Canon should stick to cameras

[fmw]

Beginning of rant. My third Konica copier in 10 years wore out today. If I were to get it fixed it would be the third repair in as many weeks. Not very good in my opinion. Also these units have been expensive to operate. No more Konica for me despite the convenient location of the dealer.

I went looking for a new one today and contacted the local Canon copier dealer. To make a long story short, he was unwilling to give me any figures about operating costs and, if I wasn't willing to go to his store, he wouldn't talk to me. I was actually intending to buy a copier over the phone and pay cash for it. I just needed enough information to make a purchase decision. Money wasn't even an issue. I've always wondered where salesmen learn that arrogance is an effective technique. That was the end of that. So I called a Canon dealer that is 50 miles away. The salesman was in but wasn't taking calls at the moment. I must have caught him on his coffee break. I shrugged my shoulders, hung up and moved on. I called Canon USA to see if they would give me some operating costs. Nope. They would only refer me to a dealer and that wasn't playing their strong suit with me.

To make a long story short, a dealer from a neighboring state - about 75 miles away - decided to put a copier in his car and drive here to bring it to me. He said he'd like to take his family out to dinner and thought he would do that in my area. How's that for going the extra mile? I'm the proud owner of a shiny new Samsung copier. I hope it's a good one because this guy deserves all my future business.

I suggest Canon stick to cameras. Their copier business in this area must be terrible. You can't buy one if you try. End of rant.

 

[Xmetal]

Mate, I know your pain on both sides of the fence and believe me there are some truly dickheaded sales people out there, I used to be a salesperson in a large computer store and some of my collegues used to annoy me to no end with their office politics and the way they delt with customers (especially the boss, Basically told a customer to f*ck off one day there after i'd tried correcting the situation). The only people I had respect for was the service department out the back who worked harder than the entire sales team and they were a great bunch of guys to boot!

On the other end of the scale i've been chasing a Logitech Harmony remote for my dad and no one has any instock and one place I called I asked if they had any - "No we don't sorry" *click* I was on the verge of calling them back and abusing the management!

Moral to the story - ask for the salespersons name (over the phone) or a business card (in person) so if they offend you, you can call straight back and ask for the boss.

 

[fmw]

I have a fairly thick skin for this kind of thing. My opinion is that the owner of the Canon dealership deserves the people he has if he is unaware of how they conduct business. Obviously making a copier sale to me wasn't very important so he's not very important to me. I won't spend any time on him beyond venting in this thread and I won't recommend him to other small businessmen in the area who might ask me for a recommendation. Word of mouth is pretty strong among the local small business community.

The man from Michigan, on the other hand, will get rave reviews in my area. I spent about an hour learning my way around the new machine last night. It is a digital model and is truly amazing. It can copy or print on both sides of the page - something I've never been able to do and was unaware I could do with the right equipment. It can handle 5000 pages per month reliably which is about twice my usage. It looks like I got some slick equipment as well as a good new dealer. While I'm nonplussed at Canon, I'm happy with the new purchase.