Maybe I’m not asking the right questions, but I consistently find that I get “Yes” answers in these calls, that turn out to actually be “No” in practice.
I think the problem is that we rarely want to know “can you meet this use case”, but rather “how well can you meet this use case”, and that’s hard to assess without putting your hands on the software.
Which is to say that the quality of the sales person matters.
If your sales department is staffed by people who got hired on Monday, and are on the phone by Friday, then frankly they're not worth much.
I've seen the opposite though where sales folk know more about the software than support folk. They're equipped to help you with choices, but also understand limits and high-cost areas. Yes you absolutely can get Custom Reports, but we absolutely charge for that. And the data you're looking for is on this built-in report....
Dealing with a good salesperson, who knows their stuff, and understands that truth and trust are important, is an amazing thing.
I think the problem is that we rarely want to know “can you meet this use case”, but rather “how well can you meet this use case”, and that’s hard to assess without putting your hands on the software.