*nods* that's why I like where I'm at... WAV, Baltic, CTI, Roc-Noc, AIR802 and I'm sure more are all within an hour, most less.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Yuchasz" <li...@gogebicrange.net> To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 9:11:06 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce I had Dan as well and your absolutely right. After that …. Well we stopped using them. Back around January our new rep Mike Janachowowski called me. Polite and letting me know he was the new rep. He followed up about once a month. I had no interest in using CTI anymore and really hated to use streakwave either. In a pinch I needed something and he came through. A little while later I needed something else fast and it was here the next day again. I told him I was the owner of the company and didn’t need written quotes or any hoops in the way just wanted to call him or email him and have him send it with his best price. If I call before 4:00 its hear the next day before noon with standard shipping. If it’s something that won’t be here the next day because of drop shipping he calls and makes sure that’s alright. He is my go to on orders now. Best regards, Brandon Yuchasz GogebicRange.net www.gogebicrange.net From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2015 8:27 PMhe To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce Dan Ortega at CTI was a badass. I would send one email and everything I wanted would show up two days later. I don't know how he managed it, but that guy got stuff done. Our post Dan Ortega experiences were never as good. The only thing as reliable as Dan Ortega is Amazon. Maybe Dan Ortega was an android. I'm fairly happy with CTI (our rep: James until last year I think, and now Jonte) for cases where high-touch is OK. Ordering everything for a tower being built 3-4 months out with a licensed backhaul is a good example. In those cases a few clarifying phone calls and a email thread isn't the end of the world. They're pretty good to us and I have reasons to want to send them business. It's ordering the one-off/small project items that can be irritating. My usual order cycle is: email what I want (include exact part numbers), get a quote back, make sure the price is sane and part number is correct (if it's even listed), then email back saying yes, and it hopefully(1) shows up next day. 1) That's the part where things break down. I'm never sure if they have stock, are sending from a 3rd party (maybe a warehouse further away, maybe stock levels aren't in sync). Cambium is never a problem. Ubiquiti is hit and miss, other things, vary wildly. The uncertainty is frustrating. Although lately Jonte has gotten really good about letting me know when items have long lead times or are out of stock and finding alternate items. I do appreciate that. Aside from stock uncertainties, it feels wasteful of my time and theirs to have to go through a "traditional" sales rep interaction cycle for small/uncomplicated orders. At this point if we're replenishing stock by ordering a case of UBNT gear and we haven't run out yet, we'll order it from CTI. If it's for a small project (e.g. AF5x link+spare or some UniFi APs) I'll order from Baltic because the stock levels on their website are accurate--if they show it in stock and I order before 3 PM I know that it will be in my office by noon the following day. Inaccurate stock levels on Streakwave's web store have bitten me on nearly every order I've placed with them... On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Mike Hammett < af...@ics-il.net > wrote: If it wasn't for Jeff Broadwick, i wouldn't do business with CTI... too complicated. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com From: "Jon Auer" < j...@tapodi.net > To: "Animal Farm" < af@afmug.com > Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2015 2:32:38 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT eCommerce On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) < li...@packetflux.com > wrote: Don't discount just adding your products to amazon and the like. I love it when manufacturers do this (and use Amazon's warehouses). I've been seriously tempted to just do it with /someone's/ very awesome APC-compatible surge cards... I was very happy when Telect was doing that with fuse panels and fiber trays. There's so much less cognitive load and time spent in going to Amazon, searching part number, and clicking buy now instead of emailing Power&Tel or CTI, getting a quote, approving the quote, placing the order, etc.
