Azlan in the dock over attempt to poach customers

Azlan has aroused the fury of Independent Education Brokers (IEB) which claimed the networking distributor had attempted to entice its customers through a user sales team.

David Beaney, managing director at IEB - an organisation which acts as an intermediary between corporate customers and training companies - said a client from the Automobile Association had contacted Azlan about the dates of an A+ training course.

Beaney said that due to the usual reseller account manager at Azlan being unavailable at the time, the customer was put in touch with a member of the user training team.

He said: 'The customer said he wanted to confirm his place on the course but the salesman asked him why he was dealing with IEB when he could get a 25 per cent discount dealing direct with Azlan.'

Geoff Brough, European managing director at Azlan Training, said: 'We are committed to the channel, but some inexperienced guy could have made a mistake and we will compensate the customer.'

But Beaney alleged this was not the first time IEB had found problems with Azlan attempting to deal direct: 'We fell out with it not long after it lost the Compaq accreditation.'

He added: 'On a course which makes up one part of an MS Certified Systems Engineer programme, one of our clients was approached by a direct salesman who said when the customer was ready to move to the next part of the course he could get a better deal with Azlan.'

Julia Jones, director of faculty at Ilion, said: 'We work with IEB which provides a good service, something that Ilion would not jeopardise.'

Beaney said: 'Not only has Azlan sharked the customer, but it has sharked itself because the account manager had to offer the customer a better deal in the end.