Sunday 22 June 2008

Open Letter to Dell Premier

Dell Premier is Dell’s latest offering to the Channel community to help us prepare quotes for customers.  While I liked having an account manager I could actually speak to, the web site is easy to use and I can get prices very quickly. 

The Channel relationship is supposed to give us, as resellers, as a discount to persuade customers to do business through us, rather than going direct to Dell.  However, on my latest quote Premier has made us look like rip-off merchants…  Hence my letter to Olivia Hughes, UKI PAD eBusiness Manager:

Hi Olivia,

We have been a Dell partner for a little under a year and generally we have had a very positive experience working with Dell.  On Friday I prepared a quote for a potential customer and included in that quote was a Dell PowerConnect 2716.  The price to us as a partner, on Dell Premier, was and still is £159 and this is what we duly quoted to the customer.  Today the customer has come back to me and has asked me to explain why he can buy the same PowerConnect switch for £60 less than our quote.  Looking on the consumer website I can indeed see the PowerConnect 2716 for £97!

During our initial meeting with this customer we had championed our relationship with Dell and the discounts we were able to make available for him.  I hope you can understand the difficult position this price conflict now puts our company in and the possible damage it has done to our relationship with this customer in such a strategic point in our relationship.

Could you offer any explanation as to why this huge price difference is evident?  Could you also offer any reassurance as to why I don’t have to start comparing all products between Dell Premier and Dell Consumer, before putting quotes forward to customers?

Please note I have copied in a number of SMB community groups and I will also be publishing this email on my personal blog.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Nick

I look forward to what response, if any, that I get from Dell.

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