Tech Sales Reps Gone Wild

Mobile software vendor sales rep sends me his pitch. The pitch seems interesting; I respond. No response to me from the rep. But there is a "reward" for my quick response. I get a response from... multiple people from my company?

First, CEO forwards the pitch my way. "Looks interesting, can you accommodate him?" In between the lines: "This guy must be pitching me because you are not responsive." So I forward my response to CEO, and copy the sales guy.

Looked at the time stamps: I actually responded before the sales rep sent it to my CEO. In between my lines: Stop the pestering!

[What got Grumpy IT Guy's goat last week? The Test System That Wasn't.]

But no, it just won't stop. Next, purchasing people send the same pitch my way. This sales rep has "reached out" to them too (if you consider reaching out to be acting like a stuck key on a keyboard).

Purchasing: We will add you to our list. That fictional list that we say we keep but don't really. You know the one. But please talk to IT. (In between the lines: Please, for the love of God, do not email us again. Please send all spam to IT. I can see the cat meme now, "IT, Why U No Respond To Vendor?")

Next, I get a note from finance. "We're not sure why we got this, please handle." In between the lines: "Can't you be a little more responsive to sales reps? We don't have time to forward your email to you." Yes. And I wish you wouldn't.

It still won't stop. Multiple customer service reps get the same pitch. Now I'm getting scared. What, did this guy hack our mail server? Having visions of every fifth email being a pitch from this guy from now on.

I have a reputation for being approachable by users. That's good. But in this case, it's bad: Many customer service reps are comfortable forwarding the pitch my way. Teeth gritted, pasting on virtual smile. "Thanks for letting me know." Argh!

If you think he has been mail-bombing the whole company, you would be right. I get the same email forwarded to me about 50 times. Great job, sales rep. That's how to get me to notice you... in a bad way.

The irony! The pitch was good. The truth: After I got this pitch 50 times and got my time wasted by having to respond multiple times to coworkers, I was about 18,000 times less likely to follow up -- much less become a customer.

Maybe his whole company acts this way. I can see it now: As a customer, you put in a support ticket. Instead of emailing you back, the support desk emails 50 randomly selected coworkers. Maybe their mobility product works like that too.

I can tell you this: I don't want to find out.

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