Good, Bad or Ugly: Poor customer service

If you look up Fred at Knifeoutlet, you will find a pile of positive responses. He's got really good feedback.

CODE, I ain't sayin' you are wrong on this. Your dealings will be met with your feelings and they are your feelings alone. If I got an e-mail back that said "I did check on it, go someplace else" I would be thankful for the return message and be back on the hunt. Some might not be so happy with such a response. But hey, different strokes ya know.

My idea of "poor customer service" is a bit more defined I guess. I say if you get my money and don't ship, or ship the wrong stuff repeatedly, or just plain don't answer at all, then that would be poor in my book. But tossed into your shoes, Mike, I wouldn't be put out too bad.

One last note, I respect your decision not to name names. For the reasons above. Say one guy ain't happy with ABC BladeGuy. He may not be happy with ABC because the guy on the phone didn't shout "SIR YES SIR!" for every response. Now, everybody else is gonna be happy with a simple "sher thing dude" and call it good. No reason to name names in some situations, and I thank you for not doing so immediately. Mighty Washingtonian of ya. :D
 
Why don't you use the phone? Its not that much trouble. Call the dealer and tell them what you want! I can't imagine how it would be to have 100, 200, or even 300 emails to answer in 2 days let alone 1 day! I always order my stuff over the phone. Its nice to finally talk to someone instead of typing an email these days :)
michael
 
Mike & Michael! I will say that I am one who like's to do thing's through email's. I love sending an email and getting a knife a few day's later. It is very convinient for me and make for a trusting relationship so communication is key! It can be frustrating not getting a response for a few day's and it surley make's it easier if the person say's "Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner,how can I help." It's a small community so the little extra respect can go a long way!;)
 
Email being the topic;
I sent an email to the USGS seven MONTHS ago. I requested some information. I got a reply yesterday. The email told me to go their web site. Not exactly what I requested.
Seems like knife dealers have a some what more efficient operation than the folks whose salary we all pay.:)
 
Guys;

My intent here was to stimulate some discussion, not to fry some dealer over something like short email responses.

I honestly had no idea Fred received as many emails as he does, so I imagine that other dealers receive the same.

For the record, my recent purchase from Fred went as smoothy as I could ask for. Shipping was timely, and I received a confirmation email as soon as it shipped. I would highly recommend doing business with him in the future.

As I stated in the beginning, I was upset initially over the short reply to my email, asking about the Surefire tailcap. I assumed that if he was a Surefire dealer, he could get what I was after. I assumed wrong in this case.

Keep in mind; my original intent of this thread was to ask the forumites what they thought about communicating with a dealer, and if the short, blunt replies were cause for poor customer service.
After some discussion here, and with Fred via email, I now understand why he short replies, and can fully sympathize with him.

Thanks, everyone, for the discussion, and I know now not to get my hackes up over a short email! :)
 
300 e-mails a day??? WOW, he needs to hire someone to just take care of that. I am sure with proper and prompt responses, he can improve customer relations and increase sale to cover a new employee
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I think TheBadGuy has a point. If a company is going to do business over the internet, they need to have some means of keeping in touch with the customer in case the order is not shipped right away. As a customer, it is very frustrating and confusing being in the dark about why you didn't recieve an order within the normal delivery time. You don't know if the product was out of stock, or if the delivery company lost the order. You paid the money, and the company owes you an explaination if you don't recieve the order within the normal delivery time.

There is nothing that will alienate a customer faster than if a company fails to respond to a customer's inquiry. I am sure hiring someone to answer emails would be a good investment. Another option might be to set up an automated order tracking system, which could contain information on why an order is late, such as stating that it is backordered. An estimated delivery time would be even more helpful. If the delivery time cannot be predicted, just say so. At least the customer would know that the company is honest, and is trying to keep him informed about what is going on.

As for those who say one should just phone the company, my opinion is that if an internet dealer displays an email address on their website, then they should answer the emails. If they can't keep up with the emails, then they should not display their email address.
 
Dug deep for this one, huh?

This thread is about a month shy of its one year anniversary.

A good topic, however; how many of you have gotten email replies to your inquiries after you placed an order, and were they answered in a timely manner?
 
That was a timely post Mike. A month ago I emailed one maker. He did not get back to me and after a couple of weeks (I don't like to email too often, makers can be busy or out of town) I emailed again. So far no reply. In the last week I have emailed a couple of other makers, but it has not been long enough for me to get that being ignored feeling. One of the makers I tried to contact has just become the president and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ABS so I figure he is probably very busy right now.

I emailed one maker to try ask a few questions and try to firm up my knife order. He told me that he needed a couple of days to think my questions over. He hadn't got back to me after ten days so I emailed again. His assistant told me that he had gone out of town for a month and would be back around the 20th of October. Another very busy fella.

One other gentleman returned my email within a few minutes. We discussed a few things, talked on the phone, and I ordered a knife. If one of these other makers had gotten back to me sooner it may have been him that I ordered the knife from.

Not getting back to me quickly will not stop me from placing an order. If there is a good reason, I don't even have a problem with long delays in returning emails. If a maker doesn't get back to me after I email a couple of times, I won't try again.

Most of the makers I have dealt with have been good about answering emails after I have placed an order. Some take a week or two, but once agin, these are very busy folks.

One maker I have been dealing with for a few months now has been absolutely marvelous about getting back to me as quickly as possible. I find that this kind of treatment makes me want to support this maker as much as possible. The way I do that is with repeat business.
 
If I feel that I´ve been treated in a bad way I´m just going to fade away and someone who can "listen" and answers my questions will get my business.

I don´t really care if it takes a long time to respond if you (the maker/business) has a good explanation to do so (shows, relocation etc.).

What I can´t take are just the kind of two-sentence replies that imply I ask too hard questions. How hard can it be to find out about different tailcaps on Surefires?

If you don´t have them in stock and don´t plan on having them in stock then just say so.

/Colinz
 
For me I no longer have the expectation that email works or will be answered. I agree that email can be very costly in terms of time. My only feeling that is one must either fully support email with a dedicated person for timely answers and etc, or remove the email link.
 
how many of you have gotten email replies to your inquiries after you placed an order, and were they answered in a timely manner?
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I have just gotten very prompt email replies from the Knife Outlet. The good reputation the Knife Outlet has on Bladeforums is well- deserved.

Actually, it appears I got replies even more promptly than I first realized. Knife Outlet uses an email address identified as "Webmarketing". Until I saw this address on Bladeforums, I did not know "Webmarketing" was Knife Outlet. Apparently I deleted one or more replies from Knife Outlet because I did not recognize the sender. My practice is to delete emails when I do not recognize the sender, since these are usually spam and could even be a virus.

Maybe it would a good idea for web companies to use the company name in their email addresses. Otherwise a customer might not recognize a reply as being from them.
 
I believe that if someone advertises something it should
say on the web site whether it is in stock or not.
That is just being polite.
 
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