Praise for Meeting One – Adobe Connect vendor

In today’s Internet world where everything is automatic and at the tip of my finger the need (and room) for personal service quickly disappears.  As a fast paced individual myself I actually lean more towards automated solutions.  Often I can find an answer, directions, a phone number, a solution on a development or IT problem, etc in a matter of seconds on the Internet rather than asking someone.  It’s because of this, and having to deal with pushy vendors in various past, that have made me largely anti-salesman.  If I can purchase something online with a credit card number and a few clicks of a mouse I’m much more inclined to go the non-human route than to get someone on the phone.  I’m somewhat introverted so that may also be part of the issue. 🙂

However, as a retail software salesman in one of my many past careers, a personal technical consultant and having dealt with many great small businesses I know that the personal touch is still very useful and worth the money.

In this particular case it saved my day.

We recently switched from WebEx to Adobe Connect for our online meeting software at my work.  You can read my post about why we switched here.  Mark Stevenson of MeetingOne contacted me as an authorized vendor for government contracts for Adobe Connect.  He was very nice on the phone and answered all of my questions.  However, I was still inclined to thank him, hang up and sign us up online through the Adobe web page.  Mark was able to get us a small discount so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. 

We are a very small contract.  I am the only staff member who uses online meeting software and I only 1.5 times a month on average, yes, only 1.5 times.  He had almost no incentive to give us a deal or even continue talking with me.  Honestly, if this was a fortune 500 company (MeetingOne very well could be, they just don’t give off that impersonal vibe, a compliment I assure you :)) his sales lead analysis tool would probably have already told him to hang up as it wasn’t even worth his time to keep talking with me on the phone.

I had previously signed up online with an Adobe Connect trial account while we were researching various products.  We had a meeting today but, as we are still in the middle of our purchasing process, we were forced to use our trial account.  I didn’t think too much of it as there is no indication that the trial accounts are limited to the number of connected attendees.  However, sure enough, after 5 attendees connected to the meeting the phone started ringing off the hook.  Users were getting turned away with an error message that the account had exceeded its usage.  Ouch!  What to do?

I called up Mark right away and he saved the day.  After talking over the issue and our meeting needs he set up a meeting for us under the MeetingOne account.  I sent out the new link to all our users and within minutes we were up and running full steam.  He even stayed in the meeting while he was working and assisted with a couple of technical issues we had while switching between presenters.

I have a very large suspicion that we wouldn’t have received this type of support had we contracted directly with Adobe.

So here is a BIG THANKS to Mark and MeetingOne.  He has helped change my attitude towards vendors.  The good ones are still out there, it’s just hard to find them sometimes.  Fortunately Mark found us. 🙂

If you are in the market for online meeting software, consider Adobe Connect.  If you do, please consider MeetingOne.  They are one of the good guys and will definitely help you out.