Dog - Thought you might be interested in this.
I had to buy a desktop today and took out my CPQ and DELL catalogues. CPQ has finally put out a nice 56 page blue catalogue (with no date) that I got a few weeks ago. Well done catalogue. Dell, on the other hand, puts out short little 20 page catalogues monthly.
In the CPQ catalogue I see a unit: 450MHz, 6 Gig HD, 64 Meg ram, 19" monitor, Win95, DVD CD - for around $3300
In the DELL catalogue I see: 450 MHz, 16.8 Gig HD, 128 Meg Ram, 21" monitor, Win98, DVD CD - for around $3300
Dell blows CPQ away for the same dollars. I don't mind a few dollars different but there is a limit.
I really didn't want to buy DELL because DEC has much better hand holding and product line but I can't eat that kind of difference.
For what reason I don't know (probably because I hold stock), but I decided to give CPQ a call and read the salesman the DELL stats. I got a great, sharp, salesman and the guy instantly says "Ok - no problem - we'll match it. A 14 gig drive instead of 16 but otherwise the same price and stats within a hundred dollars or so.". I was blown away and ordered.
What does all this say? I mean, how many sales are being lost because there must be others like me that look at the stats and just call DELL.
The design people did a great job in putting together the catalogue but all the info is months out of date. No sale units with drives over 6 gigs, 8 gigs is the biggest drive anywhere, win95, etc.
I think CPQ has to steal some of DELLs tactics. Have a strike force that puts together a short, monthly, catalogue with absolutely up-to-the-second tech data and offerings.
The thing that bothers me is that CPQ could have called Dell's printer and said: "Print the same catalogue for me and ship it to the same mailing list." but instead CPQ mails a catalogue seems 6 months out of date and reinforces the image that DELL is ahead of the curve when they actually have almost identical offerings.
You seem to know a lot of people around CPQ, is anyone addressing this? |
