I work at/partially own a small computer shop. One of the products we carry is a broadband internet service provided by let's say company X. We are simply an outside sales agent for this company. When a customer comes in to buy it, we fill out an order form, fax it to the company X and after it is installed we are paid a very small commission for the sale.
The connection requires an ethernet card to be installed just like cable or DSL. This company in the past has sent out their installers with no network cards to use in clients machines. I have had installers call and stop by our store to get network cards to use for their installs. The first few times I didn't complain as it wasn't really a big deal.
After about the 20th network card I gave away, I told them that they would have to start reimbersing us for them. That day, one of their employees came by and dropped 5 cards on my desk. Haven't seen them since.
They will only use netgear FA311 cards for their installs. Anybody who knows these cards, knows that the OEM drivers that come with them will completely hose a windows 98 machine. Instead of getting updated drivers and using them, the installers usually mess up 98 boxes so bad that they won't boot without "hit f1 to continue" errors. After that happens, they tell the customer "we're sorry, but you need to upgrade your computer to use our service". In order to save the sale, we have the end user bring the computer to us and fix it at no charge. I have told them time and time again how to properly set it up and they could care less.
I had one brought in the other day for a "bad network card". All I did to fix it was remove the second card, yes it already had one in it before the installer got there
Customers feel that because they purchased the product from our store that we are required to solve any problems they might have with the service. I can't blame them really but I do make it a point to explain to them that we are simply a sales agent and cannot handle any support issues unless they are willing to pay for our time. They know this up front before making the purchase.
I had an extremely angry customer come in the store today who complained of his computer "shutting down in 60 seconds" everytime he turns it on (blaster virus). Mind you he was installed yesterday and never had this problem before. He called company X and they told him it was a microsoft bug and to contact them. That's ok I guess but not how I would have handled it in their shoes. He decides that he's getting it fixed one way or another so I quote him $40 to have it removed. Not bad considering the shop across town charges $100. He then says "you want me to pay you $40 to come to my house and fix a problem that you caused?" Now at this point I have to explain to him that if he wants it fixed that cheap, he is going to have to bring it to me. I thought his head was going to explode.
I would love to help him out but we can only spend so much money in parts and labor before we start to lose big time. We are just a two man operation and don't have those kind of resources to throw around.
I keep trying to talk my partner into dropping the product completely. I would be willing to bet that 75% of people that purchase it in our store will never be back to buy anything else again. That's not good when you are in a small town and rely heavily on repeat business. I just can't get him to realize how bad it makes us look.
This is just a couple of the headaches I have gotten dealing with company X. I'm not really looking for any advice or anything. I just needed to get this off my chest and "normal" people just don't understand these kinds of things. Thanks for reading my rant
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