Best Buy vs. SMB IT Consulting: Part 2

Following up on the previous post from John Holmblad of Televerage International, here is the callback that was promised. Scared yet?

I received a return call this A.M. from the Business Technology Consultant (BTC) who serves the BB for B stores to which I referred in my earlier post on this subject. We spoke for about 10 minutes and I learned the following: * He is "on the road" for all but, in his estimation, 10 minutes per week * Each customer gets a written proposal for equipment, software, and services, based on the customer's needs * He obviously had been trained in Microsoft marketing speak because he used the term "customer pain points" * For expertise in a particular product/technology they always try to find an expert from within the BB for B "family" first and only go outside in cases where there is nobody from within BB for B who is a) competent and b) available to contribute * All of the BB for B BTC's and Business Technology Professionals are trained on SBS and by now they should all have earned their SBSC. I am not sure that this is an enforced condition for continued employment however. * They do offer customers the option of a level price maintenance agreement with quarterly payments. Currently they do not provide remote Network/Server Monitoring and Management services but BB for B is starting to work with a provider of such services and may roll out a new service component that includes this in the not-to-distant future. The BTC thinks that BB for B may be offering it on an ad hoc basis in some other areas of the country. I mentioned the names of three of the larger ones I am familiar with but those names did not ring a bell with the BTC.