Dear Bob ... Great column on Customer Elimination Management, Bob. Now, how to get the message to the CAs and Veritases of the world? Better yet, how to get it to some of the hardware vendors who have recently opted to outsource first-line tech support to India, making most of the support calls far more challenging from a language standpoint? - Tired of the same old vendors Dear Tired ... For the most part Dear Bob …Great column on Customer Elimination Management, Bob. Now, how to get the message to the CAs and Veritases of the world? Better yet, how to get it to some of the hardware vendors who have recently opted to outsource first-line tech support to India, making most of the support calls far more challenging from a language standpoint?– Tired of the same old vendors Dear Tired …For the most part, the answer to bad service is easy: Vote with your wallet. It’s amazing how enjoyable it is to take your business elsewhere. The threat us usually enough to take care of any problem with a vendor.Regrettably, in our industry that isn’t always possible. Vendor lock-in is a fact of architecture for much of what we use, so suggesting you might take your business elsewhere is often a hollow threat. What’s a poor CIO to do? Make a stink with your account rep, that’s what. And not just any stink. One more time: Threatening to take your business elsewhere doesn’t mean very much when the discussion is about part of your core architecture.You can, however take other business elsewhere. Since many of the more reprehensible companies in our industry sell multiple product lines, optional modules, service enhancements and so forth, you can make it clear where you’ll get those from if the vendor doesn’t shape up. That will sometimes do the trick.And when it doesn’t, you have one more arrow in your quiver: Even if a company has a complete monopoly, your account representative doesn’t and can be easily replaced. So make it clear to your account rep that if you don’t start being more satisfied you’ll contact his or her boss, and if necessary you’ll go another level beyond that to get better service. It’s amazing what a motivated account rep can do for you, even with a very bad vendor. – Bob ——– Technology Industry