Project Killer 101:

[drunkenwildmage]

How to tick off a customer and bring a project to a screeching halt 101:


Send a revised quote the major component of the project that charges 4 1/4 times the size of the original quote.

Last fall, while we were working our 2019 budgets, a sales critter I'm dealing with for a major software vendor, sent me a quote of around $60k (usd) for a project. Now that our budgets are in place, and we are ready to kick off said project I asked for a revised quote. The 'revised' quote I just got sent is now around $250k. My manager took a one look at the new quote, and was like 'ymm..yah.. we are no longer doing this project'.

[csquared]

I would hate to see what would have happened if you agreed to the 60K quote earlier. Can you say "Cost overrun"?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wow, somebody derped up up big time. Let's all sing the derp song.

[Mental_Mouse]

Do you try any pushback on the vendor? "Excuse me, that's not what you quoted before. And the new price is a non-starter. Let me repeat, you will not get that much money out of us, the project will be canceled instead."

[drunkenwildmage]

Do you try any pushback on the vendor? "Excuse me, that's not what you quoted before. And the new price is a non-starter. Let me repeat, you will not get that much money out of us, the project will be canceled instead."

Before we canceled the project we inquired as to why the price changed so much and was told it was because the 'pricing structure' changed at the end of the year, and we were no longer eligible for the original pricing rates. (dispute, literally nothing changing on our end). After telling that sales critter that the project was officially canceled from our end last Friday, I noticed this morning, that I got an email from them with a lower '1 time' price.

[Mental_Mouse]

Before we canceled the project we inquired as to why the price changed so much and was told it was because the 'pricing structure' changed at the end of the year, and we were no longer eligible for the original pricing rates. (dispute, literally nothing changing on our end). After telling that sales critter that the project was officially canceled from our end last Friday, I noticed this morning, that I got an email from them with a lower '1 time' price.

Day late and dollar short?

[mhkohne]

Before we canceled the project we inquired as to why the price changed so much and was told it was because the 'pricing structure' changed at the end of the year, and we were no longer eligible for the original pricing rates. (dispute, literally nothing changing on our end). After telling that sales critter that the project was officially canceled from our end last Friday, I noticed this morning, that I got an email from them with a lower '1 time' price.

I have to wonder whether they decided they wanted more money, or they massively underquoted to begin with.

I've been amused by this kind of bullshit for years - I once worked for a company that hosted it's CVS repository offsite. One year the hosting company tells us the price is gonna double. They apparently thought we didn't have any options.

We looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and moved it in house - we'd let the west coast office go a while before and had been just paying the bill because it was easy, not because we needed remote access.

[drunkenwildmage]

This company is one of the bigger world tech companies, and always have been a little snarky to deal with. A few years ago it took me 9 months and getting bounced to 4 or 5 of their sales critters to convince them to generate a quote for a renewal of a unrelated product. They kept bouncing me to their website to purchase something that was way above the threshold that we are allowed to buy from websites at the time.