[toprudder]

After having a few issues involving ordering, service, and correspondence with vendors lately, I thought I would would share my observations and opinions.

Service:
First instance, I purchased two identical items from the manufacturer. One worked fine, the other would not power up at all. Contacted service, and mailed it to them.

Second instance, I purchased an item from an authorized dealer. It did not work properly when received. Again, had to pay shipping to send it in for repair. After doing a little investigation, I found that there were a lot of these units that were shipped out faulty.

In both cases, I had to wait for the items to go through the normal repair pipeline, which meant a 2-3 week turnaround, during which time they had my money and I had nothing. Maybe I am wrong, but I was hoping they would send me a new item as soon as they received the dead item from me. I am talking about NIB items now, not something that has been used and then died.

Ordering:
If you are a vendor that sells online, you should have some sort of order confirmation email to acknowledge that the order was received, and give some sort of estimated time of delivery. I ordered something recently and there was absolutely no communication at all. I emailed the company, twice, asking for this information. On the day I was ready to call the company, the product showed up on my doorstep. I never did get any correspondence from the vendor. Which leads me to my next observation,

Correspondence:
Too many times lately, I have either read about someone else, or I have experienced it myself, trying to contact a vendor via email and the vendor never replies to repeated emails. The typical response on any of the forums is "try giving them a call". Well, that is not acceptable to me. If the vendor has a website and lists an email address on the "Contacts" page, they should read/answer their emails. It would be ok if there was a statement on the "Contacts" page that there may be a delay to email, or that they prefer phone calls. Usually, the only time I have to spend on hobby related activities is after normal working hours, and email is the best mode of contact for me. Apparently there are a few vendors that it is generally known (and accepted!!) that they never reply (may not even read?) emails.

Before anyone suggests I can avoid problems like this by purchasing from the LHS instead of ordering online, don't even get me started. My closest LHS does not carry much of anything giant scale, and very little of anything else that I need. (They did not have any 4/40 blind nuts for more than two weeks, when they did get some in they only ordered two packs!!!) In some cases they would not even have an idea of what I am asking for.

The nearest hobby shops that do carry decent inventory are both about 1.5 hours away. Believe me, I stop at them whenever I am passing through the area!!! (Like when I go to Triple Tree, I always stop at KC Hobby in Archdale NC).

Let me say that most of my experiences have been good. It is just a small percentage of the vendors that seem to need a little constructive criticism, and hopefully they will read this and take notice.

Bob R.