Amazingly poor customer service

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Cow said:
No, I think you're missing the point. It accomplishes nothing to start a thread to have everyone jump in and just complain about something...

No sense complaining, change your methods. Use email. It's almost 2018.:)
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To be fair, venting helps. The best part about this format is that not everyone has to read and participate.

And it's a fair complaint that if a fax number is readily provided, one should be able to trust he can reliably use it.
 
MAC702 said:
To be fair, venting helps. The best part about this format is that not everyone has to read and participate.

And it's a fair complaint that if a fax number is readily provided, one should be able to trust he can reliably use it.
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I haven’t had a fax # for years, unfortunately it is stlll listed in some of the phone books, along with the wrong address.
 
ptonsparky said:
It’s that book with old telephone numbers and addresses that the phone companies no longer have any responsibility for.
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They appear every year around here piled up at the mailboxes of people who are to sorry to bend over and pick them up and put them in the recycling bin if they aren't going to use them....
Yes, it irritates me that people are that sorry.
 
Coppersmith said:
I meant for this thread to discuss poor customer service. Whether or not you think fax is a good technology to use is not the point. If a supply house advertises a fax number then they are making an implicit contract with their customers that they will check the fax machine routinely and respond to faxes. To do anything less than that is poor customer service plain and simple. If they do not want to respond to faxes, they should not advertise a fax machine's number nor have one plugged in to receive faxes. This is exactly the same thing as advertising a voice line # and never answering your phone. Potential customers will go elsewhere. Again, this would be poor customer service.
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:thumbsup:

What you described IS poor service- no two ways about it.

Not getting a response for faxes, emails or phone calls when material is needed or even a simple request for prices is irritating.

A lot of people have stuck it out w/ local supply houses out of loyalty and have kept them from being swallowed by the big orange or blue- but the shs arent doing themselves any favors by pulling these types of stunts- folks start to have the inevitable "Ahhh to hell with it" moment and are on the way to being greeted by a guy wearing an orange apron.........





qcroanoke said:
They appear every year around here piled up at the mailboxes of people who are to sorry to bend over and pick them up and put them in the recycling bin if they aren't going to use them....
Yes, it irritates me that people are that sorry.
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The TELCOs' in many areas will now send out the book (or at least the white pgs) by request only.
 
qcroanoke said:
They appear every year around here piled up at the mailboxes of people who are to sorry to bend over and pick them up and put them in the recycling bin if they aren't going to use them....
Yes, it irritates me that people are that sorry.
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Around here they get thrown all over the place. This year, mine was in the middle of my driveway, which isn't even on the same street as my mailbox. Some were just tossed into yards and ditches. I keep all mine to use as reference material, we get two a year. Most people have no use for them and for the most part they are just litter.
 
Not getting a response for faxes, emails or phone calls when material is needed or even a simple request for prices is irritating.
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The OP didn't say anything about no response from email or phone....just fax

A lot of people have stuck it out w/ local supply houses out of loyalty and have kept them from being swallowed by the big orange or blue
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can you site an example of big orange or blue swallowing up an electrical supply house?
 
cdslotz said:
The OP didn't say anything about no response from email or phone....just fax



can you site an example of big orange or blue swallowing up an electrical supply house?
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Its impossible to know exactly why any one individual business fails; however a lot of the smaller houses have griped about being undercut by the big boxes on many items, and yes, some have disappeared-exactly why, again, who knows. The point was that incompetence (mentioned here many times before....) only makes the switch easier.

And yes, the op did only mention a fax. But a few supply houses also have a nasty little habit of the phone going to VM, or swearing that they didn't get an email- this all says "We don't need your business."
 
You need to address the fax specifically to your inside salesman, not just to whoever may pick it up, to give yourself a better chance of getting a timely response. If you don't regularly do business at the place you may not have an inside salesman, or you get one by default if you have an account but he don't know you anyway because you never do business with him, that puts you low on the priority of processing your request.

Emails or phone calls are similar - contact your inside sales person, not the new counter guy who was the only one available at the time to answer the phone.
 
kwired said:
Emails or phone calls are similar - contact your inside sales person, not the new counter guy who was the only one available at the time to answer the phone.
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I normally just call the counter person and get a fairly immediate response. I thought five items was too much to just call for.



cdslotz said:
The OP didn't say anything about no response from email or phone....just fax
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No response period from two of the supply houses including the one that lost the fax, I resent and verified they received and they promised immediate action.

The one with the broken fax that I emailed, did get back to me. The salesperson was dumber than a rock. I did finally order from them basically because I ran out of time to wait. None of three deserved my business.

I found a fourth SH online that I thought about using. Their website wasn't clear about availability so I called and left a VM. Never got a call back.
 
user 100 said:
Its impossible to know exactly why any one individual business fails; however a lot of the smaller houses have griped about being undercut by the big boxes on many items
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An online search for a small three phase panel I need gave prices ranging from $120-700. This is why checking prices is necessary. I certainly would have paid more than $120 to a local supply house (about $160 would be the limit) because I value person to person interaction and dealing with brick and mortar businesses.
 
Coppersmith said:
An online search for a small three phase panel I need gave prices ranging from $120-700. This is why checking prices is necessary. I certainly would have paid more than $120 to a local supply house (about $160 would be the limit) because I value person to person interaction and dealing with brick and mortar businesses.
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Just make sure that you are comparing apples with apples.
 
It is not unusual for it take 5 business days (or even more) for me to get a price out of any of the supply houses we deal with on a regular basis.

You can get a list price off their web site but the price is meaningless.

At one time they have all promised that our real prices would be reflected in the price displayed on the website but except for Newark, none of them have been able to make that work reliably. We have been burned enough that the owners now require some kind of direct written quote from a vendor because they do not trust the prices from the websites.
 
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