Source: www.it-training.com

What is going on with affiliate program managing companies? There have been many start-ups in the last five years and there is strong level of competition that should keep the companies ready to have superior services in order to find an edge. Apparently that's not what German companies are up for:

1) 4 p.m. Tradedoubler - I called the sales agent that sent us some (rather tacky) presentations about Tradedoubler:

"(A) The setup fee is EUR 3000 per country (Tradedoubler covers most of Europe). - (Q) So that's quite expensive, is there a way to lower the fee? We only want a billing solution and access to some affiliates. - (A) Only if you are a big brand. - (Q) Ok, let's see, but how can we get more info? - (A) Please send me your contact info in the next 5 minutes(!) as I'm on holiday then and there will be nobody to take this account over."

I was stunned, but it was going to be better....

2) 4.20 p.m. Affilinet.de - This time I tried to improve myself and used the website. There is a 1.5 MB package you can download with contract info. That's nice I thought but again I failed to find any pricing info. Ok maybe we try the contact form. Went well, but what did the final message say - due to the amount of applications we may respond with several days (read weeks) delay.

3) 4.30 p.m. Zanox.de - Back to the phone - I called the hotline and expressed my interest in being a paying customer soon. Guess what happened I got a nice but determined and short answer, that there would be no sales agent available for me. Instead I should add my contact data to the web form and should wait some days (read weeks) until the responsible sales agent will get in touch with us.

This was one of the poorest client experiences I had in a while. While we are ready to shell out a good amount for an affiliate program and need only minimal sales support I was unable to come close to a pricing inquiry with three market leaders of affiliate managing solutions in Germany. What is going on in this industry? Does it have so much business it simply can't handle it anymore? Does it have such bad experience with new clients (as things are performance related) that they have given up finding new clients and concentrate on the cow already in the hutch? Is this just a German phenomenon?