> 90% of the time, they already know what they're going to use
That seems exceedingly unlikely. When I'm shopping for a new vendor I have no idea who I'll use until I talk to a few to see how the offerings vary and which ones fit my budget.
The ridiculous part is how much time is wasted getting to the price. Then it turns out it is above my budget, so it's all wasted time on both sides. I don't expect a final price on first contact because I know enterprise contacts have variables, but give me a ballpark figure in the first 30 seconds to see if it's worth continuing to talk for three weeks or just end it there.
Just recently had a vendor (named similar to this site but "One" instead of "News"!) who gave me an approximate quote on day 1. Sounded perfect, fit my budget. So we continue talking about the details for many weeks. Only after a lot of time they reveal that quote is just for the core service we need, but there's also several other mandatory fees so the actual quote was like 3x higher. Far above my budget. Many weeks wasted. Maddening.
> That seems exceedingly unlikely. When I'm shopping for a new vendor I have no idea who I'll use until I talk to a few to see how the offerings vary and which ones fit my budget.
Imagine you're an experienced user of AWS, you know their prices fit your budget, and you know experienced people are easy to hire.
But before signing that multi-million-dollar purchase order, your boss asks you to get a quote from Oracle Cloud.
Will you get the quote? Yes. Will you select Oracle? Maybe if they're 30-40% cheaper. Will they be? No.
That seems exceedingly unlikely. When I'm shopping for a new vendor I have no idea who I'll use until I talk to a few to see how the offerings vary and which ones fit my budget.
The ridiculous part is how much time is wasted getting to the price. Then it turns out it is above my budget, so it's all wasted time on both sides. I don't expect a final price on first contact because I know enterprise contacts have variables, but give me a ballpark figure in the first 30 seconds to see if it's worth continuing to talk for three weeks or just end it there.
Just recently had a vendor (named similar to this site but "One" instead of "News"!) who gave me an approximate quote on day 1. Sounded perfect, fit my budget. So we continue talking about the details for many weeks. Only after a lot of time they reveal that quote is just for the core service we need, but there's also several other mandatory fees so the actual quote was like 3x higher. Far above my budget. Many weeks wasted. Maddening.