Okay, I should have kept my powder dry. Better that I tested MIGHTYsoft’s new Dynamics 4.0 package, or tried to, before weighing in on SalesFORCE’s sales overkill. ‘Cause from the sales perspective, turns out the choice is between obnoxious and stone deaf.
I’ve already documented “obnoxious” on my previous SalesFORCE post this week, so let’s skip straight to deaf. I was headed for a Microsoft Dynamics 4.0 demo this morning, except I succumbed to whatever plague seems to have infected half the Twin Cities lately, so no go. But while working in my office, a client for whom we’re developing software requirements e-mailed to ask if Dynamics was a possibility. I replied back that Dynamics 3.0 has a design flaw that ruled it out, but I was, indeed, going to look at V4.0.
I was going to, and that’s about as far as I got.
I started by going up on MIGHTYsoft’s Launch home page. Signed myself up for access to the new Dynamics CRM Live, or so I thought. Only to get the dreaded, “A Microsoft representative will contact you.” Some day.
But I also wanted to see the thick client version, so I clicked on the Free 90-day trial” link. Most CRM vendors offer a free trial or free demo on desktop of their client-server apps, so I wasn’t expecting any difficulty. The link took me to a very poorly designed download site that offered—two flavors of a server-based product but none for a desktop (which is the way most of us test software, keeping it off the network initially). I downloaded the 32-bit server version regardless, in the hopes someone at MIGHTYsoft was well enough versed with customers and consultants to have created something that would run on XP. Low and behold, no executable in the download folder. Just zipped instructional files.
So I clicked on live chat to find out where to find the file. The chat rep said she was in sales, and I was asking a sales operations question. End of session. After trying the download again, with the same results, I decided to try chat again. This second rep obviously didn’t speak English, because she kept coming back to me saying that her station didn’t provide technical support. Technical support – to find a free download file?
Next I decided to use the “Run” option on the download instead of “Save,” which I really don’t like doing. Finally, I did get the executable. Not wired for XP. So I can’t test it.
Fortunately, I have good relationships with several MIGHTYsoft partners who will review the app with me, despite not yet having any skin in the game. But here we go again. Another CRM software seller without a clue about CRM. No effort to align with customers. Pushing product instead of building customer relationships. And especially putting up a distribution wall that forces customers (and consultants) to engage partners long before they’re ready, so that customers will get the same damn sales pressure SalesFORCE exerts. All this for an application that’s a very likely non-starter for my client.
You know, there are days I’d like to stick a lit cherry-bomb in the ears of every MIGHTYsoft exec I can find. Couldn’t do any damage. They can’t hear anyway.
All this reminds me of the long-running Visio issue. Umpteen releases after MIGHTYsoft bought Visio, it still can’t print to Word, which is a terribly important function for us heavy flowcharters. Corel’s iGrafx has done it for years. SmartDraw does it. But Microsoft is so deaf to customers that customer input goes in one ear and out the other. All the cherry-bombs will do is increase the throughput.
But don’t get me started.
