Are you serious?

I have a customer who needs; 1 X Adobe Creative Suite. 10 X Office 2010 Business Edition. 1 X Corel Draw. As usual we put a request in to our suppliers for some prices. Ever the efficient account manager at one of our suppliers they came back with; Adobe Creative Suite, OK no problem there? Office 2010 Student edition, What? And finally Coral Draw for Mac! Now your taking the piss? Now this is not a 'one off' this sort of thing happens on a regular basis, now is this poor product training or just that the individual does not care so slaps any old thing on the the quote? This sort of thing causes a problem thats out of proportion to the requirement, what I mean is it causes a delay so getting back to my customer takes longer, we now have to make a repeat request this time pointing out their errors which on a 'bottom line' basis means we are already down on the deal having had to use more resources. Get it right first time and we are all happy.

Customer: "Hi its Mandy here from XXXXX we have a problem with a printer we purchased from you" Me: "When did you purchase it, I'm sure it was not recently?" Customer: "I think it was six months ago maybe longer" Me: "Oh OK it was they way you said purchased from you as if it was the other day" Customer: "No no, there must be something wrong with it the printing is very faint" Me: "Er needs a new cartridge" Customer: "Really? Its only six months old you sure its not broken?" Me: "I'm certain" See if you hadn't of quizzed me about when that printer was purchased I could have scammed a new one out of you.

So I sent out a mail flier advertising some TV's, we don't normally deal in that kind of thing but times are tough at the minute. I had an email this morning; Customer: "I am interested in two of the TV's on offer the TV needs to fit into a recess in my caravan so I am trying to work out which one will fit" I have no Idea, I don't know your caravan!