IT Vendor Raves

Rick's list of 25 'Must Attend' B2B IT trade shows for 2009

Here is list of major events and trade shows in 2009 that we think we should have vendor rating stations for our "Top Rated Vendor" reports.   Now it's time to prioritize!

Event	Start Date	City
TDWI World Conference - Winter 2009	2/22	Las Vegas
Design and Verification Conference & Exhibition (DVCon)	2/24	San Jose
The Channel Partners Conference & Expo - March 2009	3/1	Las Vegas
SD WEST 2009	3/9	Santa Clara
IWCE - International Wireless Communications Expo	3/18	Las Vegas
CTIA WIRELESS	4/1	Las Vegas
Storage Networking World, Spring 2009	4/6	Orlando
RSA	4/20	San Fran
Informix User Group Nat'l event	4/26	Kansas City
Oracle User GroupsCOLLABORATE 09	5/3	Orlando
Microsoft Tech-ed	5/11	LA
America's SAP USers' Group -	5/11	Orlando
DB2 User Event  North America	5/11	Denver
Interop-Las Vegas	5/17	Las Vegas
Global Connect 2009	6/7	Pittsburgh
Supercomm	6/8	Chicago
System Storage and Storage Networking Symposium	7/27	Chicago
TDWI World Conference--Summer 2009	8/2	San Diego
Open Source World San Francisco	8/11	San Fran
TechWave 2009	8/16	Wash.
Channel Partners Fall	9/23	Miami
CTIA-Wireless IT & Entertainment	10/7	San Diego
Oracle OpenWorld 2009	10/11	San Fran
TDWI Winter	11/1	Orlando
Interop-New York	11/16	NYC

Why your small, new, or home based businesses needs VendorRate

I got a call this morning from a friend who is starting a new company. He desperately needed advice on which software to purchase for his startup.  

Although he ran a successful retail business for 15 years, the business was crunched by the economic downturn, and he recently closed his doors. With reslience found in most entrepreneurs, he's identified a niche and is starting up again.  

His pain will be told often in the coming months.  He wants to know the best computers, software, and networking equipment to run his new business. He's read all the brochures, and he has scoured the websites. He says "All of the vendors pretty much make the same claims."

But he has NO waying of knowing how other companies who have already purchased feel about their decision. Did they have a good experience? Do they regret it? Are there negotiation pointers to help save money , make installation easier, or imporve service?  He needs a centralized, standard vendor evaluation system to help guide his decisions.

As a small businessperson who is dusting himself to start again , he can't afford a mistake. 

Do you have extra money to burn if your company's next technology purchase is a disaster?  

If not, please check out vendor scores on www.VendorRate.com BEFORE you buy!

Why do we hate our telecom providers?

We released our Top Rated Report for the 4th quarter of 2008. http://www.vendorrate.com/news/2009-01-13-VendorRate-Q4-Report.pdf

 Our executive summary mentioned a trend we've spotted during our first 10 months of observing IT and telecom professionals rate their vendors.  The strongest undercurrent of dissatisfaction among business professionals is directed towards their providers of wired telecom services, wireless telecom services, and data services.  After asking myself why for a few months, I think I've come up with my own answer. 

 I think the answer may be in their policies of captive contracts and device exclusivity agreements. If our company wants to roll out Palm Pre smart phones once they are released, we have to switch from Verizon to Sprint.  We did not deploy iPhones because we did not want to change to AT&T Wireless.  I personally had to "settle' for my 3rd choice of Blackberry.  My first two choices denied, I started out mad 14 months ago, and I'm still harboring resentment. A bitter aftertaste is always present.

Our business is totally dependent our data, voice, and wireless providers.  These vendors have leveraged our helplessness to lock most businesses into agreements we don't like.  I don't care how nice or knowledgeable the person on the other end of the transaction attempts to be, they are merely trying to  put air freshener in their outhouse.  

That's my take.  What's your organization's experience with your telecom and wireless vendors?

What I learned selling to Boeing-

One of the biggest lessons I ever learned in business came when I was attempting to get Boeing to buy our products for all their computers.

We had gotten pretty smart maneuvering our small company to win Enterprise accounts. We'd closed major agreements with Travelers, Liberty Mutual, Bank of New York, and FedEx.  Two of our major accounts, Starbucks and Safeco Insurance, were in Boeing's back yard. We had even won prestigious vendor awards with Lockheed Martin plus a major California utility.

 As I was bragging about our outstanding service, I mentioned our "24 hour response time."  This was always a show stopper, because our larger competitors were notoriously slow in responding to technical support issues.  Instead of being 'wowed' by our response time, my counterpart began to lecture me about the real meaning of service in a mild southern drawl.

 "We're in the aircraft business.  We don't care about response time, we care about RESTORATION time.  If a plane goes into a dive, it's not just how fast the pilot pulls back on the stick. It's how fast the nose of the plane comes up."  

This message has never left me, and it transformed our customer support to a new level even though we were already award winners.  

All vendors are going to experience a problem with a customer some time in their relationship. While communication is highly important, fixing the problem in a timely manner is the most critical element of customer service.  

 What I learned from Boeing- Fix customer problems rapidly.

Are you a high maintenance customer?

I'll paraphrase the head of customer satisfaction of a publicly traded company here in Silicon Valley.

"Despite the numerous statements IT companies make about providing great customer satisfaction, vendors really want customer apathy. Most companies hope a customer buys their products and then goes away."

I've heard the tag "high maintenance given to many customers over the years. In most instances, it is the vendor who is high maintenance. 

 Think about it. How many times have you heard a business say any of the following?

“We want our order shipped to us wrong.

 “We really don’t care when we get it.  Nobody on our team is scheduling their time for implementation or installation.

“Sure, emailing us with a response 4 days from now will be fine.  I don’t need the answer anytime soon.”

 “Please take our system down during peak hours.

“It’s ok if the price changes. Budgets are just guidelines around here.

“Send your junior field service folks to help us. We want to learn as they do.”  

The truth is that customers want to fix their business issues, not create more problems. Customers usually become “high maintenance” when their order is late, when the product is hard to install or use, when training is incomplete, or when the sales rep over promises and under delivers.  

The great vendors know the best customer relationships begin when the customer asks their first question  AFTER an order is placed.   That's not high maintenance, it's good business. 

Year 1 - Our biggest surprise about B2B customer satisfaction

Our first year live has been very rewarding, but it hasn't come without a few bumps and bruises along the way. I'd like to share the biggest lesson we learned in 2008.

We were absolutely surprised at level of resistance we encountered with IT vendors about transparency.  We expected companies with strong levels of customer satisfaction to want to differentiate themselves. Instead, most shied away from having customer feedback viewed in the public arena.

I'll never forget an early meeting with one of the largest tech vendors in the world.  The director of corporate product marketing was gung ho to leverage VendorRate scores to attract new customers. However, the person responsible for market intelligence was petrified and vetoed collaboration with us. Here's the real kicker... this company already had a number of customer ratings, and their overall scores were great!   I guess we stressed vendor independence too much J

What does this mean to IT departments?  99% of vendors will tell you they are committed to customer satisfaction, yet only a handful share their information when they don't control the information flow.

 If you want to be able to discover the whole truth about your IT vendors, it's up to you to share your vendor experiences in every independent forum you can. The vendors just aren't going to give you the complete picture. You'll be making decisions based on incomplete information, and that can spell disaster. 

You can demand to "know the score", viewing customer satisfaction feedback about every vendor before you buy.  Finally, you can utilize independent evaluations to maximize the terms in your next contract negotiation.

It's time for the collective voice of the business IT customer to be heard without vendor influence. It’s up to you.

You should have been here on day 1. (Sample size part 2)

We’ve come a long way as we close our first year.  In the first month after going live, we collected a mere 65 ratings. Now that was thin soup indeed.  Early on, most our ratings came from trade shows including Voice Over Network , RSA's annual show, and Interop.  Today, the majority of our ratings come from members of industry associations via the web.   Next year, we plan to expand our outreach to the tech community via regional user groups.

 

We have now collected 4,000+ evaluations from the most reputable companies around the globe, and our data becomes more reliable as rating volume grows.  A friend of mine used to say " You can't make a 10 year old bottle of wine in 2 years."  We've taken a more planned, patient approach to acquiring ratings, choosing to emphasize  the quality of rating information instead of quantity.  So our data keeps getting better and better.   The scores now offer viable points of reference.   And as more people rate, the lines separating exceptional, average, and poor levels of customer satisfaction become clearer.

 

Please help contribute to the betterment of the entire IT community by rating IT and telecom vendors you work with at your business.  Your voice matters, but we always keep your name and company confidential. Whisper your experience with us, and we'll shout it to the world.     

 These vendor scores are treasure maps that point to valuable information. You’ll discover that with just a little digging ( we provide the shovel), the more you’ll find the buried "gold" you need to make more informed IT purchasing decisions and negotiate better contract terms.

Sample size - Part 1

Small Business IT weekly is less than thrilled that many of our vendors don't have lots of ratings.  http://sbitweekly.com/2008/12/online-reviews-great-idea-typically-poor-results/

 

We get asked about sample size validity frequently. We originally quoted research from MIT and Georgetown that concluded sample sizes between 8-18 responses were considered statistically valid for online reputation systems. But there was always an academic in the crowd who wanted to debate research methodology, statistics, or just generally try to argue about the VendorRate process. Crowdsource models experience this kind of feedback all the time. 

 

Who are they really arguing with? VendorRate represents the collective voice of thousands of IT and telecom professionals who took the time to help the community by sharing their experience. We validate the business identify of the rater, keep the score, and report on what they share with us. Before anyone implies that we might have some sort of vendor relationship, or that PR departments are seeding the ratings, they might want to ask us first. Instead, I had to respond to their blog to clear up any misconceptions.  

 

These rating scores are what IT professionals tell us about their vendors. We display all ratings that meet our criteria, regardless of the impact on vendors.  Our confidential process has earned praise from major trade associations and publications.  These groups recommend us for what we are, a reliable (not perfect) resource that companies should check before they buy.

We have a saying at VendorRate. “In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king.” In other words, even if the model isn’t always perfect, it can still have great value. These are real ratings from verified IT professionals. You can learn from them.

Read their comments, drill down to see how small vs. large companies evaluated a vendor.  Check out how different job types experience the same vendor.  Do customers in one region receive better customer service than another region? 

 

Our rating members are IT and telecom professionals, sharing their real world expertise with you. Don’t toss out these valuable voices of experience merely because you need more volume. Rating information grows every month. And hey, why not give a B2B startup a break? :)  Remember, we provided rating information free of charge all year.

2008 Top Rated Vendor Report

We’ve released our first year end report of top rated vendors for 2008. http://www.vendorrate.com/News/2008-12-15-VendorRate-Annual-Report.pdf

Our model is based on customer feedback, not internal analysis. We display summary satisfaction scores for IT and telecom vendors based on ratings we receive without editorial comment. Even our report titles have headings such as top rated vendors and lowest rated vendors, not best or worst vendor. 

For first annual report, the VendorRate team decided to momentarily step out from behind the curtain to share who we think were the best vendor and reseller based on rating scores, the caliber of the rater, and verbal feedback we received throughout the year. After all, we don’t just see the numbers everyone views on our website, we also know the identity of the raters, and we get to speak with thousands of attendees at trade shows, seminars, and industry events. By the way, we only offered our opinion for Vendor and Reseller of the Year. The remainder of the 2008 year-end report summarizes ratings entered by verified IT and telecom professionals since VendorRate went live in March of 2008.

When our Q4 report is released in mid-January, we’ll go back to letting the voice of the customer do all the talking. We’re much more comfortable staying behind the scenes while collecting and tabulating the opinions of IT professionals.

 

Oracle OpenWorld 2008

The Oracle community has been fantastic, and they have been sharing ratings in volumes.  We often have a wait at our 6 rating stations, and the users are promising to bring VendorRate back to their organizations.   We are quite grateful for the wonderful response, and our "Best Vendors" report from the Oracle community will definitely be our best ever.  Look for the report to be released towards the end of next week.

Also, please visit booth 2042 in Moscone South.   Another iPod Touch will be given away.