I sympathize, partially because I get filled with existential dread every time I get a voicemail message to my business number. ("Who in their right mind calls to ask for information when it is all right there on the website?! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE." + )<p>That said: ballpark how many people work in this industry with decisionmaking authority on this. Ten thousand? A thousand? Let's call it one thousand. It is entirely possible that you are smarter than all one thousand of those people. They've devoted their careers to selling payroll services and success at selling payroll services determines whether their children eat tomorrow. You're unwilling to make a phone call because you find payroll services pretty boring. But nonetheless it is entirely possible you've found the thing the whole industry is missing.<p>I just would not bet that way.<p>+ n.b. I get phone calls from people whose budget is $9 a month (me: "Oh cripes, not again.") and people whose budget is $200 a month (me: "Now here is a call which I'd gladly take.") and people whose budget requires an NDA to hear ("Schedule a call for 3 AM in the morning? It can be arranged, sir!")<p>P.S. There exist interesting hybrid models where you have the self-service option and published pricing and then there exists the Call Me plan, explicitly or by implication. Find someone in one of those businesses, get them drunk, and then ask whether the published plans or Call Me makes more money.
As someone who's sat on both sides of the table in enterprise software sales I understand this sentiment, but there are many kinds of software where you really do need to talk to a salesperson.<p>I once worked for a company that had an average sale well under than $100,000 but that sale typically included several licenses for at least two different products -- one a desktop app and the other a SaaS offering. There would always be at least a day of training, and possibly some consulting services and the possibility we'd bundle in something from a vendor we work with.<p>If customers tried to set that up with a web form they'd screw it up and hate our product.<p>Similarly, something like an ERP or Library Management System is going to take a considerable amount of attention from the vendor to fit it to your needs, so the salesperson isn't just there to harass you, he's there to make sure you get what you need to succeed.<p>----<p>I'm working on a product now that I could have sold through an impersonal automated process for $50 a month... If I could get enough subscriptions.<p>I didn't believe that I could, and decided to price the product much higher and sell it through a "high touch" process so I could make a living selling it to a handful of customers.<p>One issue is that anyone who sees the price would get sticker shock. However, the price per year will be between 1/3 and 1/4 of what it would cost to develop in house, and it would be charitable to estimate that most organizations would have 50% chance to produce a product that works (almost) correctly... After losing a few months on the schedule! Plus my product is documented, supported and comes with a pretty bow on top.<p>My guess is that for the value this delivers to customers it's worth my time to explain to them the value they're getting.
I wish there were a price estimator for arbitrary things and services site.<p>Knowing, for instance, that the unpublished standard Salesforce price is $50/seat/mo would be really useful when preparing budgets, without wasting time engaging salespeople.<p>Knowing the general price of various things makes it obvious if something is even an option (i.e. you do not have someone TIG weld your $3 item back together; you buy a new one).<p>Sort of like "jigsaw, for prices". eBay, Amazon, and Google work pretty well for cheap items with deep markets, but not for relatively obscure things. I'm sure Purchasing people have rules of thumb for various types of products, but I don't have access to this.<p>The prices don't need to be great, just within 20-30%. You could probably pay for this in leadgen alone, easily.
I thought this mentality would be a given on HN but thanks for writing about it.<p>I would go even further to state that "no way am I going to meet you for a price".<p>I just recently had the task of finding the cheapest storage lockers for myself.<p>I called 5 companies. 4 of which gave me their pricing immediately. The 5th company had the most ridiculously gung-ho storage locker saleswoman I almost laughed... she refused to give me a firm price, and suggested that I drive in to meet her (~45 minutes) before she will even hint and what I might be paying..?<p>I told her I was an experienced (and cranky) entrepreneur at heart and that I didn't feel like playing this game right now. She persisted and I hung up.<p>Maybe they make more money that way, but it sure is a bad business model.<p>Car salesmen work the same way I have noticed... I visited a large block of car salesmen recently... Time is money so I simply walked into each dealership and asked them for a price list of a few cars I was interested in.<p>Nobody would give me one. Not without sitting down for some kind of appointment with a scummy salesman (when they were all just standing around drinking coffee anyways, we're at the height of their demise here).<p>How is this business tactic still in practice?<p>I would think consumer protection laws would target it at some point? If you sat my brother down with any salesman, he would walk away much poorer.<p>He wasted $200 on a "gold HDMI cable" and would probably waste an extra $10,000 on a car if given the opportunity with a salesman, not that he has the money.
I used Ceridian for COBRA services after I left a previous employer. (For non-Americans, COBRA is where you get to keep your employer-provided health insurance for a limited time if you pay the full cost of it, and yes it's a hassle.) I noticed in January that I hadn't gotten a bill from them in a while, and thus began months of agony where they told me they hadn't gotten updated rates for the new year from the insurance company but were sure it would come any day now. After a while they sent a notice saying that the insurance had been cancelled. Many long phone calls to them over three or four months got me nowhere, until finally frantic calling to the HR department of my ex-employer got it sorted out in a mere two weeks or so. And yes, I should've involved my ex-employer sooner.<p>The upshot is that I will never willingly do business with Ceridian again.
This is what was discussed a few days ago here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828</a><p>Joel Spolsky's blog post, mentioned in the discussion, is worth a read too: <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...</a><p>And so is this post: <a href="http://blog.boundary.com/2012/03/02/selling-in-2012-its-complicated/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.boundary.com/2012/03/02/selling-in-2012-its-comp...</a><p>As the later says, it's complicated. Personally, as most of HN readers I guess, I also can't stand this sales model. But some buyers demand it. And they happen to be the ones with the most cash to spare.
I'm in this space - wavepayroll.com - and I worked at Ceridian for 3 years, so I might have some insight here.<p>Most payroll companies don't just do "payroll", e.g. a gross to net calculation. They offer different modules, like time and attendance, some HR functionality, direct deposit, employee self service. For the most part, every feature is an additional charge. Add on top extras like having your cheques and reports couriered to you.<p>So from their perspective it's difficult to provide a price because they don't know what kind of business you are and what features you want. The charges are highly variable and can differ from run to run.
Putting yourself in their shoes for a second.. they were just trying to pre-qualify prospects who really are in pain, enough pain to really try to solve their problem by talking to a salesman who can properly communicate the value and figure out if you are a good fit.<p>You are right that this pisses some people off, people who are prepared to spend money on their product, but many marketers don't try to get ALL the business out there, they try to get the RIGHT CUSTOMERS FOR THEM... Customers who will appreciate their value. Afterall, if you can't differentiate them from others without tools like price points, you probably wouldn't be happy to be their customer either..It is a Win For You.<p>Odds are, if you are making this decision based on price, and not being able to compare price is enough to scare you off, you consider their product somewhat of a commodity, which exposes the company to price resistance, which is bad for business.<p>So, while you hate these companies, and their process pissed you off, I would argue that you probably don't fit into the profile on "their perfect customer"<p>Perhaps they are guilty of not qualifying you in a better way, like with content so compelling it convinces you to call them to discuss your needs...
I used to be of the same mindset until I got into enterprise sales.<p>Face it, some products and sales processes are going to be complex and can't be boiled down into a simple pricing scheme like a startup would use. It doesn't mean the company is old or dishonest or that you should take offense, just that it isn't practical to list prices on the site.<p>Examples would be:<p>Per user pricing (what constitutes a user? Any discounts for users past a certain number? What about simultaneous access? Can we share accounts?)<p>Revenue scaled pricing (what if we're pre-revenue? Any discounts for newer companies?)<p>Contracts (can we work off of a contract for an increased price? Do we get a discount for longer term contracts? Who owns the data? Do we get onsite support? How much does support cost, if anything?)<p>Basically, stop looking at large enterprise sales through a startup lens.
I think you're being a little unfair here.<p>You need to talk to a salesperson because payroll is complicated, every business's needs are different, and most small businesses want some kind of personal touch. If they let you just sign up for what you think is the best solution for you, chances are you'll get it wrong and you won't be satisfied.<p>I'll give you an example: I manage a retail business that is composed of 5 different LLCs, each with their own payroll. When I went to ADP, I needed a salesperson to help me migrate all my payroll data, choose a suitable cutover date, talk through what kinds of special services I might need (direct deposit, checks drawn against ADP's accounts vs. our own checking accounts, etc).<p>Lastly, customer service is very important when it comes to payroll, and I see the sales process as a demo of their customer service.<p>Could somebody like ADP offer a self-service solution for somebody like you, who knows what they're doing and doesn't require much? Of course they could. But then the burden of getting the setup exactly right is now placed on you. And if you screw it up, then you'll be calling them for help. That's not an experience they'd prefer the customer to have.
On one hand I definitely agree that transparent pricing gets more customers, if your product isn't made for an enterprise level there is no excuse not to make the prices transparent.<p>With that being said, many software and web applications that use the "contact us for a price method" that aren't just vultures looking for your info usually need more information in order to price you properly. For example, the size of the company, your budget, your specific needs etc. may be needed to ensure that the company gets a fair specific price that caters to their needs.
Something most 'non - enterprise' people don't understand:<p>The price is not set by some magic formula. It is set directly by how much the customer is willing to spend.<p>And you can't get that from a Webform.
(Its worth loosing some 100$/mo clients to wheel in a $50K one)
Something early-stage companies don't get is that enterprises are <i>complex</i>. Adding a service provider requires hooking up to a dozen systems that manage everything from time tracking to shipping logistics. For many, many problems in this space, there is no ideal, perfect solution. Instead, you make a series of weighted choices to come up with the least-worst solution. And that information, for a broad swath of software, can't be effectively communicated on a web site.<p>Given those types of sales are the ones that bring in six or seven figures of revenue, it is not surprising companies optimize for that. But that is just one of the places startups, solving focused problems, can find some blue ocean.<p>(But, yes, when you are in the small company, buying almost <i>anything</i> just sucks. You aren't big enough to even get attention, often times.)
I used to feel the same way, until I got a job as an IT manager at a company, and a big budget. I still like prices posted on web sites, but I won't buy something without talking to a sales-person.<p>My job depends on making the right technology decisions. I'm not just going to buy based on the price list, I'm going to buy a custom tailored product with the right price for me. And I need to talk to a sales person, and I want them to be good at selling and I want them to convince me. If a company can't be bothered to hire good sales people then they probably can't be bothered to hire good support people, or programmers either.<p>Enterprise is different.
It's only been two weeks since we had exactly this discussion:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649828</a>
I understand how the author feels. I prefer to bank using an ATM. I prefer the self scanning checkout at the grocery store.<p>Call for price isn't aimed at the author (or me). It's aimed at people who have a certain set of expectations about B2B relationships. It's aimed at people who see receptionists as a necessary business expense in all circumstances. It's aimed at people who don't trust the internet when it comes to transactions.<p>It's a bigger market segment than people like myself or the author.
Where is this alleged clear and well-designed Ceridian website with the transparent pricing? I clicked through and all I got for it was a whole bunch of "call me back" forms. Exactly what OP derides about all of the "other" services.
To the author: Is this the Ceridian you're referring to?<p><a href="http://www.ceridian.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ceridian.com/</a><p>There is no pricing information I can find on their website and they're very clearly saying for their products (in this case, on the payroll page):<p><i>Contact a Ceridian expert today for a free payroll software analysis, and you'll find a payroll processing solution that's exactly what you need, exactly the way you need it.</i>
I've had the same problem the last few weeks looking for a colocation provider in my city for half a cabinet. Ever time I ask for information through a web form, they ask for a conference call. I reply back with my power and bandwidth requirements and ask them to email me a quote. At that point I'm usually ignored. I finally selected a provider two hours away who publishes their pricing online.
This is a good way to tell old companies from startups.<p>IMHO startups are much more sophisticated in marketing. It's pretty common marketing knowledge that you want to reduce friction as much as possible. A phone call is a lot of friction for most technical people who want to be as efficient as possible.<p>No pricing model should be this complicated. If you have to make a form for the customer to fill out to calculate their cost, fine. To be honest even a live chat wouldn't be terrible.<p>I understand the people here who defend the enterprise sales cycle. I get it, I participated in that world as a startup for years. But you have to admit there's something fundamentally broken about the whole idea.<p>I think it comes down to this: if your product is good enough that people can use it and want it, you shouldn't have to hide your pricing or require time to use sales tactics to justify the price to customers.
I went through the exact same process 2 months ago trying to set up payroll. In general, Canadians get some pretty horrible value out of any small/medium business service.<p>I was going to go with Ceridian but their web app doesn't support Mac. Because we're still small enough, I actually just rigged it up myself in Xero and then just have to use the nastiest 90s era website from my bank. That at least saved me the step of massaging exported data into Xero.<p>If you want some real price transparency on payroll apps, this is pretty hard to beat : <a href="http://wavepayroll.com/pricing" rel="nofollow">http://wavepayroll.com/pricing</a>
I've been noticing the same thing about so many sites in the UK lately. And it's the IT related industries that seem to be the very worst it. I was gathering some competitor intelligence for most of this week and noticed that there were very very few sites that were transparent with their pricing. Its wrong on a few levels, but when everyone else around you is doing the same thing sometimes its not so obvious how bad for business it really is.<p>we're setting all our sites up with transparent pricing now.
what I don't understand is why email isn't enough. Why in this day and age do you need the phone # and address? That just tells me that you'll use my information to do high pressure sales calls, and not just to "inform" or "customize" my quote
This reminds me of the robocall political scandal in Canada which was fuelled by CRM data. It's just as frustrating when political parties do it, especially in the robocall case which was an absolute abuse of the system.<p>I worry sometimes about the implications this has on democracy, where power might be defined as how strong and agile your CRM system is, rather than your actual ideas and character.
It all depends on what is being sold. I worked for a company where the options were almost infinite. Price depended on which options they wanted and how many subscriptions. (Which could literally be from 1 - 10,000) When asked how much, I would reply with, "How much for a house? Hard to answer because we don't know if "house" means an outhouse of the White House."
<translation>Code me an app. What do you mean I have to call you and discuss design? No way I'm calling a developer and dealing with all the geeky stuff. Just list me a flat price and timeline per app. </translation><p>Even if you feel that payroll is a solved problem, you still need to deal with people. Anytime something is important you want a specific person in charge of it's execution. Imagine that you have a business of 50 employees and one day the payroll doesn't get processed correctly. You now have 50 angry employees on your doorstep. How much do you think they will care that you've filled out a form on a website asking for resolution? Or that you're on continuous hold with some call center op that is paid $2 a day regardless of if he solves your problem.<p>You pay an account rep commission so you have an individual person who's direct personal livelihood depends on a well executed service.
Having been in sales for most of my career (well entrepreneurship is sales so all of my career), I can tell you the premium for a "customer database" within a sales organization. Any good sales organization will do every and anything they can to get your info so that they can do exactly what everyone hates, put you in their CRM cycle... you'll get emails, pamphlets, calls, everything until you die (hence the credo "Die or Buy"). I would venture to guess that as these companies were designing their sites, they looked at their competitors and figured out "wow, everyone else is requiring all of the info before we give them a quote, what a great way to build a 'database'". Clearly not the case, but I'm also guessing Ceridian was the only one to really think about how a customer views the quote getting process. As such, they come out ahead...
This kind of thing happens all the time in the scientific instrument market as well. In some cases it's justified - many instruments/sensors have near endless customization options. But much of the time I've been asked to call for a quote even for simple things like industrial sensors. I can understand not having an exact price, but it seems like in this day and age it's shooting yourself in the foot not to have some kind of ball park price listed online. I know I personally just go to another supplier's website if at all possible rather than filling out a quote request form or calling...
Having read all the 140+ comments, this reminds me of the hooker/girlfriend dilemma.<p>In the first case you know how much you ought to pay upfront and you [mostly] know what you will get. No need for call backs, conf calls or multiple meeting...<p>In the second case, the price to pay and the promise is unknown. But! things can go both ways - (1) good or (2) bad. And yes, you will know the outcome only after many call backs, conf calls, meeting and flirting period...<p>Looks like the everyone's conclusion is that those are different use cases [or market segments], so it's better for your own sake not to mix them! :-)
Related: <a href="http://al3x.net/2012/02/29/how-not-to-sell-software-in-2012.html" rel="nofollow">http://al3x.net/2012/02/29/how-not-to-sell-software-in-2012....</a><p>Wonder when companies will start to figure this out already?
The last time I saw a Ceridian payroll system it was fucking broken. Their web interface was written in ASP VBScript and looked it. It was so stunningly well-coded that if you closed the browser window without explicitly clicking the "Log off" button, it will count you as still logged in but lose critical state, meaning you couldn't get back onto your timesheet without calling someone down from HR who knew the voodoo chicken dance it took to get Ceridian unwedged.<p>I hope they've improved since then. Otherwise this person is in for a bit of a hassle.
There are large classes of companies for whom sales of less than say $50k or $100k just aren't worth their time. All customers will have the same sorts of problems, so the smaller customer are less profitable.<p>The smart companies that want you to call them for a quote do it to make it harder for less profitable customers to come to them, without being at all an impediment for larger customers (who would want to negotiate anyway).<p>The dumb companies that want you to call them for a quote say "Oh look, ADP does it, we should copy it!"
I recently had to deal with this when shopping for a shipping system to replace our ugly old Filemaker plugin. "Call us for a quote", having to wait through two weeks of sales cycle to get an API doc that should've just been on the web site (the worse was the company that had a full wiki for their API, but only available to customers), features written in marketing-speak instead of displaying the real capability of the product, etc. These were good products being horribly sold.
At the very least, if you don't offer pricing transparently on the site (and signup), you should offer a free demo. Get the user hooked before talking about price is a viable enterprise sales technique (mainly to price differentiate and extract maximum revenue), but you need to accomplish the "get him hooked" part. Requiring payment at all adds friction, as does requiring human contact.
With all due respect, that is a terrible way to determine the payroll tool that will impact every current and future employee. I, like most of the commenters, agree the last thing anyone needs is another call from some underpaid, under-polished inside sales rep who has attended to one too many Zig Ziglar seminars, but benefit to your employees will outweigh the inconvenience.
Appassure does this. It is annoying. Their pricing isn't bad, comparatively. I didn't call them for two years. I knew there product was tits, but thought they would through me into a boiler room sales pitch. Dell bought them, decided to call. Turns out the price isnt negotiable and hasn't changed in 18 months. Big loss on their end.
Just had this exact experience with a company called Vindicia. No matter how many times I asked for pricing, just getting the usual guff. Already found other vendors of the same solution where I immediately understood their pricing & therefore felt better about investing my time getting to know them and their products better.
Isn't call for a price a good deal for little guys? If IBM calls for a price, they are going to get charged a huge number like 100k. If a Mom and Pop shop calls they are either going to get told to take a hike, or given a much better deal. Seems like the companies that can afford to pay more will be footing the bill.
Along the same line, I've stopped applying for jobs that don't list some sort of salary. That shows me that either you're ashamed of the salary you're offering or you want to exploit candidate ignorance in order to get them to work for a salary that isn't competitive.<p>It's deceptive, and it's not fair.
I once responded to a SolidWorks ad offering a trial copy. For years they mailed & emailed & phoned sales pitches, but not once - even when I pointed this out to multiple persistent reps - did they send the promised trial copy.<p>Funny, I never bought a copy.
"but I will never get sucked into some big
company’s CRM and get hounded by commission-seeking
salespeople/vultures."<p>Exactly what is the OP problem?<p>All salespeople are "vultures"???<p>And anybody on commission "hounds" you?<p>That's right only YOU have a right as an entitled person to earn a living. Everyone else is superfluous and there to serve you efficiently and at the lowest possible cost.<p>I have news for you. There is nothing that I like better than a salesperson that hounds me and is on commission. That's the way you sometimes get your best deal. Based on my many years of experience buying things. They are hungry to make quota and if you play it right you save money.<p>Go deal with clerks and order takers if you want. I'd rather deal with people hungry for my business.
On OP's particular issue: I'm surprised he didn't mention paycycle (now part of intuit). I went with it due to similar concerns (as well as it clearly being the cheapest).
I've worked with Ceridian before, and their people are pretty good as well. And hey, if you ever need a workforce performance system, InView/Dayforce is right there too :)