What do you look for in an IT supplier?

[SimplyJade]

Hi folks,

 

So as my title says - What do you look for in an IT supplier?

 

I've worked with Education for the last 8-9 years at a different reseller and I was always told how to interact with people and told how to do things. Me personally, I have always been a fan of "if you don't ask, you don't get"

 

I'd like to say over the last near decade I've done well but ultimately I would like to change how I do things.

 

I'm keen to get your point of view on these things. Otherwise I'll never understand and I'm not happy with that.

 

TIA

[bald_pig]

To be left alone until I ask for something, mainly.

 

I don't mind the occasional special offer email etc. but some suppliers are adamant on calling every term to ask if there are any projects they can help with, and that normally sends me elsewhere!

[Tefters]

1. Don't email me unless required.

2. Give me best pricing the first time without needing to know my budget.

3. Don't waste my time with washy webinar invites on how things should be done and best practises. This is Education, nothing is done properly and best practice is a pipe dream.

[sigma]

To sort out problems with purchases without a fuss.

[6Foot2]

We had a supplier who was always straightforward/direct about their ability to fulfil a request. If they could not, they were often able to recommend a supplier who could.

 

Prices were competitive, and we were never subjected to the sales patter "Let me see what deals I can find for you", "I'll talk to my boss to see if we can squeeze a bit more out of the deal."

 

We knew that a phone call to them would not be a drawn out dance around the houses, only to be given the same, or similar, price another supplier had already quoted.

 

[Tefters]

I'm going to put this one out there because they are a manufacturer, sales outlet and support all in one! Dell.

 

I first used Dell directly a few years back for a server solution quote and they did 2 phone calls in total, 1 for requirements and 1 for assisted install that's it.

 

Afterwards my Dell sales rep / account manager set me up on their premier portal and applied an education discount, since then I just log into their portal, look at prices, create my own basket and checkout on PO, their prices are stupidly cheap and free delivery.

 

This by far has been my best, most favoured and cheapest supplier of base units and monitors and I never hear a peep unless finance forgot to pay a PO on time [emoji849] or I call the AM for a large project quote.

 

Obviously being an all in one supply chain makes things easier but also cheaper.

 

Sub £400 ex vat for an i5 13th gen with 16gb ram and 512gb NVMe and £80 ex vat for a 24 inch zero bezel monitor all with 3 year warranty... It's a no brainer.

Edited January 31, 2024 by Tefters

[TheHyperTechie]

1. Don't email me unless required.

2. Give me best pricing the first time without needing to know my budget.

3. Don't waste my time with washy webinar invites on how things should be done and best practises. This is Education, nothing is done properly and best practice is a pipe dream.

 

I agree with all of these. Especially number 2...

 

If I require something that's over £1000 (rare but does happen) I will usually get three quotes from different suppliers to create an average and make sure they are around the same price. If I mention that someone has quoted slightly under compared to theirs, they are suddenly able to knock £xxx off their original quote. I think honesty and transparency is definitely something I value in a supplier.

Edited February 1, 2024 by HyperTech

[Dan2025]

I prefer to be left alone until I need them, I don't mind the odd offer email etc.

I've been hassled quite a bit by certain suppliers recently. The funny part was I recently asked some former colleagues of mine about the suppliers they use.. mentioned this specific supplier and despite having a different account manager. Exact same tactics, he even had 3 missed calls from them while we were talking!

[Lebowski]

Cheapest price, easy

[ITGuyNW]

Easily contactable (its taken 10 emails so far to arrange a microsoft licence call with softcat. Phoenix took one)

Easy to quote (some print companies lately won't even quote unless they know what else we've had already)

Good warranty (previous "preferred" supplier of laptops took 6-8 weeks to replace faulty equipment, recent supplier took 48 hours)

[NegativeKillDeath]

Trust. Pre-sales, trust that I know what I want or don't want. Post-sales, trust that I will have exhausted all trouble shooting prior to contact. Dell were very good at this, warranty claims were very smooth and their techs trusted that we had completed diagnostics prior to calling them.

[synaesthesia]

Honesty, transparency.

"Sorry, we've tried but can't match the price eBuyer/Amazon/Misco are offering" goes a long way.

[pete]

Most of the basics have been covered but:

 

Salespeople

I value my working relationship with our receptionists more than I do with any supplier. If your employees are rude to them, lie to them or they get a bad vibe from you - I'm not going to use you.

I am more likely to keep using a good individual saleperson (as they hop between employers) than I am a supplier.

Spot-check what your salespeople are doing / sending out occasionally. If they're acting like objectionable idiots when contacting customers or just seem creepy* you need to fix that.

 

*I've probably told this story on here before but:

 

Sales pitch with three shortlisted reprographics suppliers. Pitch 1 & 3 were normal. Pitch 2 - cult. Strong "these people abduct hitchhikers" vibe. As soon as their salepeople left the meeting room, everyone gave a "WTF?" look and began variations on "so they're a cult, right and we're not using them ever, right?"

[PotNoodleTech]

My main aims are.

 

Honesty and integrity - no BS and do what they say.

Not pushy - if you ring/email me every day you will be blocked.

Willing to go above and beyond. Suppliers that can go above and beyond to really help the school/pupils/me get added to my permanent "will always deal with" list.

Preferably with an easy to use website so I don't have to waste time emailing back and for if I just want a pack of AA batteries.

 

Not many suppliers make the mark! I've only got about 5 on my "will always deal with" list.

Edited February 1, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[Oaktech]

As an addition to the above... Don't keep calling me, if I want something, I'll call you.

 

I'm not averse to a KiT email every so often, or a product bulletin, but I don't want them spamming everyone who might have a budget.

 

I'm naming no names, but I got a quote from a new supplier before christmas, which was fine, good price and responsive sales team. What wasn't fine was them then visiting the school website, scraping the details of every senior and middle lead and from the pattern of my email address extrapolated their emails and spammed them every other day with click bait-y "Do you know your telephones might stop working next year", "Are you ready for the 2025 windows 10 switch-off", "Your computer isn't fully protected get better protection with Malwarebytes Enterprise" until I blocked their domain. I know they extrapolated from the website because one of our staff is known by a different name internally which makes their email differ from the normal pattern. Spammy company sent it to them it with the normal pattern and I got a postmaster bounce notification.

[msi_school]

I had a sales contact at Insight who used to do some of the leg work for me, I would describe what I was looking for and they would go away and come back with prices. They also never cold called by except on call each November in which they where up front in asking if I could make an order now to help their Xmas bonus and where always happy when I said no.

 

When they where replaced with a new contact who did all the normal things I stopped buying from them.

[CHiLL]

Basically all the points raised previously. I don't have the time to deal with pressure sales, repeated calls for clarification, etc. Here's what I need and you give your pricing and ETA. If you can't source it (or on a timely manner) or your pricing is too high, fine, you tried, we aren't going to hold that against you - just say so and we'll do business again another time. They should know their market, most of us don't have much money to spend, so we're only contacting you when we know what we want to achieve.

 

To be left alone until I ask for something, mainly.

I think I just involuntarily twitched, just thinking about an ink/toner/printer sales person who does not understand that, despite knowing we are on a multi-year managed printer contract with another company for 95% of our printers. We were getting calls at least once a week and we'd told them not to call unless we ask, but they still do. It got to the point where our receptionists knew them by voice knew not to even attempt to put them through to us and we ended up having to contact their manager who had to have a word with them. They still try about once a month, but for those printers we have that aren't managed, I'm using a different supplier anyway.

Edited February 1, 2024 by CHiLL

[andy_b]

Don't change account managers because of some stupid policy.

 

Had an account manager for 15+ Years. They knew how we worked and what we wanted. We weren't massive customers but a slow and steady drip throughout the year.

 

I didn't make contact for 3 months, so some internal policy meant that my old account manager was removed from the account and I had a new manager.

 

On our first introductory call he wanted an indepth breakdown of all our equipment, I said I didn't have time to do that, his reply was "Chill Bro".

 

Never used that company again.

[msi_school]

Don't lie about stock levels and delivery dates, if you don't have it in stock that not a big problem for me but if you lie about it and I then land on a six week back order list I will be livid.

[MartinT]

- Technical support when needed

- Product availability

- Long term relationship

- Reasonable shipping charges

- In tune with school needs, such as holidays

- Professional installation

- Prices (but not the major consideration)

[SimplyJade]

Good morning all!

 

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who posted in this thread. After 3 months I have put a lot of these into practice and I've very happy with the relationships I've built in that time.

 

I appreciate you all and thank you again