Although I quit CTI over a year ago, Jonte was my guy and he was very good.
Having said that, I will go back into the wrecker business before I
trade with CTI again.
I HATED the wrecker business....
On 9/3/2015 6:43 PM, Jon Auer wrote:
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
<mailto: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
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
Midwest Internet Exchange
http://www.midwest-ix.com
<https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From: *"Jon Auer" <j...@tapodi.net <mailto:j...@tapodi.net>>
*To: *"Animal Farm" <af@afmug.com <mailto: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 <mailto: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.
