SonicWall red-faced over renewals blunder

Return to sender: SonicWall is still looking into how the error occurred

SonicWall has moved to quell concern among UK customers and partners after a renewal e-shot was wrongly sent to end users with a valid service.

The e-shot, which was fired out by SonicWall partner and telemarketing agency Astute on Tuesday, advised recipients that their service had expired and invited them to renew.

However, many SonicWall resellers were left fielding angry calls from customers yesterday as a substantial minority of those included had already renewed and had a valid service.

Speaking to CRN last night, Florian Malecki, EMEA enterprise marketing and product manager at SonicWall, said a minor programming error was to blame.

“We are still looking into where the error happened,” he said. “Any potential misunderstanding should be clarified quickly.”

A communication has already been sent to users advising them of the mistake, he said, while resellers should receive a similar communication this morning.

However, one Gold partner, who did not wish to be named, feared the damage had already been done:

“It sent a wave of panic through some of our end users,” said the source. “We had one very strong email from a client in the financial sector who couldn’t understand how their serial numbers and products were visible to an unknown source.

“As a reseller that has built its business around SonicWall, I am worried about what this will do to its reputation. We have already had a customer, who was about to upgrade, saying they don’t want to buy SonicWall again.”

Malecki said it is still unclear how many users received the e-shot, but that it was probably lower than the 10,000 some partners suspected.

SonicWall took on Astute as a marketing agency almost two years ago, around the time it rolled its partner-enabled renewal of customer subscriptions (Percs) tool to the UK.

Percs alerts resellers to subscription services that are about to expire. Astute’s role is to mop up any expired renewals not successfully chased up.

Ash Patel, UK and Ireland regional manager at rival appliance vendor Stonesoft, said: “Vendors need to be careful with the data they hold on behalf of their partners and end users. It is security data, and we need to treat it with respect and care to ensure we provide confidence to the reseller community.”