Customer Service

This may be the wrong topic to start a thread, but... I've never been known not to stir the pot.

There is a right way of doing business, then... there is another way of doing business. And, no... I do NOT believe that the customer is always right.

Here is my story of a recent positive customer service experiance... from Micro-Mark.

During one of Micro-Mark's recent e-mail sales, I ordered the Magnetic Gluing Jig, item #60304. It was on sale, and I've read that other Z'ers state this is a useful item.

Unfortunately, when I received my package, one corner of the jig was smashed during shipping. Yes, the other three corners and all four sides of the jig were still usable. But, I didn't pay for damaged goods. This damage occured because of poor packing... the item was larger than the shipping box used and not enough interior padding materials.

Micro-Mark states to call them about receiving damaged goods. For me, the toll-free number is not toll-free. So, I sent an e-mail... clearly explaining the problem. In less than 24 hours, I received a reply, apologizing for the trouble and that a new jig was being sent to me. On top of that, I was told there was no need to return the damaged jig! (The jig is heavy. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for return postage.)

Happy Day!

But, here is the real point of my posting this little story (thought you would get away with reading something easy ). Customer service works both ways.

In my e-mail to Micro-Mark, I included a scanned copy of my packing slip. I also attached several digital photos... one of the smashed shipping box, two of the inside of the shipping box that showed how the jig was packed, one of the jig's box, and one showing the actual damage to the jig. All the photos were clear and focused.

What my e-mail did not include... attitude, rants, name calling, accusations, etc. (yes, I know... hard to believe from me ). My e-mail was short and to the point. I only asked how to return the damaged jig. I did not demand a thing.

Micro-Mark came though with flying colors. There are other vendors in our hobby that earn outstanding ratings when it comes to customer service... Anthony of Z Scale Monster being my #1 choice. Loren and Karin Snyder come in a very close and tight second.

I could name a few folks that will not receive my Z-coins and could learn a few things about customer service. I'll keep this post friendly and won't do that here (if you want to know, just ask me privately).

A few thoughts I forgot to add to my post...

My comments should not be taken as an endorsement of Micro-Mark. Their pricing is a bit on the high side. You can find many of their items cheaper elsewhere. As I mentioned, I ordered during one of their promotion sales. I flip through their catalogs, make a wish list… then, when they have a sale, I add items that I’m wanting, to save on postage. Micro-Mark does carry a lot of unique items, plus it’s easier to order a bunch of items from the same vendor than ordering ten different tools from ten different sellers.

My comments about Anthony, and Loren and Karin are complete, full-blown endorsements! Sure… you can find Z cheaper than Z Scale Monster and StoneBridge Design. But… cheaper does NOT always equate to better or a real savings. Customer service and after the sale service go a long way in my book of value.

One final thought… shipping and “handling”. I don’t care how much of a discount I might get from a seller, if that seller tries to make up for the discount by charging excessive postage and handling. You can go to USPS.com. They have a postage calculator. You plug in your zip code and the seller’s zip code… guesstimate a weight and choose the service. Within a few dollars… I can understand. Double or triple the actual postage is a rip-off. Once I receive a package, I compare the postage label to what I paid. If it is a big difference, I send a polite e-mail asking the seller, “why the big difference?” If the seller offers a legitimate explanation and is willing to offer a credit or partial refund… that seller might get my business again. If not, or I get the song and dance story about “handling… the cost of materials… my time to go to the post office… blah, blah, blah…” Forget it! That’s called the “cost of doing business”.

Ask any member here or on the yahoo Z groups or even from my eBay sales… when anyone has bought from me, postage is postage… no hidden fees.

FolkZ... this is not just my customer service thread. Please feel free to post your experiances here, too.

I'm also adding Glenn & Sandy Stiska of Largo, Florida, to my list of excellent customer service. Glenn & Sandy just completed tune-ups on my Micro-Trains UNION PACIFIC F-7 A-B-A (all powered) units. Absolutely a great job... along with friendly and personal communications.

THANK YOU, Glenn & Sandy!

Well i dont really have to much to say on the negative side of on line hobby stores i have purchased from but i do agree with Alex that Anthony (ZSM) and Loren are both my top two i buy from. Alex hit it right on the head when he stated that customer service counts. I have paid a higher price in the past if i knew i had the good customer support that i wanted to be there.
Just to throw out another company i deal with a lot that has treated me great. It would be Model Train Stuff
www.modeltrainstuff.com/Z-Scale-Model-Trains-s/5.htm


Hope this helps
Steve aka "Slugger"

I could not agree more, most especially about the shipping. And in reality, when bidding on eBay I may even end up spending more on an item(s) in the long run because I passed by the seller with the outrageous shipping charges. Somewhere along the line one would think the fools would learn they could make just as much by being honest. Well, maybe not or they’d have figured it out already. Perhaps if more people simply refused to purchase from them they would actually learn something.

But in truth there are some sellers that simply do some strange things! Take my recent experience with a seller on eBay, a place called TrainZ. A bigger seller with a lot of “Buy It Now” items listed (maybe 50% auctions/50% Buy It Now). They listed 10 pieces of Marklin 8805 220mm track at (what I find now) is a fantastically low price for them. The price was about one quarter of what I’ve seen others sell it for on eBay, but I thought they might just have a large overstock of it, or more than likely it was a sampler to get people to notice them (or it was actually used and not new track). I ended up buying ten boxes of 10 pieces of track and figured that total (of 100 pieces) was enough to last me QUITE a while.

A day of so later, TrainZ wrote me telling me they made a mistake and that the price was for ONE piece of track and not the 10 pieces they had been listing it as. Alas, it was too good to be true, but at the price they were then charging for shipping on just ONE piece of track, who could believe it wasn’t for 10 pieces? They said they could fulfill my first order of the 10 pieces, but that they were unable to fulfill the other nine orders and they said they would refund my money promptly. The refund took a day or so longer than I would have expected and I did have to write them again, nicely, asking for the refund(s), but they finally came through just fine after a relatively short time.

I did not complain to them about not having the track in stock (as was their excuse for not fulfilling the orders). I did not whine. I simply chalked it up to being a base hit, and not a grand slam home run and I left it at that. I left them 5 star feedback, however I did not add any extra comments in the comment field (I simply left a . dot), because I did not want to say anything good, nor bad, about the experience. If you'd ask me, I'd say it ended up as fair. They lost a little on their normally high prices and I lost out on the nine other orders I placed with them.

The other day there was an auction I wanted to bid on. It happens it was one of TrainZ auctions. I now find out Trainz has blocked me from bidding on their items. Why? I bought on what they had for sale. I left good feedback. I did NOTHING to warrant a block other than the fact that they are pixxed at themselves (and taking it out on me?), but like I said, some sellers do strange things. I wrote them asking why I was blocked… someone replied the next day stating she would check it out and get back to me. They must be really ticked about something… she never got back to me.

Joe

Ok since we're on the topic of customer service. Has anyone dealt with paw of bear??? I really like the paddle shop kit, but the shipping is a little high. If its as awesome as it looks though I'm all in. So does anyone have experience with this company?


Thanks
Zac

I have bought kits from PoB and they are really worth the cash. The pricing might be a bit steep but by my experience you don't see that many kits that have so many variants possible within the same kit. I have built the Curtis Plumbing kit and I will order two more for different locations and looks.

A difference between cheaper kits and the more expensive ones that I've experienced is that during assembly some kits clearly aren't uniform and scaled down properly and unfortunately those often are the cheap ones...

Mr. White wrote:

Ok since we're on the topic of customer service. Has anyone dealt with paw of bear??? I really like the paddle shop kit, but the shipping is a little high. If its as awesome as it looks though I'm all in. So does anyone have experience with this company?


Thanks
Zac

Zac,

Thanks for giving my kit a try despite the shipping cost. I'm always a little torn about pricing shipping. Truth be told, I'm a torn about pricing in general. I've been told by others to use 3 times or even 5 times the material costs as a basis for pricing the kits. Sometimes I manage the three times the cost of materials but very often that seems high to me so I scale back the price.

Aside from the design time (which I don't think I'll ever recuperate) the number one cost of these kits is laser cutter time. In order to get the detail and fit that I demand, I can't run the laser at top speed. As a result the kits are more expensive. I try to make sure that you have clear directions and that the kits go together easily. I hope that you are finding this to be the case.

I would love to be big enough to offer free shipping; however, I'm not there yet. I've chosen to use priority mail because the boxes are free. By the time I buy a box and ship a kit first class mail, I've spent about the same amount of money and a whole lot more time. Given my druthers, I would charge exact shipping costs: ie folks in California pay more than those in Virginia and those in Hawaii pay more than both. Unfortunately, PAYPAL isn't set up to do that so I've tried to set up a price that covers my costs (postage, time, and gas). It isn't perfect and I hope that at some point I'll have enough kits to offer free shipping on large orders.

I do hope that the kit has turned out to be as awesome as it looked. I'd love to hear your thoughts and any suggestions on improving the kit.

Cheers,

Michael Duggan
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hokenstrom wrote:

I have bought kits from PoB and they are really worth the cash. The pricing might be a bit steep but by my experience you don't see that many kits that have so many variants possible within the same kit. I have built the Curtis Plumbing kit and I will order two more for different locations and looks.

A difference between cheaper kits and the more expensive ones that I've experienced is that during assembly some kits clearly aren't uniform and scaled down properly and unfortunately those often are the cheap ones...

Thank you both for your patronage and the kind words. I've done my best to make my Z scale kits easy to modify and easy to build.

A note on design. All my Z-scale kits were designed as Z scale kits. I tried scaling some up to N and HO but have found that method unsatisfactory. After adjusting for the differing thicknesses of material required in those scales, it is honestly faster and more accurate to redo the CAD work.

Cheers,

Michael Duggan
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Let me just say that this is/was my first laser kit. I (and my family have been thoroughly impressed with the detail. The instructions are clear and concise. Any mistake on the kit has only been because of my lack of dexterity and/or experience. I am sad I am so close to finishing it because its been so fun. I will say the stairs were the hardest part to assemble. I also had a hard time with the shingles, but I was given some good advice on this board about drawing lines on the roof to make lining them up easier. Also there were quite a few extras in the kit so I think I might make a dock for drive through paddle service. Thanks for producing such a high quality kit that has got me hooked.

Zac White

Reviving an old topic…

When InterMountain announced they were entering the Z-scale market… I was just as excited as anyone else. We all waited what seemed like forever for those first examples to finally be released. A few months ago, I received my order of four of the first run cylindrical hoppers from InterMountain. I was ecstatic… until further and closer inspection. Here are some photos of what I was presented with…



Shiny CA glue seams



Poor CA gluing



Chipped paint



Cracked bolsters



Bent and cracked chute details



Incomplete bend and assembly

Obviously, I was extremely disappointed. The CA glue issues reminds me of poor quality product I’ve seen from another manufacture. I would not be surprised if the same Chinese company and/or factory is making their products, too.
I immediately sent these same photos to InterMountain with a detailed and polite e-mail (see my first posts of this thread). I received a quick reply telling me to send the hoppers directly to InterMountain. A few weeks later, I received complete replacements in almost perfect condition.

I write “almost perfect”, as their selection of trucks is an issue, with quality problems of themselves. Some of the wheel-sets do not stay seated in the trucks. This was also an issue with this other manufacture’s own rolling-stock releases. I have replaced all the trucks/couplers with Full Throttle Bowser Bucklers. This has the added benefit of bringing the coupled rolling-stock closer together. See the before and after photos…



Before, with supplied trucks/couplers



After, with Full Throttle Bowser Bucklers

What makes this a positive customer service experience is… I didn’t receive a single excuse from InterMountain. This was a product quality issue of no fault of the customer. The responded in the proper manner by offering replacements.

I wish InterMountain to continue to produce Z-scale products and I’m hoping they can drive their manufacture to improve the quality of their products.

Wow Alex, I'm surprised there were so many faults in your four cars. Seems like you ended up with the booby prize on that one. I'm glad IM did the right thing and without excuse. This makes me wonder how many other cars had obvious flaws that most have not caught by closer inspection......

From your pictures, it is obvious that Bowser Bucklers are a vast improvement in appearance between cars even though you can't couple and uncouple without using your hands.

Perhaps David Smith's new coupler will solve the spacing and hands free wishes.