Sage 100

The fun begins with the new BusinessCare team. This just in from a client... Sage called today and said they had been in contact with you regarding our yearly renewals. I said that I was a little confused since we went thru you for these items. He said that the renewals have now changed and we need to pay them direct to Sage. I told him that I would get a hold of you to discuss. He seemed a little upset that I had challenged him. He said that he had already discussed this with you but his comment was ""feel free to discuss this with Jeff"". Two blatant LIES. I have never talked to the new person....... And they don't need to renew directly with Sage. Perhaps this is the NEW way of getting their pound of flesh??

We are getting emails from the ""NEW Sage Business Care Team"" asking when is ## customer going to pay their maint that is due end of Dec??? They are out of control...

We have been getting this pressure for a while. The info requested is similar - when is the customer going to pay? Are they paying Sage or the partner. in both instances my response is ""how do I know?"". My suspicion is that it won't be long before Sage makes a move to take most/all billing of renewals in house. Naturally the golden excuse will be ""it's better for the customer"" or ""customers told us they want it this way"" or ""it is a better customer experience"". Pick one..

Steve Sombody from Sage called me to let me know which clients expire in December and asked how do I normally renew them. I told him they will renew directly with Sage promptly and do not need to be contacted. He said he also wanted to make sure they did not need additional modules. I asked him not to do that as it just annoys my clients to get sales calls from them. If he called them, they did not return the call. We also had a discussion about the revolving door of RAMS, etc. and he said every partner he had called so far said the same thing.

Sage HRMS has already been renewing only through Sage. We already had money in hand and Sage HRMS said they would not take any money through us. We had to go up the ladder and get a one time exemption. It's only a matter of time before Sage 100 does the same thing.

And you think it is painful getting your commission out of Sage now......... This is why I always collect the money. I control when Sage gets it. It also gives the client ONE person to deal with.....

Coincidently (I believe), I never received my commission check that normally arrives in October.

I met with our representative as they are based here in Georgia. They will also have cross sell and upswell responsibility

I'll consider myself lucky. I had a friendly call with our renewal rep and the relationship has been smooth (so far). Perhaps that is because I immediately launched into a diatribe about the outsourced renewals and how glad I was that that was over.

I cannot see how Sage's ultimate goal is anything but to manage the entire renewal process. Cross sell is basically Sage's last hope. If they want to have the best chance at success Sage will have to ""own"" the ""last mile"" billing relationship so that during renewal time they are the only one calling into the customer. Of course this all pre-supposes that there's not another reorganization before Sage can execute on billing directly.

So my ""new"" rep emails me to ask about a December renewal: My management team is looking for updates on a few specific December renewals. Can you please take a look at the December renewal listed below? Please give me an update on where they are in the process and when you expect them to pay their renewal. XXXXXX Co. 12/14/2013 Renewal Date Amt: $12,910.95 I emailed him back saying I didn't know when they will renew, but am certain they will. His response: Hi Diana, Thanks for responding. Anything in particular that makes you feel ""sure"" they will renew? Have you spoken with them regarding their renewal? Have they already received their invoice? Do they normally send in a check or pay you with a credit card? If they normally pay with a check, have they told you when they will be sending it to you? Do you have your clients sign an agreement with Capital Computer Systems? If so, have they singed that yet? Any bit of information would be helpful! Nowis it just me, or is this more that I need to do for them???

I feel it's more than Sage should need to know --- however we have been getting that questioning for about 6 months. We just do the best we can but for the most part we do not have the answers and are not going to repeatedly call to ask someone when they are going to pay.

We finally implemented our Knowledge Transfer Agreement (annual support contract) for our customers a couple months ago. It has been working out better than I'd expected. One of the things we've found is that customers that 1st signed with Gold are now downgrading to Silver, and then using us. We're also finding 1/2 the cases the Sage quote includes modules that are wrong. I'm thinking our tiny operation can't be unique this way. So I suspect that Sage's renewals this time around aren't all sunshine and sugar.

You get what you measure or reward and that's all you get from these folks.

Yep. I can't blame the employees for concentrating on the actions on which their ""keep my job"" metrics are based, Doesn't sound like fun.

And the logical next step for Sage is........Let's all say it together....Selling directly to end users......We all know it's coming; from the look of things it may be sooner rather than later.......

And so the death spiral will only get worse.

From my client that was called...... You know how I feel about these types of items, I am not one that does well with these deceptive used car salesman types of tactics. I will look forward to hearing their/your response as you work through this. The fact that he outright lied about being in contact with you is very concerning and lacks professionalism. Please make this perfectly clear to them as well that we work with you on all of our Sage needs and have no intention of going directly to them, and I don't appreciate their repeated attempts to get us to do so. Love my clients....

These Sage representatives (old or new) have no idea what the relationship or status is. They have the opportunity to find out from the business partner, but they don't. If I were to even call one of my CPA partners clients without telling him/her, there would be real problems. Our new rep just sent an e-mail to a client where the situation is extremely sensitive. I was simply copied on the e-mail. And no one seems to be in charge of these idiots.

No. They are treating the job as inside sales (with significant commission likely) instead of customer service.

Our Sage rep has been good so far. I asked him to send me the renewal list two months out and told him I would respond with the clients that renew direct so he could contact them. I also asked him to check our renewal rate and leave the others to us. It's still early in the game but so far it's working.

The rep responsible for this tread called me yesterday. Claimed he had tried several times to reach me via e-mail. I said I hadn't received a thing from him and he really should be contacting me first before reaching out to any of my clients. He claims he is only interesting in Business care renewals. I told him to send me a list 90 days out around the first of every month I will collect the money for him. He can call me any time and I will provide him with status details for his reporting needs. He seemed agreeable to this arrangement. We'll see!

@JeffSchwenk that still does not excuse his lying tactics.

Just received a call from another client -Are you still our reseller?"" Why yes, any particular reason you are asking? The IT department received a very strange e-mail which made us think you weren't. Please send me the e-mail so I can take a look. sigh....

Just got our statement last week and commission check today for October and November. At least those are flowing again!

@JeffSchwenk ............right in line w my Email. This is EXACTLY why I am meeting w. a head hunter. Trust me, the next calls will be direct selling.

@BernieLehman Have you gotten your list?

@KathleenMatthews - I did receive the list for December a couple of weeks ago. I just asked for the January list today and expect to receive it in a day or two.

@JeffSchwenk - I am very interested in the e-mail your client received, hope you're going to share when you receive it.

@BernieLehman I guess 30 days is much better than no list at all :) Thanks!

Seems to be a different CAM in Georgia reaching out to my client in IA. This one didn't even bother asking for the main contact. ""Thank you for taking my call today, and I look forward to speaking with you in the near future. If you have about 10 minutes of time please call or email me directly so we can update your account information."" Still not a call prior to reaching out to my clients......