A Reseller

It's not normal for me to report in these pages on anything that happens at work. Usually, the nature of my work is considered confidential (or boring) enough for omission. I would normally hold my temper more when dealing with those companies providing products and services for my employer than for myself.

In this case, we have a treat. Within only 3 days of communication, a prospective supplier turned out to be so useless that I gave them the elbow - rather pointedly - before things got too much further. This company, Pacific, are resellers of main brand computer products. They have no value added services, like installation or consultancy, and they are fairly small, with bases in Birmingham and Manchester. After a confusing phone call to head office, my Newcastle requirements were considered the domain of Fabian in Birmingham.

I requested quotations from Fabian and received a Word document of a screen shot of his desktop, showing his quotation program with our quote scrolled so it was visible. No total was provided and, overall, this looked fairly shoddy. We're talking about computer equipment, it's expensive, I don't want to use cowboys! Having asked for a follow up quote to include a total, and for the RAID-5 configuration I'd asked for to be returned to the specified 3 disks, rather than an unusual 4, I was still increasingly unimpressed.

Deciding to kick this company into touch (they were already chasing me for a response to quotes). I took the email (below) as my launch pad.

To: Ashley Frieze
From: Fabian Sandiford

Hi Ashley,
just a quick note regarding the preparation for your pc quotations.
As you will be loading your own bespoke softwear what is your preffered softwear platform for both admin pc and developers pc's?

Also what is your budget for the developers pc's if any? I have been told that you will be busy all day, could you possible let me know by mail

Kind Regards

Fabian Sandiford
T 0121 693 9888 F 0121 693 9777 www.pacific-online.co.uk
Pacific Business Products Limited, Albion Court, 18-20 Frederick Street,
Birmingham. B1 3HE

To: Fabian Sandiford
From: Ashley Frieze

Actually Fabian, I've decided not to use Pacific, so don't worry about it.

During our short relationship, you've managed to completely put me off using your company. I think that I've been put off by the following:

1. Your size - you're quite a small player.
2. Your email quotes - a word document of a screen shot - very unprofessional.
3. Your emails - your spelling is abysmal. The way I see if, if you cannot even spell the words you're using day to day, then how can you be trusted with thousands of pounds of my organisations money for the purchase of complex IT equipment.

For your reference, I've marked each of your spelling errors in your last
email (see below).

Thanks for your help. Sorry things could not work out.

Regards

Ashley Frieze

From your previous quote - "configeration" - should be CONFIGURATION.

Your last email to me:

Hi Ashley,
just a quick note regarding the preparation for your pc quotations.
As you will be loading your own bespoke softwear

                                                    SOFTWARE

what is your preffered softwear platform for both

                PREFERRED

admin pc and developers pc's?

                    DEVELOPERS'

Also what is your budget for the developers pc's if any?
I have been told that you will be busy all day, could you possible

                                                                    POSSIBLY

I let him off lightly. The absence of punctuation and appropriate capitalisation is also worthy of note. I've had no response back. I think, as emails go, the above is the equivalent of a "drop dead" look.

However, I have some regrets about the way I handled Fabian. Over the phone I, rather incredulously, questioned his suggestion to use 4 disk drives for RAID-5 (I've only ever seen it used with 3). I've since checked and you can use four - though I'm not sure why it's a good idea. I feel a bit bad about saying to him "forgive me for asking, but do you actually know anything about RAID?"... not too bad, because he didn't seem to have a sound working knowledge of it.

Most notably, I feel sorry that I made a couple of errors in my email to Mr Sandiford. In my excitement at letter myself run with what I was really thinking, I accidentally used the word "if" in place of "it" and even missed the apostrophe from "organisation's". In my defence, I was typing quickly and not seeking to impress.

There's a lesson here. Take care over emails, especially if you're trying to sell something, especially if I'm the reader. Pacific's Fabian is not the first IT services account manager I've complained to about spelling in emails... but that's another story and, as I'm continuing to use the other company, I prefer not to divulge it at this stage.

And finally, under Mr Sandiford's keyboard reign, I'm sure that the title above could easily be mistyped to describe the man - Arse Seller! Impression means everything in sales.