a quote by the end of the day, that's what we'll do. I'm just hoping we can deal with these guys because they are so much less expensive.

I found the service management software company by doing some Google-fu actually. We were originally going to purchase a product from another company in Toronto but it didn't do a lot of things like flat-rate pricing unless you kind of "hacked" it in and we didn't like that. This product cost the same amount, had a much better interface, much more in-depth reporting capabilities and supported flat rate pricing out of the box. I got a demo of the product and was very impressed. Two things have happened with this company since I wrote the original post that just floored me:

1. They claimed that QuickBooks 2008 integration was supported which is isn't, I mentioned this before. But today, they tried to shift the blame again, saying it didn't work because Intuit completely changed the QuickBooks API calls in the 2008 version and didn't tell them beforehand. My answer was "And how is that my problem? You said it would work, it doesn't." This one issue has become a big one for us because Stylez and I are trying to structure the company's workflow to automate as much administrative work as possible so hopefully, we won't be working till midnight every day and will still have "sanity time." That's how we justified spending $5,000 on a software product at launch. Not having this feature takes away a lot of that streamlining, something I haven't been able to convey to the rep.

2. The sales rep sent me a "software return authorization form" that I had to sign before getting the credit, basically saying "I agree to remove this software etc." But one of the clauses in the agreement actually said that I'm also agreeing that all claims we have open with the company are now resolved. I said "What about the QuickBooks credit that you're supposed to be working on?" He actually said "Oh don't worry, we'll still deal with that." I basically laughed at him and told him he can come back with something for that and when I have the money in the bank, then I'll sign his form. I couldn't believe he was trying to pull that kind of stunt on me.

I agree with what people said here and if I don't have satisfaction on Monday, I'm going to call in and ask to speak to the VP directly. I've no doubt what he's heard is a very different story than what's happened. The other good thing is that we set up a 4 month installment plan that's going through a credit card. If this is not resolved soon, we're just going to stop the second payment which wil get their attention real fast I'm sure. The sad part is that it's only this guy who's been a dick to deal with. I've had to deal with their support people twice and they've been very pleasant and helpful, resolving our issues quickly. I also really like the product aside from this QuickBooks issue and I think it's going to serve us well. I'm just completely lacking in confidence in this company now because of this one sales rep.

Those who know me well know that I'm generally introverted and shy and I usually have a hard time being confrontational and in people's faces, even when I know I'm right. This last couple of weeks has taught me a lot about that because I've learned that being a dick to people is really what's required to get things done sometimes and that's kind of a depressing reality. This is one of those things I hope will get easier with time. I see some of these battles being long ones.

One thing that has become common where sales is separate from service and support is that once a sale is on the books, the salesperson has credit regardless of what happens after that point. This makes the act of selling at any cost easier and seems to remove what's left of the morals of certain people.

I'll echo the people who recommend working with smaller companies when you can. If you can have a personal relationship with your vendors, you'll generally find better response to your needs.

One day we will be and boy, he'll pay then!

I work for a small business and we have the exact same problem with some of our vendors. If you don't spend X amount of dollars, they ignore your calls. In general, everyone we deal with is a pain in the a$$. Everything we try to do gets complicated because the level of service we get is so low anymore. My boss certainly has days like yours, Parallax. She gets in her car and screams for a few minutes. It seems to help.

Nope, no such base. We budgeted for this software for several reasons that we believe justify it at this stage and our lenders agreed. When you do the math, it's always easier and cheaper to buy a semi-expensive piece of software like this early than do everything in Excel and Outlook and then have to pay to convert it all to a system like this later on. We're also trying to streamline our administrative process as much as possible so that Stylez and I can maintain out sanity and not burn out after two weeks. This software was going to do that until we found out QuickBooks integration won't work until August.

For many businesses you are correct but this company is just Stylez and I doing on-site computer service. We don't have an office, staff or anything like that to start. It's us, my house, a VoIP phone and flyers we're having delivered. The rest is all in our awesome skills. We had a two week startup phase that we carefully coreographed over several months. If it wasn't for all these wanker vendors, we'd have been all set by now. Needless to say come Monday, my patience will be much thinner and my voice louder.

Hey guy. Sorry, I somehow didn't see this post until now. Yes indeed, you are only hearing my side of the story and of course, anyone is free to believe me or not as they choose. All I can tell you is that what I've said is what happened and I hope that those from around here who know me well know I'm telling the truth. You and I don't know each other so of course, be as skeptical as you wish. I'll try to explain stuff in detail to make my position clear so forgive the book you're about to read. Sorry if I come off as snarky at any point too as I don't mean to be, this is just a stressful issue for me.

Sage eh? We wanted to use Simply Accounting but this product wouldn't support it without custom development unfortunately. To answer your questions: Their public website says QuickBooks integration. I have it in an e-mail from our rep that all versions of QuickBooks 2008 are supported. Their private web site's beta page (that you only get access to after paying) is where it says that QuickBooks 2008 support is planned for the next release. So I didn't find this out until after we bought it. Our rep claimed he also told me that 2008 didn't work until I showed him the e-mail. The integration is part of the software and that is not a module you pay for. You get it whether you turn it on or not. We are asking for about a 10% credit on our main product license to compensate for this misrepresentation.

The module we are returning in full is the one that allows us to access portions of the software through a web site. It allows only access to basic functions but we knew that. All we wanted it to do was be able to modify work orders while on-site (for upselling), close work orders and print an invoice for our customers. I asked how closely the invoice matched one that was generated from the software client and was told it would have a less pretty presentation and would also not have the company logo but that such features were coming later. Sucks but fair enough. I confirmed that this would have all the same information as a client-printed invoice and I was told by our rep "An invoice generated from the web module will have the same force and effect as one generated from the client." The problem? The web module doesn't print the disclaimer and terms of service at the bottom of every invoice, including the part where the client has to sign to agree to the charges! Our lawyer has confirmed to us that this information is absolutely mandatory. At this time, there is no way to add it. So once again, I was specifically told something would be there that wasn't. Without the ability to print invoices, this module is useless to us. Now we are just going to use LogMeIn to tunnel directly into our server which allows us to use the client and have invoices print on the customer's printer. The pretty, fully featured invoices.

They've been accomodating about returning the web module (as they should be since it was misrepresented) but the form I have to fill out says that I release them from all outstanding claims against them. As the QuickBooks issue has not reached conclusion yet, it makes no sense to sign the form now until they either resolve said issue or allow an alteration of the form stating that it only covers the web module return.

If our desire to return this stuff was reached due to us not doing our research and making a bad decision, I completely agree that's our fault. I fess up for my mistakes and I'll eat the consequences of those mistakes. That's not what happened here. I've been researching this product for months and had been talking to this representative for two of those months prior to buying. I have dozens of e-mails in which I was just asking more questions. Our representative outright lied to us either out of ignorance or a desire to complete a sale and I don't believe we should be held responsible for that, especially when I have the broken promises in writing. Would you say that's reasonable?

I may have been out on my numbers but yes, I contacted him a lot. $5,000 is a lot when it's 1/3 of your startup financing and I'm sorry but it takes 2 minutes to write back and say "I've got your e-mail. I'm really tied up right now but don't worry, we'll get it sorted by week's end." That's all I wanted and there is no rationalization for otherwise. I didn't want an immediate resolution, I just wanted to be acknowledged. I'm generally a very pleasant person to deal with and don't even raise my voice unless I've been repeatedly provoked or feel I'm being purposefully ignored. That it is to do with money of out his pocket (through his own fault) or that I'm a small customer is not an acceptable reason. While $5,000 may not be much to him, it is to me and it's he only has it because I chose his product. Did I that he will get more concurrent licenses as we go, each of which has an individual yearly support rate on it? All he had to do was say "We're on it." and I'd have shut up.

I'm going on timeline expecations provided by the rep. When we ordered the product, it was delivered the next day. It is designed to be completely configured by us and we've done that. They have hours of fantastic training videos on their web site and I've watched almost all of them. Save the QuickBooks integration, it's ready to go right now and Stylez and I are doing a dry run on it tomorrow. The issue with the bookkeeper is something that wasn't planned. She had a computer disaster of her own and after recovering from it, she was way behind. There was nothing we could do about that. We planned our startup phase for months in advance and had all the vendors come through, we would have been up and running. Needless to say I've learned a lot about expecations now.

I shouldn't have called it a phone system. It is simply a VoIP phone line but the company providing the service is able to provide some PBX-like features such as a front-end menu, extensions and web-configurable forwarding. The adapter showed up on time and the line worked. I have no problems there. The problem was the sales rep was supposed to communicate our special needs like the IVR and forwarding to their engineer and he didn't so when I inquired as to the status of them, the engineer had no idea what I was talking about. To be fair, the engineer has been very accomodating and a pleasure to deal with. He's got everything ready to go and once Stylez and I submit the IVR greetings, it'll be good to roll.

I talked about the bookkeeper situation already. Crappy circumstances and that's fine. I didn't talk about multiple printers, I talked about the one we dealt with. My expectations of the printers are what are advertised on their web site. Their lead times are still what they advertise, it just took days to get an updated quote from them because the quote they originally gave me a few months ago they said needed to be redone. I have talked to other printers but they are all substantially more expensive because this particular printer uses a low margin/high volume business model. The uniform person originally ordered the wrong sizes of shirts. To be fair, when I showed her the e-mail telling her what I wanted, she admitted her mistake and fixed it. But it added 2 weeks to the production time. There are other merchant service companies and if I don't hear back from this one by lunch on Monday, I'll be calling another one. Under normal circumstances, it only takes a day or two to set it up.

As I said, this startup phase including who we would use, what it would cost and the times involved (as stated by the vendors themselves) has been in planning for months. In most cases, I actually added days onto the quoted timeframes in order to give leeway. So far, almost everyone hasn't delivered what they promised but this one software vendor has done far worse than anyone else. Clearly I expected too much and believe me, I've learned my lesson on that one, one of many lessons I expect to learn in the coming months. But let me make this perfectly clear: I am upset only because I was promised something by people who failed to deliver and whether or not that's normal, I think we deserve to be frustrated at those who let us down. If I failed a customer in this fashion, I would be given the boot and likely, a refund would be demanded. I should expect nothing less from those I deal with, would you agree?