Lazy vendor reps/tech

[SShep71]

Because of my situation I have to do alot of planning for the car and the parts/products I intend to use on it and my other car. I have been doing a lot of research and making lots of inquirys for information. I have to say that there are A LOT of vendors out there that are seriously lacking in the customer service/technical department. Several times now I have had to send emails 2 or 3 times before I either heard back or gave up. Some from big name manufactureres and vendors. What is the deal?

[hotrodneb]

Not a bad plan actually.......you are learning about their service BEFORE you spend money......certainly better than AFTER they have your $$ in their pocket.

[k9kevin81]

I agree 100%, I have a lot of money to spend (I know you do as well) with my current project. I have pretty much been told by reps that they didn't know **** about the very product they were trying to sell me. All I can say is Matt@MCB and Jason@Rushforth have been awesome. Although I haven't made any purchases with Matt he will be getting my business without a doubt.
Im getting pissed just thinking about it lol. I guess its difficult to tell if your some dreamer wasting a reps time or you're a player who's going to spend the money. Bottom line if you want to sell your product, you should know it well and treat everyone with the same courtesies. Oh well, Im off my soapbox.

[El_Diablo]

I would completely agree on the customer service issues of a lot of the major vendors. I'm unpleasantly surprised about 85% of the time I attempt to contact them. The sad thing being as you stated, most simply would not answer an e-mail. In this day and age that's a very important aspect. Hell, as a sales consultant in charge of the internet inquiries as well as general sales for a multi-brand dealership I'm required to send out a response to an inquiring customer in under two hours. It’s shocking that these companies can’t even get back to me in two weeks.

[SShep71]

Yeah I can honestly say that I didn't expect it from companies like comp cams, ricks tanks, grant steering wheels, FAST. I see all these good reports of their products, but when I try to find out specific information I never hear back or I get information that is lacking at best. One of the things that miffs me real bad is when I get told "it's better to call them". I don't have that luxury at this point, I am 12 hours ahead of most of these places. I am not going to kill myself trying to make a phone call when an email is easier and more convenient. If you don't check your email what is the point of putting it up there. Jason at Rushforth is the man! I have not talked t a guy that is more willing to go the extra mile than him. Kim and Matt at MCB are amazing to work and deal with as well.

[jlcustomz]

I can understand your frustration. Money can be pretty hard earned for many of us, especially trying to stay alive for a living. Would be nice to know something about a product that costs so much. While it's common knowledge that some big names you listed are hard to get ahold of a person, you expect better from some of the smaller ones. Of course some smaller businesses understandability are pretty busy to answer an e-mail.
All that being said, that's some of the reason for popularity of forums. Although opinions always vary, you can get some input that's not based on someone just trying to sell you something. Also some of us know more about products than the people you may get to speak to.
I was almost ready to do air suspension years ago when the ridetech rep at a show just tried to push a whole package on me , without answering any specifics us engineering minded people want to know. Well I put off the whole project for years until recently I read some ride quality explanations by a member here, which helped me to understand things. After a couple pm's with him, I just ordered a few ridetech products .
I guess my point is, while we may have a hard time getting a response or a poor response even from a great place, you can many times get the help you need on forums.

[srh3trinity]

I am mostly an emailer. It works better with my schedule and you have a paper trail to refer back to. I do seem to get better results when I call people and some people just aren't that into email. If they answer the phone, you at least know your question reaches somebody. I am sure that email questions really pile up and it is probably the same guys fielding phone calls all day taking care of the emails. That means that some will get pushed to tomorrow and the queue list fills back up, they knock a few more off the list, etc. Not making excuses for any vendor as they should realize that they could potentially lose sales or have unhappy customers due to unanswered email, but the situation above is probably the reality of what is happening.

[El_Diablo]

One of the big shockers for me has been that AME doesn't seem to care to reply to e-mails at all.

[TonyHuntimer]

You have to wonder how many emails they get every hour from people asking lots of tech questions that NEVER turn into a real customer. A company could have a couple of tech people working every day, just to get business from 5% of the people they respond to. I can see why some stuff can fall through the cracks. There's got to be a happy medium of money well spent on the tech help at a manufacturer. ...just saying.

Tony Huntimer

[vintageracer]

You have to wonder how many emails they get every hour from people asking lots of tech questions that NEVER turn into a real customer. A company could have a couple of tech people working every day, just to get business from 5% of the people they respond to. I can see why some stuff can fall through the cracks. There's got to be a happy medium of money well spent on the tech help at a manufacturer. ...just saying.

Tony Huntimer

Tony I agree that a small percentage of customer calls/contact turn into immediate sales (sales within 30 days) "HOWEVER"!

Which one of those 100% of the people who contact a vendor (email or telephone) IS one of the 5% that will BUY????

Answer that question and you will be an instant BILLIONAIRE as every company in the world will beat a path to your door to BUY your system/method to answer that question! Will you be able to answer all the inquiries and questions you would receive???

Look at all the car events in which you have participated. Can you tell me which one of those car guys that you do not personally know walking around the event has all the money and is ready to SPEND it with you? The answer is NO! You certainly cannot the judge who the "Big Buck" car guys are by the way look or dress either. So HOW is a customer service/tech group going to make the decision as to which email to respond to or telephone call to answer? The only solution is to that question is to answer ALL the calls and respond to ALL the emails! Yes that can be time consuming and/or expensive. But that's what it takes. Successful small business people know this and the successful small business's know those emails and telephone calls turn in sales!

The reality is that IF a vendor is going to provide contact information in their literature/website they should be damn sure they respond to ALL inquiries in a timely fashion. Nobody "needs" any of the products sold by vendors that service our hobby. Customer's may want them but they damn sure do not "need" them. I suggest vendors add information concerning a time frame in which a customer can expect a response to an inquiry via email. The vendor that answer's the telephone with a REAL PERSON and/or responds quickly to email inquiries is the vendor that get's the sale!

[SparkyRnD]

those that understand business and customer service know that you have to treat each person that calls or emails as a customer looking to spend his dollars with you. You hope that by giving the free advice and information that they will eventually trust in you and want to spend their hard earned dollars on your products. The email contact can be tricky though, as some places prefer phone only, while others prefer email only. We gladly accept both, although it tends to be easier for us to communicate by email than it is by phone sometimes as we are a very small operation and don't have a dedicated phone staff (as that costs money, and raises overhead, which then raises prices). If you don't get a response by one of the vendors through email, I would suggest calling and leaving a message with your information and email address (even after they are closed if that is more convenient). If they don't respond to the email or the phone message, then you probably have your answer about where to spend your funds.