Are you serious?

Customer: "When can you make our site live?" Me: "Its 10.40am now if you can get it done by say 11.30am our DNS updates at 12 midday so in theory you should be live after that time" Customer: "Groan, hm, erm, oh, OK thanks" Huh? Do you want it live or not? Is that too quick? Would you prefer it to take a week?

Customer: "Hi you've setup some web space and I've uploaded the site but its not working" . Me: OK let me look Me: There's your problem the webspace is the folder yourcomapnysite you've uploaded the folder /oursite with everything inside it . Have you been creating and working with web sites long? Customer: Click brrrr

Most sales people during their career will come across Customers or Prospects that will use you for your knowledge. They know you're pretty good at what you do but that possibly you are a little bit more expensive. They will ring and ask for a quotation but with no details, generally because they themselves don't know the specifications, for example; "Can you give me a quote for a Laptop?". Now like the good little trusting person you are you will spend the next 10-20 minutes tracking down a machine, maybe make a couple of calls for prices and availability and type out the details all at the expense of your employer. Having done a good job you will expect to 'get the order' but Oh no Mr Customer has just used you! They are now cutting-and-pasting your hard work into an email and asking all your competitors to quote! Now I suppose most people would say "And whats wrong with that?" apart from the fact that it tends to make you distrust Customers when ...

Customer: Hi I'm trying to send a database as an attachment to an email but it won't go. Me: How big is it? Customer: 32MB is that too big? Me: What do you think

Set the scene: We have a customer who we used to provide hardware and software plus a maintenance contract as well. The owner decided that another company who we know pretty well could give them a better service so switched everything to them apart from the provision of BroadBand which we still do. Customer: Hi my daughter cant get on the Internet at home Me: Can it go on the Internet? Customer: Yeah she needs an IP address Me: She will need to connect to the router Customer: Well my son cant connect either with his laptop Me: Are you putting the passphrase in? Customer: Whats that? Mark usually does that as you know, XXXXX Ltd looks after us Basically he does not want support from us but because he has BroadBand from us he thinks that gives him the right to have unrelated work done by us for free!

Customer: "Hi Pete one of the guys has spilled a full cup of coffee in their Laptop" Me: "Oh dear, that will have killed it possibly" Customer: "Yeah I guessed as much, the screen was still running so I switched it off quick and removed the battery" Me: "Hm you might be lucky, stick it on its side and drain the liquid leave it to dry out and try switching it on" Customer: "Yeah done all of that apart from switching it on will try that later" Conclusion: So why the hell are you ringing me?

Customer: "Hi we have a satellite office at xxxxx and they want to move our office" Me: Whats the new address and telephone number? Customer : "Oh I don't know but we have to move by the 7th of August and their IT guy has just gone on two weeks leave" Me: Er well there's not a lot I can do without the details. Customer: Oh, um, I suppose I had better try and find out then. Me : Good guess