MSP University Responds To Alleged Customer Concerns

May 23, 2011
To Whom It May Concern;

MSP University is an educational and training organization serving in excess of 12,000 satisfied members and clients.

In January of 2010, we launched a pilot program with a small group of 25 VARs titled the Web 2.0 Marketing Solution. This program provided our clients the development of a 12 month Marketing Plan, a Marketing ROI Calculator, Marketing List Procurement and Marketing Collateral Development services including a variety of Postcard and Email Templates, a Website refresh and Newsletter Template.

In addition to the creation of this collateral, our Web 2.0 Marketing Solution included the creation of Direct Mail, Email and Telemarketing accounts with 3rd party providers, the execution of Direct and Email marketing campaigns and management of outsourced Telemarketing services. Also included were Marketing reports and analytics, along with scheduled strategic Marketing support calls.

Some of these engagements were successful; and some less so, and due to the difficulty in delivering a consistent outcome for the 25 VARs in our Web 2.0 Marketing Program, it was cancelled in May of 2010. Some challenges affecting this decision included the inability of some of our outsourced relationships to effectively execute their deliverables, some VARs not having the ability to close appointments that were set for them successfully, and our own internal failure to execute and meet our SLAs in some cases.

In good faith, we addressed each and every one of the 25 VARs in our Web 2.0 Marketing Program that merited one and returned over $90,000 in refunds, and provided over $125,000 in additional services to compensate these VARs for their experience. These additional services included appointment-setting services that we paid for, additional marketing collateral development, new Websites, onsite custom training and consulting engagements and more.

Some VARs accepted a refund only, some accepted additional services only, and some received a combination of these. There are even a few that accepted and received additional services from us in lieu of, and then claimed they were still owed a refund. Again – all that merited a refund due to our failure to deliver as promised received one. In fact, in the final analysis we repaid much more than we received for the Web 2.0 Marketing program in an effort to make amends in good faith.

Do we wish that things would have ended up differently? Of course we do. Do we feel that we have done everything we could to make amends to those deserving of the pilot group of 25 that signed up for our Web 2.0 Marketing Solution? Yes – and then some. Have we learned some valuable lessons through this experience? Absolutely.

One of the things we have learned is that perception is reality no matter what the truth is or supporting facts are, and have decided as a result of this experience to address any of the few outstanding participants in our Web 2.0 Marketing Program that still feel they are owed a refund – deserving or not, in order to put this behind us and allow us to get back to our core focus – providing the best IT business education and training services available to IT solution providers in the channel.
We sincerely appreciate the support of all of our strategic partners, sponsors and thousands of members throughout this distraction.

Respectfully,
Gary Beechum President & CEO MSP University