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 <[email protected]> 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" <[email protected]> > *To: *"Animal Farm" <[email protected]> > *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) < > [email protected]> 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. > >
