CRN Forum: Have you heard of your vendor/distribution partners cold calling your customers?

An angry reseller called me last week saying that his distribution partner had cold called some of his customers. The distie apologised, saying it was a random sample from the phone book, and promised to make amends.

But it follows on from other comments made earlier in the year about two vendors, one networking and one software, whose direct sales teams were targeting their resellers' customers.

If you have already invested too much training and IP in that vendor, or they are simply too big, walking away might not be an option.

Have any of your customers told you about pitches they've received from direct sales teams? How did you handle it?

Given the sensitivity of the topic, could you please refrain from naming the vendors/distributors involved and focus instead on how to handle difficult business relationships.