If you know me I am a very positive person who rarely complains and always like to take the positive view on things and people. If I hold a grudge it just makes my life miserable but they are times when I feel it’s important to publicly announce when companies have given bad service or put up stumbling blocks in the path of the success of their resellers. We complained more than once and still we’re on the receiving end of rudeness and bad customer service. I do not post this lightly.
SpinningSilk Multimedia was recently presented with the opportunity of selling a managed service that will bring greater value to our customers internet experience. To sell this service the default method was to go through a company called, Ingram-Micro. I had heard of Ingram-Micro but up until a few weeks ago I had never had any direct experience with them. The following is a short list of road blocks we dealt with in regard to this company.
1.) Ingram Micro does not accept American Express
2.) According to our recent correspondence Ingram Micro’s Net Terms requires a regular purchase of $25,000 or more to qualify.
3.) The only other payment option available with Ingram Micro is an automatic monthly checking account draft–as a small business seeking to grow, this is a difficult proposition.
4.) Ingram Micro’s customer service is just about the worst we have experienced in memory. We received a confusing mailing which consisted or a torn and ripped Hewlett-Packard ink catalog instead of an Ingram-Micro services catalog that was supposed to come in a mailing. We then received a phone call from a rude Ingram Micro representative to explain the mailing and the”customer service” person on the phone said they put those HP catalogs in every mailing but if we “really wanted” the other catalog they would take our name and send us one when they had them in stock! Why the heck did they send a letter saying otherwise?
Thankfully the service we are looking to resell has agreed to let us work directly through them instead of going through the bureaucratic channel of Ingram-Micro. I realize publicly writing this complaint may prevent us from doing business with Ingram-Micro and working through another another company like Ingram-Micro has put us off from dealing with these kind companies but if a competitor to Ingram-Micro wants show us they can be friendly to a small business who has the potential of becoming a large business one day and puts quality customer service ahead of bureaucratic roadblocks we will be glad to listen.
If you’re a small business and trying to get to the “next level” be aware of these kind of crazy road blocks hat may hinder you from doing your jobs in a competent manner.. Companies like this should make it easy for rising companies to succeed, not the other way around. Needless to say the Ingram-Micro “brand” is not on the top of our list. Even if we found out that companies our size were not their target we should have received more courteous treatment. What are your experiences with working with companies like this? Is ours a rare case or coming into contact with a chain of bad customer experiences or is this typical?
Filed under: Internet, rants, Tips Tagged: | bad service, Brand, channel, complaint, Internet, reseller
It’s apparent that small businesses are NOT Ingram-Micro’s target market.
With that said, being rude is NOT the way to win friends and influence people, especially in the world of Web 2.0. I can’t imagine any business, large or small, putting up with the kind of “crap” you were subjected to in the name of “customer service”.
Congrats on finding a way to work around, although I’ll bet the most satisfying course of action would have been to grant your $$$ to a competitor!
Yes, Their core business is enterprise customers but one thing companies like that need to never forget is that companies like HP and Apple started off in garages or bedrooms. A lesson I learned when I worked in retail clothing in the early 90′s was to never judge or talk down to a potential customer. Everyone is a potential “someone” if you know what I mean.
My name is Justin Crotty. I’m the VP of Services for North America for Ingram Micro. I own the division that the original post author was apparently trying to purchase the managed service offering from.
Obviously, a bad customer service experience is difficult for any business to overcome. I can assure you and the subsequent authors that small vars are Ingram Micro’s bread and butter and your experience is not typical. Small solution providers make up a very large portion of our annual $35B in revenues. Small solution providers are very much our target market.
But talk is cheap, right? The big Fortune 70 company trying to explain away a poor customer service experience. Not at all. I, and every Ingram Micro associate, make my living on the reputation of our company and the way we treat our partners.
I cannot change the experience you have had with our company. But I can offer you my personal attention to try to rectify the situation and demonstrate the customer service and support that thousands of vars around the world rely on everyday. The buck stops here. Anyone that knows ME will tell you it always has. Justin.crotty@ingrammicro.com.
Justin Crotty
VP Services North America
Ingram Micro, Inc.
I appreciate you are doing what you can to rectify a bad customer service experience. Bad customer service and an original unresponsiveness to it was what drove me to write this article. However is Ingram-Micro willing to change some of their financing policies to make it easier for small businesses to get to the next level or service and product offerings? What do you consider a “small solution provider?”
What can Ingram-Micro do to cut the “red-tape?”
Dear Mr. Crotty:
Add me to the list of small business owners who have been swept out with the trash by your company. To wit: yesterday I logged into our Ingram Micro account and discovered that our account had been purged. When I attempted to call customer service, tech support and my sales rep, I was continually disconnected by the automated phone system because my account number, when entered, was not recognized.
I finally called the “new business” phone number in a desperate attempt to reach a human being, explained what I had experienced and was told to go to the website and fill out a new re-seller application.
That’s the service you can expect if you are a small to medium size business.
Anything you can do to help me re-establish my existing account will be appreciated, mainly because I need access to my order history.
Deborah Cohen
I’m not Mr. Crotty. I’ve experienced the bad customer service just like you so I would advise contacting him directly as I don’t know if he is continuing to read this blog post. Thanks for chiming in and adding to the conversation. We need to do all we can to encourage the support and consideration of new and small businesses.
Thanks Patrick. I emailed Mr. Crotty a copy of my post.
Deborah
Forgot to say one thing in my previous posts: As horrible as my experiences with Ingram-Micro have been, my dealings with Synnex, their competitor, have been wonderful. My Synnex sales rep treats me like I’m her biggest customer. In fact, everybody at Synnex treats me like I’m the Queen. Moreover, I get great terms from their credit dept., or if I prefer, I can use Amex or MC/Visa.
Just thought I’d kick in that plug for Synnex.
I have had an Ingram Micro account for a few years which is always being closed due to not spending enough per month. On Monday I tried to submit a urgent order $6500.00 for a client that had IT gear stolen. The reply was fill out a survey, guarantee you will spend a selected amount over the next 3 months which was much less than my standing order and we will get back to? I needed product now to get my client trading! They offered no service and was more concerned about there survey and what I must spend over 3 months. My client today decided to do a total upgrade worth over 17k! I was lucky I was able to talk my client in to other brands. The problem is that they are the sole distributor for many products which means small business are unable to sell the end user product they have requested? I like to be in a position to knock back what ended up being a 17k order.
Brett
[...] Writing this post reminded me of when Patrick wrote about a customer service disaster with Ingram-Micro: Unfriendly to Small Business? [...]
With all due respect, companies like Ingram Micro, Synnex, D&H, etc., are in the business of DISTRIBUTION. They work with companies that need the services of a DISTRIBUTOR, and are constantly ordering product for their business. Their pricing is based on volume sales, and they have thousands of customers buying in volume. To think that they should dedicate scads of time and resources to small companies that order product sporadically at best is not good business. My company orders product on a daily basis from these distributors, so I have plenty of experience with each of them. They only lock out your account if they haven’t heard from you in a very reasonable amount of time. If you’re not ordering the volume of product it takes to work with a distributor, get your stuff at Staples or someplace else where credit or sales volume isn’t an issue.
Dave, the “product” we were “distributing” and managing is MXlogic E-mail defense services. That is not something we can go down to Staples and pick up. Originally MXLogic wanted us to go through Ingram but MXLogic was kind enough to work directly with us instead of a third party. As of this writing we have a very successful relationship with MXLogic and our customers love the service we are providing to them through MXLogic.
Well all I can say to that ridiculous statement is good luck to ya’ in this economy. If Ingram Micro (and you) can keep doing business with that customer service attitude, then God bless. But like I said, Synnex treats me like a queen. I reward them for their good customer service with my loyalty. And why should I pay 20% more at Staples when Synnex is happy to take less of my money for the same product?? Am I getting in your way in the cash register line at Ingram Micro??
I posted on this page in May (see above) where our account was locked and they knocked back a 17k order. Now in October we had another client with full office upgrade worth 35k. Some preferred products for this Ingram are the sole distributor for and surprise surprise Ingram again were more concerned with monthly minimum spend and offered little service. Once again we had to take the client into a different solution and other brands. Then I get a email from Ingram wanting me to attend there Road Show? I emailed them back with brief history of the above with no reply. With smaller margin and the brain damage associated with IT and dealing with Vendors in general we will be shutting our IT doors at the end of the month after 28 years. It’s become all to hard. There are other technologies with better profit margins and VENDORS to invest in now.
We have also run into situation where the volume of product we needed to order exceeded our credit limit. At that time our Ingram rep steered us to their credit dept, who were more than willing to extend our credit or offer a solution where we were able to purchase (one of the situations was a $200K software order for the state capitol). I am not hear to dis anyone or come off like a cheerleader for Ingram, but they’ve been very fair to us, and their customer support in my experience has been second to none. I would say that for many companies who do not order in volume, D&H is a great fit and caters to many small and medium sized businesses. Patrick I understand your dilemma because we deal with a lot of under the radar IT solutions that can be hard to find/purchase, but as you found, many of those companies will help you out by going direct with you. We do that with a few of them.
And Deb – no you’re not in my way, thanks. And I will say that Ingram treats me like a king.
I actually have no problem at all with not being the target customer for Ingram Micro. My original issue was more of a customer service problem and their attitude. We could have gotten past and understood the first three point no problem but it was the bizarre and unfriendly customer service that put me over the edge enough to write the original post.
Yes, compared to a lot of companies we are small right now but we have no intentions of staying that way. It doesn’t matter of a company or client is a single individual just barely making it or a huge multinational corporation good customer service should be extended to all not just those who are your target audience. I will definitely check into D&H and it would be nice if companies like Ingram-Micro would train their employees not to be so rude but rather in a gracious way offer alternative solutions to customers who are not an ideal fit for them.
SpinningSilk Multimedia has a sister division called SpinningSilk I.T. . We don’t actually provide direct I.T. services – i.e. computer repair, networking and software trouble shooting but we are partnering with other companies to offer those services. While we may have to say no, we don’t provide that service directly we can recommend partners who can.
The last comment here was nearly two years ago, but this page is the top hit when doing a google search for “ingram micro complaints” so I thought I’d post an update.
First: Ingram’s customer service has continued to decline. Although I’m essentially a ‘happy’ Ingram Micro customer, they continue to do little things that cause me to look for other distributors. I run a small ($250K/yr) business and probably purchase about $100K/yr from Ingram, so I’m not a big shot like Dave Piccirillo. Even so, I get decent pricing and decent service. Until something goes wrong, that is.
Now, I can understand that because I am a small customer and because they need to trim costs to the bone that much of my interaction with Ingram needs to be automated (their web-based ordering system is the best in my opinion) but when the inevitable mistake occurs, there needs to be a way to jump out of the scripted call center and talk to a real person who can actually make decision.
After one such episode earlier this week, I attempted to contact a “manager or somebody who can understand what I am trying to say” — all I got was bounced back into the call center. There’s no way to say this without sounding jingoistic, but when your situation is outside the norm, speaking with somebody who understands just enough English to read the script in front of them is not only not helpful, but intensely frustrating. I’m still trying to find a phone number or email address of a ‘real person’ to speak with. (That search is what led me here.)
So if anybody else stumbles upon this blog and wonder whether the situation has improved since 2008… my opinion is that it hasn’t.
There is a thread in the comments to the effect that small business is not Ingram’s target market. I disagree. Of course, the big money is with big business, but they have done quite a bit to make my small business successful. I’ve been doing business with them for nearly 20 years now, and although I’ve tried to switch away two or three times, they remain the best distributor for me.
Last note: the original post mentioned the option of working directly with the manufacturer. This should not be overlooked. I routinely call the manufacturer directly to inquire about direct purchases. Even though we might not buy from them more often than once or twice a year, some are very happy to sell direct, cutting out the middleman.