I had a very bad experience yesterday. My boss came into my office with the new catalog from a larger computer manufacturer and showed me the $399 special. He wanted me to call and verify the price, make sure there were no "gotchas", and if so order 4 of them. We've had good experience with this company recently, having bought 7 systems from them over the past month. This is a better deal though so we wanted to take advantage of it.
I get a salesman on the line and verify everything and am all set to order, then he asks "what are we going to add to this?" I said that they were just fine the way they were because our application was very undemanding and the low price was the most imporant factor. He then told me that it had to have more RAM because 256MB wasn't enough since Windows uses 240 and there wouldn't be enough left for programs to run. I assured him it would be fine, and that i was running both XP Home and Pro on many systems with only 256. His response to that was that these units had the latest service pack which required much more memory. I asked him the price, and it was rather reasonable at only $40 for an extra 256. Not great, but not bad either.
He assured me that these systems simply would not run as configured and that the upgrade was absolutely necessary. Trying to assume that he was on the level, i asked why they would list a product so prominently on their catalog that was non-functional. His response was that this was a base configuration that they wouldn't sell without adding extras. I found that insulting because there was no mention of that on the catalog. Their website lists the same unit for the same price and even has a "buy this system" button that is clickable without adding extras.
I then said i would have to discuss that with my boss before ordering. Or at least i tried to say that. I got as far as the word "boss" and he hung up on me! Unbelievable. He mumbled "ok then," and *click*.
I found that all rather surpisingly poor salesmanship. I checked a few of the other machines we had bought recently, all with 256MB, and all with the applications we'd be running open on them. They all were up to date with the latest service packs, and not one of them was using more than 95MB.
We're chalking this up hopefully to merely getting a bad salesdroid on a bad day. We placed an order this morning from the website, at $399 without the extra RAM. Still, it was a pretty bad experience. I would imagine that those who aren't as knowledgeable probably get suckered in by this sort of thing very easily. Maybe while i had him on the phone i should have explained that i knew more about Windows and system requirements than he did. ;)
I get a salesman on the line and verify everything and am all set to order, then he asks "what are we going to add to this?" I said that they were just fine the way they were because our application was very undemanding and the low price was the most imporant factor. He then told me that it had to have more RAM because 256MB wasn't enough since Windows uses 240 and there wouldn't be enough left for programs to run. I assured him it would be fine, and that i was running both XP Home and Pro on many systems with only 256. His response to that was that these units had the latest service pack which required much more memory. I asked him the price, and it was rather reasonable at only $40 for an extra 256. Not great, but not bad either.
He assured me that these systems simply would not run as configured and that the upgrade was absolutely necessary. Trying to assume that he was on the level, i asked why they would list a product so prominently on their catalog that was non-functional. His response was that this was a base configuration that they wouldn't sell without adding extras. I found that insulting because there was no mention of that on the catalog. Their website lists the same unit for the same price and even has a "buy this system" button that is clickable without adding extras.
I then said i would have to discuss that with my boss before ordering. Or at least i tried to say that. I got as far as the word "boss" and he hung up on me! Unbelievable. He mumbled "ok then," and *click*.
I found that all rather surpisingly poor salesmanship. I checked a few of the other machines we had bought recently, all with 256MB, and all with the applications we'd be running open on them. They all were up to date with the latest service packs, and not one of them was using more than 95MB.
We're chalking this up hopefully to merely getting a bad salesdroid on a bad day. We placed an order this morning from the website, at $399 without the extra RAM. Still, it was a pretty bad experience. I would imagine that those who aren't as knowledgeable probably get suckered in by this sort of thing very easily. Maybe while i had him on the phone i should have explained that i knew more about Windows and system requirements than he did. ;)