VARs Say They 'Can't Get No Satisfaction'

Just how satisfied are you? It's a wonderful question to ask anyone and which, of course, will elicit a wide range of responses. How satisfied are you with your compensation, your house, your company's performance, car, George Bush, Congress, girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse? You get the idea. Well, the reason for bringing up the issue of satisfaction is because CRN's sister publication VARBusiness honored the channel's top-performing vendors in the area of partner satisfaction at our recent XChange conference in Orlando, Fla. You can read about the winners and the entire event on our Web site. If you study the Annual Report Card (ARC) results carefully, you will start to question the satisfaction level of today's solution providers and what the ramifications are for relationships where satisfaction is on the wane. And there's plenty of waning going on here, which translates into plenty of VAR defection.

ROBERT C. DEMARZO Can be reached via e-mail at rdemarzo@cmp.com.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb by stating that not a single vendor excels in the area of partner satisfaction today. There were several vendors who won well-deserved awards at the event, but the majority of today's top vendors performed rather poorly. Research recently disclosed by our IPED organization paints a satisfaction picture that is even bleaker than the ARC results. The logical conclusion is that if many vendors don't shore up their approval ratings, their relevance in the channel will soon fade away. I can't imagine that any vendor in the market today would be happy to receive grades in the 70s or 60s from VARs grading their technology, or anything less than 90-something when it comes to their partnering efforts. Think of it this way: If your boss gave you a 65 for your support of his initiatives or a 70 for innovative work, just how happy would you be? Would you stick around for another year? Or would your resume be in the hands of a headhunter looking to place you at another organization?

I know it's a rhetorical question, but why aren't vendors who receive anything less than stellar grades completely freaking out or doing everything they can to impress their partners? After all, the only thing at stake is their future, their compensation and their sales. Perhaps the results paralyze some vendors, who are so overwhelmed they don't know where to start. That notion isn't so far-fetched if you consider that many vendors compete against a dominant player in their market. But what they forget is that solution providers appreciate some action better than none at all, and it doesn't take a huge bag of dough to make a difference. Maybe that's what causes some vendors to freeze up when it comes to improving satisfaction: They think they have to spend millions to make a difference. While that would be nice, what matters is a desire to innovate when it comes to the channel, create buzz, make noise, show partners you care and that they matter. That doesn't mean taking a bunch of solution providers on some junket cruise to a tropical island. For a vendor, what it does mean is waking up every day scared to death that a dissatisfied partner is perhaps the most dangerous partner of all.

What one thing can your vendor do to improve their satisfaction rating?
E-mail me at rdemarzo@cmp.com. I have nice gifts for the best submissions.