Do you feel that most enterprise IT vendors effectively communicate an understanding of your needs? That is one of the questions we asked recently in a "perceptions" survey to find out how customers viewed vendors, and to determine how those vendors viewed their customers.

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In general, the overwhelming response was that customers wanted vendors to listen to their needs before trying to sell something. Here is a sampling of the comments:

"They need to come down from their ivory towers and discover what life is like in the trenches. Most of the sales and support people I've dealt with haven't a clue."

"Ask questions on how they best can help the customer. Not direct what they think you need."

"They need to listen to the customer (me!).

"Vendors need to address how their systems integrate with others in the enterprise and offer solutions that are fluid, flexible and offer added value."

"Walk a day in my shoes."

"Listen to the needs and application before trying to sell the product."

"Were I advertising or marketing their products, I would show the real-world accomplishments. People relate to what has been done better than what has been promised."

"Too many one-size-fits-all solutions that do not address my specific needs."

"Listen to the customer's real needs."

"Try to sell something that will work, rather than just trying to sell."

"Too often the vendor wants the enterprise to change to meet the needs of the product, rather than meeting the needs of the enterprise."

"They need to understand our business first before trying to sell to us."

"Most are focused entirely too much on making a sale and have never lived in the real world where things must meet certain standards and be compatible with an enterprise infrastructure."

"Learn more about my business before trying to sell me a product."

"Talk to us and understand our needs. Don't tell us what our needs are."

Listening seems like such a fundamental part of an effective sales technique, but apparently a large number of salespeople in the tech market don't know this basic sales tenet. Actually, this trait is probably not limited to the tech market. I can remember many magazine advertising sales people I have known through the years who went into client meetings with their sales guns blasting away.

Invariably, their mouths were too fast for their ears, and the potential sales usually evaporated.

Maybe the cause is today's always-on communications environment. Everyone's talking on their cell phones, texting into their PDAs–but is anyone listening?

kanderberg@comnews.com