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Comment by CydeWeys

8 months ago

A reasonable scenario to me seems to be: An automatic "upgrade to the enterprise plan" requirement was triggered, and then in the process of the sales calls to make that happen, Cloudflare got serious eyes on the customer for the first time (whereas at a paltry $250/month previously they wouldn't have), and realized exactly what line of business the customer was involved in, and decided to fire them.

6 comments

CydeWeys

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bluelightning2k  8 months ago

I was rushing to judgment until I heard this... pretty plausible.

In support of your theory particular is I don't think enterprise sales "ragequits" a conversation when the customer is mid-evaluation based simply on the idea that they are considering multiple options.

Why would they walk away at this point, let alone ban the customer.

From the write-up I bet CloudFlare had it as a "60% to close" in their CRM at this moment. It doesn't make sense for them to drop the ban hammer in this moment.

PS: explanation or not, this is deeply shady behaviour from CloudFlare. Just perhaps a little less so.

  • jacoblambda  8 months ago

    > In support of your theory particular is I don't think enterprise sales "ragequits" a conversation when the customer is mid-evaluation based simply on the idea that they are considering multiple options.

    > Why would they walk away at this point, let alone ban the customer.

    It wasn't just that they were considering multiple options. Looking at the timeline, this was about a month after their initial soft gloves approach/enforcement action and they drug their feet the entire way through it.

    Once CF got to the top of the leadership chain at their company and it was clear that all the relevant decision makers were involved in the conversation but were unwilling to pay, they just folded their cards, resumed the initial enforcement action, and moved on with their day.

    If this was a small account they probably wouldn't have even blinked twice with just striking down the user for causing reputation harm and violating TOS but since they were a large account CF clearly went out of their way to meet with them multiple times and try to find a solution. But after a month of little to no progress while the account continues causing reputational harm and is unwilling to budge, they just called it quits and moved on.

    • lapphi  8 months ago

      It seems like the sales team went out of their way to try and land a $10k/mo deal. Then when they heard there was a second potential suitor in the mix they got upset and said “well we never wanted your $10k anyways!” and destroyed any chance of reconciliation. Very sour grapes/ no second date on tinder type of reaction.

      If there is a TOS issue I’m not listening to a sales pitch on it. You better tell me what the issue is upfront in the first email instead of dicking around with the commission based workers. Like very low level stuff here imo

    • Dylan16807  8 months ago

      > But after a month of little to no progress while the account continues causing reputational harm and is unwilling to budge

      I don't see an unwillingness to fix TOS issues anywhere. Just an unwillingness to buy the enterprise tier. Those should not be treated the same way!

jmvoodoo  8 months ago

This actually seems reasonable, and a potential part of the narrative the original poster would be likely to leave out.