pick up winders obviously too busy....

Snags

Obviously everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and equally entitled to spend their money where they want based on whatever criteria they like.

However, you have to manage your expectations according to the kind of organisation you're dealing with. There's a weird arse-about-face nature to our un-thought expectations between big business and small business. Big business is faceless, so we tend to expect a brush off and the run around to some extent. Small business is personal, so we tend to expect the same kind of responsiveness we'd get from a mate. But if you take a moment to think it through, a large business will have a dedicated customer service/sales team whose sole purpose is to wait for and respond to customer queries or issues. A small business won't. It'll be a handful of people putting in much longer hours for much less return, giving personal attention to each order end-to-end but inevitably not able to jump on everything immediately.

So in reality the large firm is better placed to get back to you promptly, even though at the end of the day the answer will probably be "Yeah, you can buy off the shelf or you can FRO", whereas with a small business there'll likely (but not always) be a delay, and they'll take the time to tweak things to your needs.

All of that said, I would hope that under normal running most businesses of any size are able to respond within 24-48 hours, and if it's going to be towards the latter end of that to have an auto-responder that at least acknowledges receipt of the message and sets out a time-frame in which to expect a real human response. Personally my biggest problem at work is that I respond too promptly to things, which then leads to an escalation in demands for unreasonable turn-arounds, and also unreasonable expectations on responsiveness. So when we take a day or so to respond to a client they often ask what's up or get humpy, despite the fact that it can take them up to a fortnight to respond to us when we're trying to help them ...

OilCityPickups

Wazmeister said:

Shark_Eyes said:

If it was so urgent it couldn't wait 3 days then maybe you should have picked up the phone.
If they answered the email immediately but then had a long dispatch time you'd probably complain about that instead.
The joy of working with small builders is that you speak to the person building your product, unfortunately that means they're often concentrating on building rather than customer service, I know which I prefer.

Nope, Im with @skaguitar here...

Like it or not, this is the modern world (still adore that song) and if you snooze, you lose imho.

Its not about the buyer, its about the seller. I cant comment on the specifics here, but I know with my small business (and even when I sell in the Forum here), you have to move and respond quick... or the gas, moment, momentum (whatever) is lost.

Like many small pickup winders we have far more potential customers than we can cope with, and the very issue is that we are providing a very old fashioned bespoke service that is hugely time consuming. Marrying that to the demands of the the modern instant communication world is tough ... and yes, we probably loose customers with a three to four day communication lag (that's usually only on 'site forms' ... e mail is much quicker and phone is instant) but that's because we are trying to give the best service we can to those who have the patience to place orders with us.

Wazmeister

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Wazmeister said:

Shark_Eyes said:

If it was so urgent it couldn't wait 3 days then maybe you should have picked up the phone.
If they answered the email immediately but then had a long dispatch time you'd probably complain about that instead.
The joy of working with small builders is that you speak to the person building your product, unfortunately that means they're often concentrating on building rather than customer service, I know which I prefer.

Nope, Im with @skaguitar here...

Like it or not, this is the modern world (still adore that song) and if you snooze, you lose imho.

Its not about the buyer, its about the seller. I cant comment on the specifics here, but I know with my small business (and even when I sell in the Forum here), you have to move and respond quick... or the gas, moment, momentum (whatever) is lost.

Like many small pickup winders we have far more potential customers than we can cope with, and the very issue is that we are providing a very old fashioned bespoke service that is hugely time consuming. Marrying that to the demands of the the modern instant communication world is tough ... and yes, we probably loose customers with a three to four day communication lag (that's usually only on 'site forms' ... e mail is much quicker and phone is instant) but that's because we are trying to give the best service we can to those who have the patience to place orders with us.

I get it mate, and I'm not knocking you per se... you are very successful in your field, and that means you can't be all things to all people.

It's tough when we live in a 'same-day-delivery-I-want-it-now' age.

Sadly, we are all influenced by it - myself included

p90fool

I must admit I like a quick acknowledgement these days too, if not a detailed reply. 

Customers are no longer sitting at home wondering whether their letter has got there yet, they know it's been sent, delivered, seen and ignored.

It's like any other business, if they're too busy to acknowledge your enquiry then they're too busy to build your pickups/extension/bathroom anyway, so you go elsewhere.  

Snags

Actually, with email, the best they generally know is that it has been sent. We're all used to be email being more or less instant, but it's actually still a fundamentally unreliable (in a technical and practical sense) service, and there are loads of things that can happen to stop it being received or seen if received. Bane of my life, after WiFi printers.

midlifecrisis

TBH, i agree with skaguitar. Even if a simple , "sorry unable to answer your query at the moment , will get back to you soon" making sure that they do, then at least the potential customer knows 
they are not just being ignored. 

Funkfingers

skaguitar said:

contempt

There's a lot of it about. TIP: Avoid mirrors.

TheGuitarWeasel said:
the demands of the the modern instant communication world

I knew a young bloke who was utterly convinced that, if his then girlfriend did not answer her mobile telephone within four rings, she MUST be conducting an affair with another man. That kind of impatience is self-destructive in so many ways. That relationship soon ended.

Nowadays, there seem to be the twin expectations for immediacy and of entitlement. On this very forum, you will read references to "my guitar tech" as if that person is retained staff. This is almost invariably accompanied by grumbling about how much the tech's services cost for tasks in which there might be zero margin for error. "The customer is always right." Even when the customer is being unreasonable.

We all like to get a good deal and excellent customer service. These things certainly help to make life sweeter. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to EXPECT to get them every time.

OilCityPickups

Wazmeister said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Wazmeister said:

Shark_Eyes said:

If it was so urgent it couldn't wait 3 days then maybe you should have picked up the phone.
If they answered the email immediately but then had a long dispatch time you'd probably complain about that instead.
The joy of working with small builders is that you speak to the person building your product, unfortunately that means they're often concentrating on building rather than customer service, I know which I prefer.

Nope, Im with @skaguitar here...

Like it or not, this is the modern world (still adore that song) and if you snooze, you lose imho.

Its not about the buyer, its about the seller. I cant comment on the specifics here, but I know with my small business (and even when I sell in the Forum here), you have to move and respond quick... or the gas, moment, momentum (whatever) is lost.

Like many small pickup winders we have far more potential customers than we can cope with, and the very issue is that we are providing a very old fashioned bespoke service that is hugely time consuming. Marrying that to the demands of the the modern instant communication world is tough ... and yes, we probably loose customers with a three to four day communication lag (that's usually only on 'site forms' ... e mail is much quicker and phone is instant) but that's because we are trying to give the best service we can to those who have the patience to place orders with us.

I get it mate, and I'm not knocking you per se... you are very successful in your field, and that means you can't be all things to all people.

It's tough when we live in a 'same-day-delivery-I-want-it-now' age.

Sadly, we are all influenced by it - myself included

Our very success is a double edged sword: I get fifty to sixty enquiries a week via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, e mail and site contact forms from all over the world. This business has been established nearly seven years, and when we started it was e mail or phone only. The sheer volume of interest, especially since the weakness of the pound has meant our prices are super attractive to both British buyers and many more foreign ones, and coping with that level of interest with only myself as a full time worker is somewhat hectic. If we employed more people we could respond faster (I already work 7 days a week ... usually in excess of 80 hours) but in the current volatile economic climate, expansion is a difficult call. Also when you take on staff you have to train them, and this is a very specialised business indeed ... I only want qualified and clued up people talking to my customers

PS ... as far as I'm aware our site software doesn't allow an auto responder on the response form mail box ... we have that set up on our e mail however. 

Fortheloveofguitar

I’m a sole trader and run a successful business. 

One of my strong points and what potential new customers comment on is how quickly I respond to new inquiries

Regardless of how busy I am or if I am currently taking on new clients or not I will always respond with a few hrs or 24hrs absolute max even when I’m extremely busy. Even if you have enough work to keep you going for some considerable time it can affect your business reputation if you get known for never replying or taking considerable time

Its just the way modern business is and I adapted to it a long time ago. 

I think a lot of the pitchfork comments here are because the seller is a member here. If this was SD or DiMarzio then it would be entirely different comment wise I feel 

Bigsby

TheGuitarWeasel said:

 and yes, we probably loose customers with a three to four day communication lag (that's usually only on 'site forms' ... e mail is much quicker and phone is instant) but that's because we are trying to give the best service we can to those who have the patience to place orders with us.

From that it sounds as though you're struggling to respond to forms, but not email/phone, if so, surely it makes sense to remove the form option, and just ask potential customers to email/phone? Communication really needs to work for your business and the customers.

TBH, I don't get the 'if you wanted a quick reply you should've phoned' argument. Phoning a small business means potentially interrupting someone's work; they're unlikely to have someone there just to answer calls. Using email/contact forms for a new customer enquiry is the norm these days, and a response or at least acknowledgement within 24 hours is generally expected too. Frankly, the response to an enquiry can often be taken as an indication of the service you can expect. Wait four days for a reply, and the one month delivery date may well turn out to be four.

Winny_Pooh

Any decent reply is worthwhile sometimes.

I've had great service from Disaster Area/Alexander recently.

Conversely, no reply to an email sent to Stetsbar 8 weeks ago & incompetence from one person at Seymour Duncan some while back.

Boromedic

Na I disagree with the above, I've never bought pickups from Ash so I'm not sticking up for him for that reason. Comparing Seymour Duncan to Ash is like comparing apples with oranges.

My expectations from a small business are very different from those of the size of Seymour or DiMarzio. That's the difference, expectations, and this bullshit 24hr culture we've bred over the last decade or more.

DiscoStu

I've been self employed and always tried to reply to enquiries same day where possible. I did however get complaints from a couple of customers - one emailed Friday night and I replied Monday morning, another contacted me whilst I was abroad on holiday so for me it had to wait til I got home.
In both cases, potential customers became actual customers.

Megii

Bit of give and take on both sides maybe? - Ash is clearly an honorable man with a company that from experience makes very nice pickups, and has at least responded here and talked about the issues. I can well understand the pressures of a small rapidly developing business, but perhaps he could look at just getting some kind of automated reply system going if possible. And maybe the OP could consider giving him an order after all, or at least not ruling Oil City out for the future.

wesker123

Mojo pickups disable their shop once too busy with a note to say when it will be available again. Potential customers then know where they stand.
Sensible way to operate.

dindude

I recently went on the hunt for a UK made pickup, Mojo weren’t taking orders as is the norm by the time you get to the second week in the month. Oil City - website is a bit inconsistent in the drop down boxes as to what’s available long leg / short leg - some info is missing so you either have to guess or enquire.
Ordered a Bareknuckle in the end and it arrived faulty.

Never had any of these issues with Seymour Duncan - sorry but everyone is competing in the same relatively small market. 

Iamnobody

OP can shop elsewhere if he’s not happy and Ash is clearly successful and can manage his affairs how he sees fit to. Don’t see it needs any debate from us lot.

I’ve got the patience of a saint though and still waiting for a guitar I ordered 2.5 years ago!

OilCityPickups

After hurried contact with our web bod we have set up an auto responder on our site contact form. I personally hate the things because it's just a dang robot ... but at least it should help any who are feeling they are being ignored. I'm not a web designer, but I muddled through till this time last year when we had a radical site update and the contact form was introduced. Now I have to kick web site issues to someone who knows ... and really can't do much about it myself ... however that is now in place.

I really would like to point out that out of the two companies who were slow to respond to the the original poster, I was the one who took the time to come on here and take the criticism on the chin. As the original poster didn't name Oil City, I stuck my hand up and acknowledged that I was one of the companies ... even though I could have simply ignored it and remained anonymous. The price of involvement with the Fretboard Forum is you put yourself in the firing line, which I have been happy to do. 

uncledick

In my experience, the 'contact us' button on any website should be replaced with 'waste your time here'.  Most companies will respond directly to phone calls, emails or Facebook messages fairly promptly.  Special mention for Blackstar here though, they took 4 months and 3 emails as well as contacting their rep - twice - via my local dealer before finally agreeing to look at my faulty pedal.  

Funkfingers

Winny_Pooh said:

incompetence from one person at Seymour Duncan some while back.

You seem surprised. 

The SD telephone tech support has been notoriously useless for years. If you are poised to buy something, they can not do enough for you. Actual technical questions are entirely beyond them. Their stock response is to direct enquirers to the user group forum, where charlies who actually know what they are talking about can field anything from clueless noob questions to some seriously advanced custom wiring wizardry. 

Seymour Duncan Inc. has become pretty sloppy since Mr. Seymour Duncan ceased to be in charge.