???? What Happened To Carolina Custom Cues ????

[JB Cases]

Bear in mind my point about letting the customer stew was AFTER the thread was started on the internet.

I completely disagree with "go with it or go under", quite simply cue makers do not charge enough for custom orders. A good friend of mine makes cues, top end snooker cues.

He makes them, you buy them. That's it.

If you don't like it the way he has made it you can have it altered at a cost.

If you want a custom order, get your wallet out and be prepared to wait and DO NOT bother him in the meantime. His options are ignore you or employ someone to deal with the queries. There is only one option unless the people with the queries want to pay the wages.

This is the only business model that works.

Cues are cheap, $2,000 for something you might use for 30 years? Break the cost down versus use.

Players replace golf clubs annually.

The problem cue makers have is they have to deal with cue sport players who either have no money or an inflated sense of their worth or worse and inflated sense of what half an ounce in the but or quarter of a mill on the ferrule will do for their game.

The golf industry has it right, accept these guys fads, accept that they are idiots, accept they know nothing about the game, smile, offer them a "free fitting" service, and charge them through the nose.

Well, the pool cue industry has a glut of options with something like 700 makers in the USA alone. So they can't exactly follow your friend's business model in that climate. Only a few cuemakers in the USA have the prestige and following to be able to be that way with their customers. Most of the others are caught in the space where they have to take on any customer they get and take all the "conversation" that comes with it.

I have fired customers for being too pushy and they have fired me for being unavailable. Other customers have been patient, some far too patient, and I try to make it worth the wait.

Once a craftsman has achieved stature then people will wait and will be deferential. It's good for your friend if he has that status, most don't. And I should add that pool cues are much more complicated than snooker cues when it comes to construction and decoration options, thus having more to discuss.

I also don't feel that customers are idiots. Some of them clearly have less experience than others but at the end of the day they are wiling to part with their cash for something that they desire built by a craftsman or a small shop. They simply want what they want and can't really be faulted for their anticipation of getting a cue or case that was made just for them.

It's a balance for the maker to juggle the needs of the customer with the time spent on design and chit chat. Some handle it extremely well and others not so well. You might be unfamiliar with it but in the USA we have an alternate measure of time called cuemaker time. That's where a week=a month and a month equals a year, etc...

Shops and makers who can produce on a schedule promptly generally are able to do well in this business providing they deliver a quality product. Even if their product isn't great quality delivering on time goes a long way to gloss over the lack of quality.

Ernie Gutierrez, Gina Cues, agrees with you. He tries to get customers off the phone as quickly as possible, but if money is no object......"keep talking" Ernie says.

John - still trying to figure out a calendar.....

 

[JB Cases]

Also the world wide web ruining business is overrated in our industry. We simply don't have enough reach AND as see by this thread there is always sympathy for the side being accused of poor service.

I feel that this is a spot where a maker can stand up to defend themselves and make it right. That goes a long way towards using these platforms to show you care and increase your business. No one really cares too much that mistakes are made, only how they are handled.

Sometimes, and this is my opinion only, sometimes even if you aren't in the wrong it's better to come on a forum like this and apologize to the customer and lay out how you will make it right. Especially if you think that such a thread will negatively affect your business. If you could care less then of course don't sweat it because it will float on down the river and be forgotten soon.

Unless the customer manages to find ways to bring it up constantly.....

As the saying goes, a satisfied customer tells ten people and an unsatisfied one tells everyone.

Savvy web users know how to google bomb someone to insure that negative reviews pop up first in all search results on their target's name. Google Santorum to find out how that works. So maybe the use of the world wide web isn't so overrated after all......but a thread on AZ has little potential to ruin a business in the pool world IMO.

 

[dkleather]

I take all your points and I am aware of the differences in manufacture between snooker and pool cues. However, the bottom line is the customer places an order for a price. If they wish to change the order and that means more time and work, then the price has to go up.

Most cue maker gone bad stories can be traced back to being too nice, too available and spending too much time for too little money, getting behind, getting despondent etc etc. yes there are bad men too but most are not.

If you are selling a cue (hypothetically) for £1200 and I am selling an identical quality one for £1000 and you do the nice guy thing and I don't, there will be the people who say "well, what a guy JB is, second to none, what amazing service" etc etc. then when two guys compare our cues and one guy has paid £200 less, there will be those who say "Dk never answers the phone but what a great cue" etc etc.

That's fine, but, and this is a big "but" if we are charging the same £1000, you have to KNOW that your nice guy routine is getting you a significant enough volume to justify the time you are spending.

You run a business, you know how it is. If you let customers own you, it's all over.

I had a recent insight into this, I won a high end cue in a raffle. I felt a bit guilty as I have loads of cues so I decided to sell the cue, make a donation to the charity and squander the rest.

I decided to sell the cue cheaply so that the buyer got a great deal, the charity got the money and I got to squander, all fairly quickly.

Well, one guy sent me 28 emails IN ONE EVENING with question after question about a cue he was paying a fraction of the price on. I then realised what must happen to cue makers. This was one guy with one cue and I was already fed up. Imagine if you have a hundred orders on your books and even 10% of them are like that?

I can make cues, and good ones at that, but if I tried to do it commercially, I'd go nuts.

 

[JB Cases]

(good points snipped)

Well, one guy sent me 28 emails IN ONE EVENING with question after question about a cue he was paying a fraction of the price on. I then realised what must happen to cue makers. This was one guy with one cue and I was already fed up. Imagine if you have a hundred orders on your books and even 10% of them are like that?

I don't have to imagine it, we juggle about 30-40 such orders monthly. Trust me I understand what you mean.

In a previous life I walked away from my order book one day. Back then I didn't take deposits. I took orders and had a binder full of them.

At night I would dream of cases I wanted to make. In the morning I would get out the binder and look at cases I had to make.

So one day I said that's it. No more custom orders and we went to mass production and the Instroke lines were born. I simply canceled all the outstanding orders and stopped doing custom work.

Once in a while I would do limited runs of models with neat leather combinations, or sometimes do one with the customer's leather request. But by and large the vast majority of our production was line cases that we decided on.

It was a happy time.

Now, we have gone full spectrum the other way doing custom work and by custom I mean just about anything you can think of we will try to figure out how to do it with only a few exceptions. As expected this leads to a lot of back and forth on some orders. I am not sure but I think the record is 60+ emails to nail down the design of one case.

It's not an efficient way to be a maker for sure. But it's a satisfying one knowing that the customer got (most of) what they wanted. I am fortunate though to have a shop with staff who handle the order process. Even so they do get frustrated as do the customers from time to time. I do have a lot of respect for the one man/few men operations because I know they deal with the same conversation orders that we do and then when done have to turn around and build those cases.

Any maker that has a grip on their order time vs. build time has a big advantage imo.

But at the end of the day, regardless of what your situation is, communication goes a long way towards maintaining happy and patient customers. I am very guilty of not answering inquiries on time and I know it's frustrating for my customers. Geovani did nothing wrong here in my opinion. Trevor should have called or emailed and said he got the cue and that the parts were missing. Then Geo would have sent the parts and probably all would have been fine.

 

[dom_poppa]

Keep it simple and everyone will be fine.

Think like an automobile company.

 

[zrx replica]

ive had 2 of Trevors cues...Bought 2nd thru a member here, B4 he sent it to me he sent it to Carolina with my personal specs which was honored. Cue was refinished with new wrap. I bought it unseen and they trimmed it to my taper/changed weight to 18oz. from 19....put there Tiger Everest tip on. Cleaned it up on lathe....Was Beautiful when I got it and still is...Person I got it from knew the guys at Carolina but they went over and above even though it was used to make me smile...Class act if u ask me. Something unforseen must of happened here on both sides to put a bad taste somewhere...I think the guy I originally got it from was Tim Cole? All I'm sayin is if ya run someone under the bus you get squished? Carolina done me well....Just sayin'

 

[9 ball]

Zrx replica I second that, I have a plain jane birdseye maple break/jump cue made by Trevor & to me it is my pride & joy.

It's a shame to see any cue maker especially one with his caliber of work get out of the industry.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[paulcourville]

My Carolina Custon Cue

I've had my Carolina Custom Cue for a couple years now and I've NEVER been happier with a cue in my 45 years of playing Pocket Billiards. It's absolutely perfect in every way. I'd never shot with a Tiger emerald tip before getting it on my CC cue and after that experience I bought a box of 24 of them so I don't run out. I'd never shot with a cue that had an ivory joint till I got my CC cue and now I'm pretty sure I'll never shoot with a different joint material again. I've been looking forward to making another purchase from CC Cues but if they're no longer in business then this one will be my last and only shoot cue from now on...

My cue is a Szamboti design with a few added items. The cue has a 3/8x10 Ivory joint. All white inlays, joint, & ferrules are Ivory. Birdseye maple front & ebony backend.The cue has great long, colorful points/veneers with big double crosses inlaid. Irish linen wrap, white w/green speck. The cue has a block letter CAROLINA logo & SIMPLE MAN engraved in the butt sleeve.

Butt: 29 in. 15.9oz
Shaft 1: 29 in. 12.9 3.7oz.
Shaft 2: 29 in 13.1 4.4 oz.

 

[paulcourville]

I wasn't done adding pictures yet...lol

more pictures of my cue

 

[Bavafongoul]

Paul Really Got It Right About Cue Joints

Not that it matters but I wholeheartedly underscore Paul Courville's opinion about ivory cue joints, As you can tell, a flat faced ivory/big pin cue joint is my absolute favorite. Lots of pool players will tell you there's no difference playing with a ivory joint versus all the other type cue joints. Well, I strongly I disagree otherwise my collection would look entirely different. However, cues don't make us better players but how we feel about the cues we own and play with certainly does become a factor. Nonetheless, keep in mind that pool will always remain a game played as much between one's ears as it is played on the cloth.

Matt B.

 

[zrx replica]

Paul, never hit w/one of thier Ivory jointed cues but have had 2-both thier stainless. Got my current one on here 4 sale due to hard timez...Great cues but gotta live ya know. here's a pic of it. posted long time ago but mostly trade offers but need 600.00 to keep above water...