Customer service - the impact of the internet....?

TiM

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While I have a specific experience to mention, I thought a bit more about the modern environment we 'shop' in these days and how the internet allows not only searching for best value, wider range and discovering more than one could at any single local hobby shop but also a mechanism to find out the who's who of good & bad customer service.

How many of us research into the various sources we buy from - forum comments, feedback on ebay or word of mouth from youtube?


Back in March, I had some money left over from Christmas presents that I was determined not to just fritter away on groceries and petrol, so I indulged myself... and bought some models from ForgeWorld (division of Games Workshop).
Now I have got a few of their models from a while ago, and went into it with eyes wide open as to the continuous issues they seem to suffer with Quality Control (complete lack of!), having read very recently on another forum dedicated to the overall GW brand that this has not improved.

Reading some more, I was a little concerned that one customer was alleging that defective parts had been shipped and the normally good reputation of the company for customer service was, to put it pleasantly, deficient.
Again this does not overly concern me as an un-named individual ranting on the internet in a one sided view is not something I put too much credibility in. His (or her?) beef was that having had a 'problem' with poor quality parts it was ignored. hmm.

Anyway, my stuff arrived and same as 'back in the day', two parts in two separate kits were beyond what I consider reasonable for an experience modeller to correct. I know these are not toys and some skill is expected, however crushed moulds give bad parts no-one can fix without sculpting fresh. So, an e-mail including photo sent on a Saturday, reply within a couple of hours - pretty good, just needed me to confirm order and batch numbers so replacement parts could be cast. Fine, reply, done.

Forgot about in box on top of wardrobe.... remembered 2 months later, another e-mail, automated reply saying hundreds of e-mails in backlog and please phone. Forgot to phone for a while....

Remembered, phoned on a Friday afternoon with name & order number, chap on customer service looks it up and identified request, apologised for it getting delayed in backlog and would sort it. This is where Customer Service demonstrates a company is committed to their reputation:

Happy ending - 6 days later 2 complete new kits, not just the damaged parts to apologise for delay in getting resolved. Makes me feel like trying to re-sculpt of convert the originals 8)
 
While I can't speak for any other company, I can only speak on my own brand of customer service.

What it comes down to, no matter if you are standing in front of me, or 2000miles away ordering from my website, customer service comes first. And really....its not that hard. Treat the customer how you would like to be treated if you were the customer.....and it all takes care of itself from there.

From my perspective, if a customer has a bad experience, he or she likely won't be back, and you can unfortunately get a butterfly effect from there, as that person tells one or 2 people, and they in turn tell one or 2 people...and it spreads from there.

In person it is a no brainer, on my website...there really isn't much extra I can do unless someone has a problem, as you aren't face to face with them, but some things I try to do is when I get an order, I send the customer an e-mail thanking them for their order, and when the order will be shipped out. They then usually get a tracking number sent to them from Canada Post telling them it has been sent. Beyond that...unless there is a problem. Of course in shipping the parcels, I make sure everything is secure in the box, and not just haphazardly thrown in, but again, that comes down to me processing the box/order in the way I would like to receive it if I am the customer.

Got to try and keep the customer happy, so they keep coming back!
 
Resin has it's own set of flaws. There will be a bad part once in a while. It happens. The hate against Forge World has always been a bit unjust. They have always done right by me and all the others I know who have dealt with them. The arguement always becomes, 'but they are so expensive.' They are. But there's this vibe of entitlement by most of the complainers because they are gamers and buy the Games Workshop stuff...

I always thought a way for them to give something to those guys would be clip off the UPCs on the Games Workshop stuff and offer a discount for Forge World items with so many GW UPCs. Kind of a win/win/win.
 
Elm City Hobbies said:
Treat the customer how you would like to be treated if you were the customer.....and it all takes care of itself from there.

What a lot of customers forget is that the reverse is also true - "Treat the vendor how you would treat a customer if you were the vendor".

My site says "6 to 8 weeks for shipping" because I do a lot of stuff as "cast on demand" to keep my resin costs down. Customer places an order and within 48 hours he's emailing me asking me if it shipped yet. I referred him back to my site where it says "6 to 8 weeks". He said he understood but proceeded to increasingly threaten me through emails every few days for almost a month - he said he'd post bad reviews about me on every model forum he could find, that he'd hunt me down at WonderFest and make a scene to make sure people didn't buy from me - on and on like this.

When he finally filed a complaint with PayPal demanding a refund, I gave him his refund within an hour and told him the reality of running a business - no single customer's money is the life and death of your business. I refuse to deal with customers who don't want to give me the respect they expect me to give them. If I had given in and cast and shipped his order right away, he probably would have gone around bragging about his victory about how he badgered me and I caved so everyone should do that. ::)

I have nothing against treating people fairly but they have to understand that their order isn't the only one I'm dealing with. They don't know how many orders are ahead of theirs or how big or small those orders are. I keep no secrets beyond the ones that are necessary for any business to keep (profit margins, order volume, etc - the kind of stuff that competition would like to know).

Yes, we got into this for the love of the hobby, which is fine - no one goes into business doing something they hate - but we're also in this to make money and hopefully grow it to something we can earn a living from full time. I'm not going to let any customer jeopardize that no matter how much they threaten me.
 
I'd agree with that sentiment completely, which is why I put the responsibility on myself for it taking a while - I repeatedly forgot to phone after being notified of their e-mail backlog.

When I did remember to phone, a friendly professional person answered within 3 rings and did what they said, found my order details and fulfilled my request to above my expectation. I certainly would not do as you have unfortunately experience, go round the internet with a bad attitude... the responsibility for a reciprocal arrangement is with me, not a forum or other source who have no ability to effect the outcome.

Part of my original point is the sad fact that so many businesses small or large are now at the mercy of irrational "customers" and the threat as you describe.
 
Alot of the problem is that people just refuse to read and then comprehend what they are reading.

I get alot of e-mails about kits on my website that are a Pre-Order, IE: the kit isn't out yet, despite all the info being there saying that Kit X is a September release, they insist that I must have physical stock of the kit because it says I have X "in stock" on the website.

When I explain to them that I have to put in an inventory of the pre-order kits in order for people to purchase a pre-order of the kit, they just don't understand and insist that I still must have the kit in inventory to sell it. Otherwise why would it say "in stock", despite right above where it says "in stock" it also says that it is a release in X month, and that it likely won't be available until the end of said month (limitations of when my supplier gets it and can get it to me)

No inventory on board for a Pre-Order, means people can't pre-order the kit, as there is nothing to purchase, hence the reason it says "in stock".

Even when someone does purchase a pre-order, I e-mail them to tell them when they can expect the kit, and another e-mail when it arrives and ships out to them. Most of the time they realize what they purchased was a pre-order of the kit (at a cheaper price than the reg. retail as well), but there are a few that think they are buying the actual kit at the time of purchase.
 
The pre-order/order confusion comes down to something I learned working in retail years ago - people shop by pictures and prices; they don't read words unless they're forced to, and even then, they accuse you of lying or trying to mislead them. Still more try to feign stupidity/ignorance hoping you'll give them what they want in spite of reality just so they'll go away.

Bottom line is there are certain customers who are always looking for ways to scam the system. The sooner you can identify them, the more word will get around that you're not the idiot they think you are and eventually they won't shop from you anymore. To them I say, "Good riddance. Go drive someone else out of business with your selfishness."
 

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