No disrespect meant to my friends and family in the “selilng things” business, but I have serious issues with vendors. I’m finding that frequently the sales folks are un- or mis-informed, unhelpful, and bothersome. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes they are unhelpful, slow to respond, slow to follow up, slow to get me the information I need, and bothersome. In general they don’t know everything about a system, and often instead of getting me the real answers they give me wrong ones or give me nothing at all.

When I’m tasked with purchasing something, I try to do a lot of research and get a good understanding of the product. I find that marketing brochures are generally very unhelpful once I’ve narrowed my requirements a bit — they are never specific enough, never discuss the features I’m worried about in more than a bullet point. The only useful information, I believe, is actual product manuals, because they, unlike sales literature and white papers and such, can’t overhype a system. Sure, they can say stupid things are features or design choices when clearly they’re flaws in the system, but you know what you’re getting with an instruction manual.

That said, often even the manuals are incomplete, and there is no substitute for just sitting down and playing with the system. The sales people don’t like that one bit. They need to give you a demo. I don’t want demos, I want to tinker. I want to figure out the limits of the system. I want to play. Me, a room, your product. If you believe in the product, you should be okay with this. Why aren’t you?

Anyway, I was tasked with purchasing a videoconferencing system and after a lot of research and talking to vendors and such I ended up with a local company called [on second thought, redacted]. In general they tried to answer my questions correctly and find the relevent experts on staff to give me the info I needed to make an informed purchasing decision. They set me up with an actual videoconference so I could test it, and while I didn’t really get to do much touching of the equipment (sigh) I did get to pound them with question after question after question for almost two hours. So I’ve got to give them a *lot* of credit for that, for putting up with me.

The thing is, the point that finally sold me on this product, even with my reservations, was what came at the end. They were probably a little desperate at this point to make the sale, and saw that I was still concerned about a few aspects of the system. I also said I needed something *fast*. So they offered to setup an arrangement to get us the equipment very quickly and let us evaluate it for 14 days with the expectation that if it worked we would purchase it. I was sold.

I took it back to the office and presented my proposal to the principals, who agreed to give it a go. I talked to the [redacted] folks about a week later, they send me a proposal, and I signed it and faxed it back. I thought we were done.

When I inquired today about where my stuff was, the salesman was confused. In his estimation, by signing the proposal I had agreed to a binding contract, not the previous offer to demo the equipment. They had put in an order for new equipment which was being shipped from the manufacturer, whereas with the other approach they would have been loaning us demo gear. According to him, there was never any “agreement” or “money back guarantee,” as I believed. The proposal he sent me after our extensive meetings was in no way connected to his offer to allow us to test drive the equipment. When I said we were ready to proceed, to him that meant we were buying, and the idea that we wanted to try it just disappeared from his consciousness.

To say that this puts me in an awkward position is something of an understatement.

The invoice is net 30. You better believe they’re not getting their money for at least 14 days.

And did I mention that I don’t like vendors?