Naked CIO: When vendors go too far

In the rush to secure sales, vendors must make sure they don't sour customer relationships. The Naked CIO tells a tale of predatory tactics...

Vendors have never been widely appreciated by users for their generosity and partnership. In fact many CIOs view the major players within the software world antagonistically, as a necessary evil. However recently I was exposed to predatory tactics of enormous proportions.

We use software from a company and over the years we have had a good relationship with this company and were looking to solidify this with a substantial investment in a new product release.

Unfortunately the current economic woes slowed the effort to make this significant licence purchase of the new software. But everyone still seemed eager for the sale so we all worked hard to come to agreeable terms to make it a reality.

The relationship was good so when we notified the vendor that we may postpone the purchase for a short while, as we review our expenditures for the remaining part of the year, I never expected what we received.

A gentleman whom I have never met sent an email to our CEO.

The letter essentially said one thing: 'If you do not move ahead with the purchase of licences as you agreed, I will report you to our compliance enforcement department.'

At no time during the discussions around our purchase had compliance been mentioned as an issue and at no point had anyone raised the fact that we may have compliance issues with the current licensing.

After a review I was petrified to find out we were indeed not in compliance - which beforehand I had not been aware of. We have since purchased the licences to stop any further action.

It turns out the company was well in their right to act in this way. However, the relationship between myself and this company has been forever tarnished - and I will move away from them and their products at the very first opportunity.

It was so absolutely out of line with the preservation and development of a strong business partnership that one of my senior employees was disappointed we did not ditch our investment in their software immediately and look for another solution.

Once the purchase order was signed we asked what the next steps were. An executive from the vendor said this resolved the issue even though we have not migrated away from the previous version of software. This exec clearly cared little about compliance and only about how to get the sale.

The short term vision of this vendor is profound because while he may have got this sale we as a company are resolved to ensure we never do business with them again.

I don't care what logo you have at the top of your letterhead - we are customers and deserve to be treated fairly.

If you have any examples of predatory tactics on this scale, I encourage you to comment on this article below, to ensure these type of backward approaches are not continued. Even the biggest companies must start believing that customer care is important.