Outback dealer protection? [RE-wrenches]

[David Palumbo, Independent Power & Light]

Hi Bob,

That's just sad. OutBack would be wise to look at how they treat their
dealers like you who are really OB's representative's to the end customer.
When manufacturers become successful they can fall into the trap of thinking
that it will always remain that way. When they lose their focus and mistreat
professional installing dealers it becomes easier for a competitor to come
in and take market share from them. Why should we have loyalty to them when
they pull stunts like that on you. Remember what happened to Trace/Xantrex.
Xantrex's actions, or inactions, made it possible for OutBack to start their
company and grow rapidly.

Unfortunately I also had a recent interaction with Out Back that reminded me
of dealing with Xantrex in the late pre-OB days.

Service is a vital component in what we as dealer/installers provide to the
consumer. And service is also equally important for OutBack to provide for
professionals in the field. OutBack is making a mistake if they value the
wholesale direct
seller over the company making the service call. I'm sure all of their sales
outlets are valuable, but those of us actually dealing with professional
design, installation and service of their products AND dealing face to face
with the end buyer/user are critically important to OB. We invariably share
our opinions with the customer. The opinions that we have formed of Out Back
Power Systems, not only, from our trust in how their products will do the
job but also in how well the company treats us with regard to the service
and business respect that we, as professionals, deserve.

I think that you deserve a written apology for their actions and
compensation for the profit on the boards that they deprived you of. They
also need to train their tech/sales people on conducting their dealings with
proper business ethics.

David Palumbo
NABCEP Certified
19 years in business as Independent Power & Light


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Ellison [mailto:ellison at gisco.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 6:49 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: Outback dealer protection? [RE-wrenches]




I had an experience the other day that the longer I think about it the more
it irritates me, here goes.
I got a call from a customer that had a pair of VFX3648 inverters and took a
2 1/2 hour drive to the site,

He had no lightning cans and took a bad lightning hit, the inverters were
already off the rack and opened up.. Both inverters were down and he had an
insurance inspection the following day. Real bad timing. I did not supply or
install the gear and low buck wholesale never suggested lightning
protection.
My regular supplier is at a show so I called Outback to get the boards and
was informed that we had to send the inverters back. Also the board prices
were up from $700.00 to $1200.00. and we needed all of them, 2 sets. There
was no doubt that all the boards were bad, the burns were obvious.

I was not having any luck getting the boards sent and asked the tech to
explain to the customer that they had to be sent back. I  found out after he
got off the very short phone conversation that he had been sold all the
boards at my cost, and on my dime for the phone call!

It just ticked me off, I guess the dealers don't have an advantage over the
customer any more at Outback.
I didn't expect the customer to get dealer pricing. I could have gotten a
verbal PO easily or just put it on a card and actually made some money on
the process instead of the way it worked out.
5 hours drive time and a couple on site add up fast towards wasting a day
real fast.

Back to packing for Solarfest,

Bob



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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