Vigilance is a Must
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 8:22 pm by angrybob
Sticking with the theme of my online orders these past few weeks, I have also learned to be vigilant with my order(s).
Example #1: I ordered a sweet Yamaha receiver from the Best Buy For Business website on November 30th. Earlier this week, I decided to follow up on the order since it had not arrived yet. Given that the site stated “usually ships in 1-2 weeks”, I had waited a reasonable amount of time.
The online tracking form had said “In Process” for two weeks, so I blew in a call. Without going into too much line-by-line detail, BBFB decided that they were not going to carry this item any longer. So be it, but there was no mechanism to inform me of such. That was the confession of the customer help guy on the phone. So I pissed away almost three weeks for nothing. Even though I have found another receiver, it won’t be here for a week or so. I wanted to have everything done by Christmas day. Not gonna happen now.
Example #2: I ordered some gearing for my dirt bikes on December 9th from Rocky Mountain ATV. Again, too much time had passed for that order not to arrive. These guys are great, stock everything and take two business days for it whatever I order to reach my doorstep. So I called.
Damn. It appears that I fat-fingered my credit card number and my cc did not go through. They called my house once and got no answer. That was all it took for them to cancle my order. Again, I’m a little pissed because there was no message abd no mechanism to inform me that my order was canceled. I ordered the parts again this morning. They’ll be here Wednesday, but still way too late for me intentions.
I’m not a phone-caller or a letter writer, but lately I’m starting to think that might change.
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I found that the squeaky wheel gets oiled!
Many of your issues would’ve been discovered and more quickly resolved if you had made those calls only a few days after placing the order. I know it seems like you should give these companies ample time to try to get the order processed and shipped but in actual practice, the sooner you follow-up after the order (a couple days), the more likely a problem will surface and you can go to Plan B.
I’d like to believe the the moto-industry “cares” about it’s patrons, but the truth is, they’re in it for the money (not customer service) just like any other business. And as a result, they don’t really go out of their way when there’s a problem. There are exception but they are rare!
Unfortunately, I’ve found the best strategy is to be a respectful pest!
Rhino
P.S. - My luck is that when I call, the item ends up showing up on my doorstep that evening when I get home from work.