Tagged With "Poach"

Wow! I would start buying from direct if I could get those prices! Also I would like to know what contract as I haven't seen access to one like that. I hope this gets taken care of for the dealer. What an overstepping intrusion and intentional malicious attack on the dealer customer relationship.

just pm'd it to you!

good point, maybe dealers should just buy from direct!

The US Communities Contract is what we use for School Accounts as well as non-profits and Govt. You can sell below the contract price you can't sell above the contract price. One of my techs sent me a photo of a Ricoh business card from one of our School Dist. Unit Offices and when I notified my DBM she asked what the Ricoh Rep was talking to them about. We have a machine right next to the receptionists desk with out sticker on it. A Ricoh rep is supposed to do an about face and disengage if...

As promised, here is the email from the dealer rep: I received an email this evening from the purchasing director of a large educational institution that has been our exclusive customer for Ricoh products going on 7 years. They are very happy with my company and this is why I was contacted and asked to take care of it. The email simply stated "you want to give this guy a call?" It was in reference to a RBS rep sending special rebate university contract pricing (the exact same contract and...

17 years in the business and that's the used car salesman talk track approach that he knows....

If you bring this to the attention of your Ricoh Dealer Support Manager. One of our partners has started firing any direct reps that don't follow the rules of engagement. About 6 months ago I lost to a Ricoh rep using government pricing. $97 per month on a 60-month lease for a Ricoh MP C3003 with a booklet finisher. I had 0 profit in my quote and was still more expensive. There is just no money in those accounts for reps that work off of GP.

We had a sit down with the branch manager several years ago and they were firing anyone who violated the rules of engagement and Ricoh was reimbursing the dealer for poaching the accounts. After that we rarely had any problems of them poaching our accounts but the pricing is still an issue in those types of accounts. Just remember everyone is playing by the same prices and rules. It must be true, right....?

Just yesterday I was speaking with a P4P member, this member had interviewed with KonicaMinolta some 8 weeks ago. Our P4P member posed this question to the Regional KonicaMinolta Manager. With Ricoh we have "Rules of Engagement", basically we can touch theirs and they can't touch ours. Does KonicaMinolta have something like this? The Regional Manager replied with, "we have a similar process, however, we can always take their (dealer) business and apologize later." Once hearing that our P4P...

I am always hearing our sales people complain about dealers taking accounts from us. Then I read your blog and see posts about direct stealing dealer accounts. I always imagine if I were the buyer and how mad I would be if I found out who I can buy from is being limited. If I want to but a dell laptop I can compare dell with their dealers.

It's crazy business out there, I would not mind having NO "Rules of Engagement" as long as the pricing was similar for both players. Ten years ago, I lost all 5 of my Majors to Direct taking them on price. It was ugly.

It goes both ways. As a RBS employee I understand and follow dealer incumbent ROE but for the dealers their are no rules, I have had 100% MIF poached and lost significant deals because the dealer got better price support from Ricoh. If only we all played fair - but it's a one way street, so there is no "fair". The RBS employee here should ask himself if it's really worth it, and then go find someone else to sell to.

In the days where a majority dealers are not exclusive to any one specific manufacturer we (dealers) are fair game as maybe we should be. If you are fortunate enough to have two or even three lines to choose from you always have the option to switch lines. I would contact your dealer rep and let him know that due "poaching" you will be presenting a different manufacturer option since you can not compete with pricing on the same equipment offered by direct. Fair is fair.

I think I want to start buying our machines from RBS instead of Ricoh Distribution. The directs are the biggest whores now a days and the Japanese could care less as long as that factory keeps running. It's amazing to me how much they have screwed this industry up in the last 20 years.

This is a 2 way street as I have heard of dealers TARGETING Ricoh direct accounts, it's a nature of the business. If the rep was taking that good of care of said upper education account, then there wouldn't be a problem, which it doesn't appear there was a problem.

It's not a two way street. The ROE from Ricoh states RBS can't poach dealer accounts but dealers can poach RBS accounts. These bastards in these direct operations are glorified used car salesmen at best, most of the time.

First, let me state that what I'm about to post came from a long time P4P member.  He emailed me a few minutes ago, in reference to a Ricoh America's Direct sales person that contacted one of his accounts via email and sent pricing via email.  Our P4P member is a Ricoh dealer and has had this client for 7 years, in addition the entire MIF is owned by the dealer. "This is our account for the past 7 years and we have all the MIF. This guy knows better and I want his rear end in a...