Date:         Thu, 26 Jan 2006 01:10:01 -0800
Reply-To:     Robert Keezer <warmerwagen@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Keezer <warmerwagen@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: why does everyone treat the list vendors as "BAD GUYS"???
In-Reply-To:  <004701c6224f$ac24ee20$0a0ba8c0@RON>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

My long delayed comments:

I have been told by someone I know who lost his
business that "everyone (in business) has a bad
reputation". He might still be in business if he
did'nt think that. He had terrible employees. He
made excuses for them.

I don't believe everyone in business is
incompetent. There's always a customer who
perceives bad service as they may have had better
elswhere. Bad service can happen too. It just
does, like bad weather.
But this is'nt proof in itself of negligence of a
vendor  to this overly scrutinizing list.

No, if the vendors on this list are true to this
statement that "all businesses have a bad
reputation", then I don't think they would be
members of this list which is critical of vendors
or persons with bad reputations ( like Pharts
Playce). It's hard to be a jerk and sell on this
list in other  words and get away with it.


SO every once in a while someone has a problem
with service .
That's Shocking!
Welcome to the imperfect world.

One thing that is wise to consider is that if you
need a part fast, buy locally and pay the price.

Yet mail order is faster than ever. When I lived
in Alaska in the 60's and seventies, you could
expect it in about 4 months.

Shipping sure was cheap though- I shipped my
drumset to Seattle from Alaska for $50.00.


Robert

1982 Westfalia



--- The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM> wrote:

> > i know ron, ken, jeff, and some orther
> vendors will read this
> > and agree.. they might be afraid to say it
> but im not.
>
>
> Thank you for the words of support, Chris (and
> others).
>
> I have been on this list for roughly a decade,
> since shortly after its
> inception.  If anyone thinks that "busdepot
> gets negative vibes more often
> then anyone else" as someone said today  please
> go back and search Bus Depot
> in the archives for the last decade.  I will
> proudly stand behind my
> reputation here and elsewhere.  Despite the
> fact that experts say that a
> dissatisfied customer is 10 times more likely
> to comment publicly than a
> satisfied one is, positive comments about the
> Depot in the archives far
> outweigh negative ones.
>
> You all know my personal email address.  As I
> have said before, please by
> all means email me if you have any problem with
> or question about a Bus
> Depot order. If there is a problem, as many
> here will attest I will bend
> over backwards to make things right.
> Unfortunately, a small percentage of
> people insist on dragging things onto the list
> as a substitute for simply
> calling or emailing to find out where their
> order is, reporting a shortage,
> or whatever.  I don't understand why this is.
> It is unneccessary and unfair.
> Sometimes I have to wonder how these same
> people would feel if the list
> vendors treated them that way. For example, if
> your credit card declined on
> an order, should I call you directly, or should
> I just post "Joe Shmoe has
> bad credit" here on the list instead, and then
> sit back and wait for you to
> see it and call me?  While that might be an
> effective way to get your
> attention, it would sure be incredibly rude,
> not to mention a waste of
> everybody else's time.
>
> What frustrates me in this thread is the
> absurdity of some of the
> complaints. I have no problem with taking my
> lumps when they're deserved.
> And sometimes they are; we're all human, and
> I've screwed up a few orders as
> good as anybody over the last ten years.  But
> jeez, give me a break here!
> One person gave me a whopping 8 minutes (!!!)
> to reply to an email about his
> order status (that he sent while we were
> closed), before posting here that
> his email had gone unanswered!   Another
> recently complained about delivery
> speed, when his order had shipped the very day
> he placed it. I guess he had
> expected us to ship it the day BEFORE he
> ordered it, perhaps?  In a third
> case, my store manager spent nearly an hour
> trying to help a list member
> identify the part numbers of several small
> parts he needed from the Bentley
> manual and get them from VW for him. This is
> hard to do by phone, and
> despite both parties best efforts, two small
> parts were overlooked. I can
> appreciate the list member's frustration, and
> can even accept some
> responsibility for the employees' failure to
> fully understand every part he
> needed. (Incidentally, the local VW dealership
> missed the same parts, so at
> least he was in good company.:-) But this did
> not call for the list member's
> response, which was to verbally abuse several
> employees (repeatedly calling
> them "stupid"), and then post a "warning" about
> the Bus Depot here on the
> list. Is that fair?
>
> It's easy for people to be "armchair
> quarterbacks" when they have absolutely
> no clue what is involved in making a living
> supplying parts for a vehicle
> that Volkswagen themselves, not to mention
> pretty much every major
> aftermarket parts manufacturer, has pretty much
> forgotten about. Nobody ever
> got rich selling Vanagon parts.  You have to
> run very lean in order to
> survive, and you have to love doing it because
> there are certainly easier
> ways to make a buck.  If I aggregate the
> various comments in this thread and
> its predecessor, to satisfy everyone's combined
> expectations, I will have to
> provide an Amazon-like website with real-time
> live inventory; hire so many
> employees that they can literally stand around
> waiting for orders to come in
> so that every order leaves the building within
> hours, quadruple my warehouse
> space so I can keep all 15,000 Vanagon parts on
> hand at all times; hire
> trained Volkswagen mechanics to answer the
> phones (which of course should
> all be toll-free); and answer email within
> hours if not minutes. I'd love to
> do all these things and then some, believe me.
> But this will cost a few
> million bucks.  Who will pay for it?  Do you
> know how expensive your Vanagon
> parts would be if I passed that cost on to you?
>  And if I didn't, I'd be out
> of business; there simply isn't that kind of
> markup in Vanagon parts.
>
> No list vendor will ever have the resources of
> a superstore. The realities
> of trying to keep quality high, prices low, and
> still make a profit on parts
> for a relatively obscure vehicle place strict
> limitations on staff size,
> back-end expenditures, etc.. The ones who don't
> recognize this don't
> survive. (Take a look at a ten year old copy of
> Hot VW magazine. How many of
> the advertisers are still in business today?)
> So yes, sometimes your ground
> order may take an extra day, because we're a
> small shop and may get
> overwhelmed during a particularly busy week.
> Sometimes an item may be
> backordered, because despite our best efforts
> (which may involve calling
> dozens of sources before resorting to
> backordering your part) we simply
> couldn't avoid it. Sometimes you may have to
> call us on your dime, or wait a
> day for an email reply.  Sometimes we will even
> make stupid mistakes because
> we're human, but we will always do our best to
> fix them if you let us know.
> We are completely upfront about our delivery
> times, stockout policies, etc.,
> explaining them in detail on our website. And
> of course we try very hard to
> avoid any of these inconveniences, because we
> find them as frustrating as
> you do.  We want every transaction to be as
> smooth as ordering a toaster
> from Amazon.  But Vanagon parts are not
> toasters, and sometimes even with
> our best efforts there can be circumstances
> that nobody can control.
> Unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast.
>
>
> Sorry for the rant.
>
> - Ron Salmon
>   The Bus Depot, Inc.
>   www.busdepot.com
>   (215)  234-VWVW
>
> _____________________________________________
> Toll-Free for Orders by PART # :
> 1-866-BUS-DEPOT
>


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