There was a time back right after the invention of electricity but before the widespread use of motorized vehicles that vendors with crappy salespeople didn’t have to worry about customers talking to each other and sharing their poor service experiences.

Heads up – the world’s changed.

Provide a bad experience — and you may not catch the comments that are made between your target customer.

The image above is from a message I posted to my private 100+ person 90 Minds Consulting network. It’s a non-profit associaton we’ve established using the closed Socialcast system for consultant to consultant communication.

No vendors. No outsiders. Totally private.

I regularly advise customers to buy products and services  based solely on comments from my trusted contacts within this closed network

These deals can often approach 6 figures — and if one of my trusted colleagues in the group have given a recommendation then in my mind it’s the only solution that I recommend

Certainly you’re smart and you’ve setup Google Alerts so you (or your PR department) catch negative mentions your company’s name and you then instantly (reactively) try to solve the issue.

But what happens when the year is 2012 and your customers are smart enough to communicate like 90 Minds does — using social tools like Yammer, Socialcast or Podio —  that aren’t open to indexing by Google?

These conversations never generate a Google Alert of a problem so you can hustle off and try to solve the issue (reactively).

This morning I had a conversation with someone asking why some of the social sites such as LinkedIn seemed to go through periods where they  lack in mew conversation.

My feedback is that there’s plenty of conversation – some of it has just moved to private social enterprise tools.

Companies who have grown complacent and satisfied with putting out customer problems simply by listening to Google Alerts would be well advised to step up their game and become proactive at delivering exceptional service –  instead of reactive and only responding to signals provided by public complaints online – because in some cases the most important signals are growing weaker or disappearing altogether.

According to one of my 90 Minds members who spoke to their Hightower representative:

We had an open support case with them and got a call from our rep that they were shutting down 

I have a message into Hightower executives. Calls  today (3/20/12) to their phone line listed on the web site have gone unanswered. Update: As of 2:28 pm ET 3/20/12 the phone message is indicating that Hightower is experiencing a serious data interruption to voice and email.

Another independent source reports that according to multiple unnamed Hightower employees:

Hightower employees met at the office and were advised to take an unscheduled and possibly unpaid vacation and  that they’d hear back in a week to 10 days. Email was reportedly shut down over the weekend.

An independent consultant doing subcontracting work for the company reported being told on Monday to put all work on hold. Followup emails to the company representative from the consultant reportedly went unanswered.

It is unknown at this point when Hightower will re-open after  taking what some employees have described as an unpaid vacation.

UPDATE 3/24/2012:  Sage partner Hightower Inc is apparently closing and have transferred the support for all customers and enhancements to another Sage partner. This was revealed in a channel wide announcement sent 3/23/12. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed nor were any further reasons for the sudden transfer. Messages sent to Brian Dunn, CFO of Hightower , were not returned.  A message sent to the new VAR mentioned as assuming responsibility for Hightower was not returned.

According to their web site:

HighTower is a consultant, reseller, implementer, trainer, and software developer of ERP systems, including Sage MAS 90 / 200, NetSuite and SYSPRO. It is a leading reseller, enhancement developer, and Authorized Trainer for Sage MAS 90 ERP and Sage MAS 200 ERP. As an award-winning accounting, distribution, CRM, HR, and manufacturing software expert, HighTower offers experienced professional consulting and technical services that understand how a business works. HighTower is also authorized in the sales and support or Sage MAS 500 ERP, Sage Abra HRMS, SageCRM, and more.

Are you a partner or consultant for Sage products? Join the private conversation on our partner Facebook group  or LinkedIn Group.

Are you a customer looking for support on a Sage product? We have over 100 members nationwide. Find a local Sage Partner.

Only a few hands went up. And this was in a room of about 50 of arguably Sage’s most active partners.

For those who’ve not been, Firm of the Future is two days of instruction with Ron Baker of VeraSage and Ed Kless of Sage.  The course catalog describes the experience as:

This experience is dedicated to the possibility that a professional organization can be run more effectively when it becomes a knowledge firm rather than a service firm. Creating such an organization is hard work and not for everyone as it requires partners to think differently than they have in the past about what it is that they do.

The course is about shared knowledge you can use for building a business that bills for knowledge and results and not time. It’s about learning how to bill for value not hours. It’s about making more money. It works.

I attended the session back in May 2011. You can read my review.

Since the course I no longer bill hourly. The day I completed the course was the last time I have billed hourly.

If you are tired of the “race to the bottom line” that comes with billing hourly – you need this course. If you want to substantially increase your firm’s revenues – you need this course.

Link

A group of approximately 100 Sage partners (panelists pictured above left to right- Moira Goggin (Chismet Consulting – event co-organizer), Mary Abdian (Macabe Associates) , Doug Deane (DSD Business Systems) , John Hoyt (Hutchinson and Bloodgood), Bill Kizer (xKzero))  gathered today in Lake Forest California. The group was split about 50/50 with some consultants attending in person and others remotely (web ex) for an in-depth discussion of changes that have been rolled out to the Sage eco-system (margins, certifications, subscription pricing, partner compensation).

Top of mind in the conversation were discussions about Sage selling directly to existing customers and specific terms of changes that accompany the recently unveiled Sage subscription pricing model.

When asked about Sage’s new rules of engagement which seem to green light selling direct to existing customers, Sage’s VP of Channel Management, Tom Miller, remarked  ”we have a bunch of under-served customers” and that not all partners are equally as dedicated as those in the room and in some instances Sage have needed to step in and make the sales because an existing partner lacked the capabilities.

One unanswered question centered around a new Sage policy that discontinues margin on the recently announced subscription type plans (effective 4/1/2012) for a customer who changes partners. The margin no longer is paid to the originating partner (which is how it presently works) and is also not paid the to acquiring partner ( a change from Sage’s current policy which continues paying margin to the acquiring partner).

This seems to be a change designed to stop Sage partners from transferring or selling customers to other partners who because of their sales tier may generate a higher margin on those renewals. Sage’s Tom Miller did seem to indicate the policy wouldn’t preclude consultants from selling their customers upon retirement –  though the exact nature of the policy still seemed a bit hazy and difficult for Sage to substantiate. At one point while describing the change as due to “fair reimbursement for value delivered” Miller chided a panelist for laughing at his reasoning.

Amongst changes Sage’s Tom Miller hinted at was an upcoming new partner program to offer more to partners who sell more service than product.

Event hosts included Altec’s,Kevin Dudevoir, Kerry Gardner, April Blankenship, Allison Alonzo and of course Brandt Morrell. Paul Cannon & Nicole Laurier of Fisher Technology provided a Kindle Fire. Kim Hogan from Fujitsu offered a mobile scanner.

Bill persevered in creating this meeting despite the software publisher suggesting a game of channel hide and seek instead.

Don’t you love social media?

The event happens Thursday March 15, 2012 and features a panel discussion with some top VARs, prizes, sharing, vendor presentations, networking.

There’s still time to register -UPDATE: Event has occurred. Read our wrap up of this networking event – Sage Consultant LinkedIn Summit.

MAS90 LinkedIn

It’s a simple two line checklist. Pick either #1 or #2. It will trump all other criteria.

1. Sells acceptable number of new user deals
2. Does not sell acceptable number of new user deals

In my opinion no other measurement matters.

Soldier on.

The service promises to deliver the top posts from each interest group (list) in the user’s newsfeed. By grouping together users into a list it’s possible to subscribe to the public feeds of all users on the list without having to go through and find and subscribe to people individually.

This is a very similar concept to Google+ Circles which also allow you to group people into circles (lists) and view their publicly available posts.

Here’s a sample for those interested in following public feeds of some Sage related people.

We’re in the process of finding out who that one sale per quarter person is so we can vote them off the island congratulate them.

Accounting Today

Three months has passed and it now seems Sage are actively polling about 500 current customers asking what price they’d be willing to pay per month for their current accounting solution.

Update March 2, 2012: Sage have notified that channel of pricing for NEW (not existing) users of Sage 100 ERP, 300 and 500. This poll that was sent to existing users would appear to be testing the pricing method EXISTING users might prefer to pay if there is a transition allowed between module and user pricing (as of now Sage prohibits switching between licensing models).

Pricing options under consideration reportedly are $75, $100 or $125 per user per year. I  believe this is for Sage 100 ERP users though I was not able to view the actual survey so have to rely on the customer’s explanation.

One company sent a copy of the email to us (not a customer of ours) remarking that with their present user count they could potentially face a bill of $40,000 per year. Of course this is only a survey and Sage might implement any number of plans for existing users including grandfathering existing users but adding new purchases at a potentially new rate.

With any change to a subscription model I think the Sage 100 ERP software will be issued expiring unlock registration codes so that using the software without paying maintenance could become a trick of the past for cost savvy customers.