[Elecraft] RE: "We are not talking about a small amount of money here"

[Phil Wright]

Excuse me? You buy a product from a company, pay 50% up front to help the
company out, and you get no acknowledgement from the company that a) your
order has been received or b) a receipt for your advanced payment.  And you
excuse this on account they are busy?

I'm sorry, but I find that unacceptable.  American companies pride
themselves on their great service - this isn't even common courtesy let
alone good customer service.

How long does it take to send a non-automated email?  Someone at Elecraft is
keeping a track of all the orders (otherwise the'd have no idea of demand)
and an email takes maybe 30 seconds extra per order. Even if they have
10,000 orders (which I doubt very much), that is 83 hours of work, spread
over the last 2 months equates to about a quarter of a person.  Of course,
automate the process and you don't even need a quarter of a person.

And of course, telling a customer that you have his order and his money
saves you having to answer the phone when the same customer calls in to
complain - except that doesn't take 30 seconds!

Or is it that we Brits now have a better sense of what makes for good
service than our American friends?

Phil, G8JQH

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Don Wilhelm
Sent: 08 July 2007 14:02
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: "We are not talking about a small amount of money here" (was
[Elecraft] Cut off date for K3 options?)

Dave and all,

I can add emphasis to what Gary has said, and I experience it in only a 
small way - responding to emails requesting status of kits I have here 
for repair/upgrade/build etc., does take considerable time and energy - 
multiply that by a very large factor (your guess for the number of K3 
orders) and you have a lot of time just to respond to order 
status/confirmation requests.

While all of us who have ordered K3s have the same questions, I do not 
have either written or email confirmation of my order.  I do know that 
everyone at Elecraft is very busy communicating with the beta testers, 
getting all the production stuff in order, along with their normal 
activities, and they are putting in a lot of overtime hours to get it done.

Have patience, try not to bother them any more than necessary, and in a 
couple weeks the flood will be cleared and things will restore to 
something more normal.

73,
Don W3FPR

Gary Hvizdak wrote:
> Recently Dave (G4AON) wrote 
> 
> "... having paid a 50% deposit it wouldn't be expecting too much to have a
> receipt for the payment, showing what is on order and the balance to be
> paid.  We are not talking about a small amount of money here."
> 
> --
> 
> Hi Dave,
> 
>     Having produced some inexpensive accessories for the K2 that are
easily
> 10,000 times simpler than the K3, I might still be able to relate to what
> Elecraft has been going through.  FYI, from before Ken (WB2ART) and I
began
> accepting payments for our original K2 Option Bypass Header kit in 2005,
> until all orders were shipped, we spent more time replying to customer
> emails than we did working to get our humble product out the door!
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