Hasler - Thy Name Should be Hassler

Trying to save money is a great idea, in theory. Since I started in business, I used a Pitney Bowes meter. It worked fine, but there seemed to be a charge for just about everything. So, a company named ITS contacted me — it shared my firm’s initials, so it had to be good, right? Well, that’s up for debate. I met with their salesperson and we figured out I would save as much as $200 per year switching to their meter, so I signed on the dotted line. Mistake!

First, there was a problem that the initial postage wasn’t set up right, and then I couldn’t even download the postage. ITS, to its credit, sent a tech person right over and he fixed it. He also assured me a customer service person would call to address my emerging concerns. That was in September, still no call. But the machine worked, even though I had now wasted over an hour of time on the problem (and the value of the time is equivalent to how much I was going to save annually).

Fast forward to November, and I receive an American Express statement with a meter charge that I couldn’t identify. So I called Hassler. Guess what? They didn’t know what it was either, and told me to fax them the statement. More time on my end, but I did it. Plus, I called ITS, spoke to the head of tech support, who promised the president of the company would call me. So far no call.

Today, more than two weeks later, I called Hassler again. After 15 minutes on hold, I hung up, but sent an email to the ITS sales rep asking about the status. After all, on November 29th, she wrote that she had contacted Hassler and said that “They should be getting back to [her] today, or tomorrow at the latest.” Not quite. I just called again and they don’t have a clue what the charge was for, but they will get back to me.

Bottom line, when calculating how much you “save” when switching from a product that works, remember to factor in the value of the time you may spend resolving hassles that arise with the new vendor. In my case, those hassles cost me more in time than I saved.

This entry was posted on December 6, 2007 at 6:31 pm and is filed under A Little Ranting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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