Why is so uncomfortable being a customer?!?!?!?!

tksix

tksix

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am having a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to get answers out of our "one man" shop, industry manufacturers. I don't expect a receptionist, I don't expect a Christmas card. or coffee mug. But common courtesy would be nice.

Look, I get it.............one guy doing all the work, an artisan!! I am good with that, and honestly I prefer it. What I have a problem with is the lack of communication, the lack of doing what they say they are going to do, or when they are going to do it. The lack of understanding their own time lines or lack of timelines.

Is that what made Balabushka great, or Szamboti great?! Or was it their commitment to the customer?!

I feel like a pest sending an email to ask about seeing the design, or a pest when I ask 3 weeks later after a phone conversation and a promise that I will see it Monday!

I am not a novice at buying custom in our industry, I guess I have been spoiled by the people I have purchased from in the past. One guy in particular tells you 5-6 years and he calls you in 5-6 years!!

And that is my point....................on the initial down payment, or the initial put my name on the list, they need to tell you........."Oh by the way, I will get started in 20 years!" O.K. then, as a customer you can decide if you want to wait that long or not.

This open ended, non communicative, leave you hangin by the computer waiting and hoping for an email like some chick after her first date............... who needs it!! I feel like a Billiard Industry Baby Sitter!

Sorry for the vent!!

Mike
 
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tksix said:
I am having a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to get answers out of our "one man" shop, industry manufacturers. I don't expect a receptionist, I don't expect a Christmas card. or coffee mug. But common courtesy would be nice.

Look, I get it.............one guy doing all the work, an artisan!! I am good with that, and honestly I prefer it. What I have a problem with is the lack of communication, the lack of doing what they say they are going to do, or when they are going to do it. The lack of understanding their own time lines or lack of timelines.

Is that what made Balabushka great, or Szamboti great?! Or was it their commitment to the customer?!

I feel like a pest sending an email to ask about seeing the design, or a pest when I ask 3 weeks later after a phone conversation and a promise that I will see it Monday!

I am not a novice at buying custom in our industry, I guess I have been spoiled by the people I have purchased from in the past. One guy in particular tells you 5-6 years and he calls you in 5-6 years!!

And that is my point....................on the initial down payment, or the initial put my name on the list, they need to tell you........."Oh by the way, I will get started in 20 years!" O.K. then, as a customer you can decide if you want to wait that long or not.

This open ended, non communicative, leave you hangin by the computer waiting and hoping for an email like some chick after her first date............... who needs it!! I feel like a Billiard Industry Baby Sitter!

Sorry for the vent!!

Mike
Click to expand...



I've never had a custom cue , just 2 productions in my life . I'd say it is the nature of the business and you are at the mercy of it . All you have is other peoples experiences with a particular cuemaker to go on , and their history. The only solution for you would be a contract with the features of the cue and work to be done listed.


I doubt many cuemakers are going to work that way.
 
great post been there before...the only worse then getting very little resonse is when you pressure a cuemaker to get it out the door..very often what is sent doesnt meet your or cuemakers standards...hope things get resolved....venting is great.....mickey
 
This is not limited to billiards. People who try to turn their passion or hobby into a money making business and have no management/business experience or education will have problems.
 
Some of the best builders wont contact you for years... Its something I had a hard time getting used to but now I just submit my order and dont expect to hear anything from them until its completed. If I get updates thats awesome but if not its no big deal.
 
I think this sort of behavior is prevalent because the customer base, in the case of the pool business, continues to do business with these problematic merchants/builders, despite the bad customer service. There is no compelling penalty to the builder for having bad customer service, so they have no reason to change it.

Picking on cues in my examples below, because it’s something we can all relate to…

It amazes me how many threads I've read here on AZ where a customer describes severe problems with the customer service they have received on their custom cue. What amazes me is that no matter how bad the issue is, if the builder has an established name and is good at what he does, his fans will bend over backwards to make excuses, apologize, or deflect on his behalf for all his bad business practices; sometimes these fans go so far as to blame the customer for their woes… It’s madness.

Even when the builder is proven to have made a mistake of be dishonest, and in a few cases the merchant has thumbed their nose at the buyer and sometimes community... Those fans still fend for their hero. But what they fail to realize is that producing a great product is worthless if you don’t receive the same product you paid for, if you don’t know if you are going to receive it in two months or two years… Or maybe not at all.

We see all sorts of excuses from the fans, but here are some of my favorites...

"It's just a misunderstanding so give him a chance to respond to you." And that's even though you've clearly stated that you sent 10 emails and 5 phone calls over a month with no response.

"Well, I never had a problem with the builder." As if that means it's impossible for any other buyers to have an issue.

"If you actually expected the cue to be to the promised specs, then you should have had it made by somebody else. You should be grateful that you that you have any cue he made, doesn’t matter that it’s not what he agreed to build for you." For anybody who thinks this is okay... I have a Corvette ZR1 for sale... Sure, it looks like an old run-down Audi... But I assure you, it's absolutely the Corvette ZR1 you want, so just send me a cashier’s check for that $100k.

"Well, if you can't handle the builder being two years late with your cue, then you shouldn't have ordered a custom cue... What's your hurry anyway". Yeah sure, I mean what the heck, it's not like I actually want to have that pool cue that I paid for delivered on time so I can use it. So I can enjoy it.

Then there's that oldie but goodie...

"Well, if you nagged me a bit more and called me asshole, then maybe i would have actually been motivated me more to work on your cue that I've been dodging you on for two years... By the way, did I mention that I don't care about customers or the business, and that I just do this when I feel like it.

But you didn't pay anything, so all you really lost is the two years you waited, holding on to your money that you had to keep reserved to pay for my cue... Money you could have used to buy somebody elses cue that you actually would have received on time. But hey, no harm, no foul." Dang, I don't even know how to get my head around that one.

And etc... Those are just the best of, paraphrased to protect the guilty.

It's funny because very few small businesses function with these sorts of problems. In the restaurant business, bad service, misrepresentation, and fraud cause a restaurant to be short lived. If a person orders a pizza and gets a grilled cheese sandwich instead, what are the odds of anybody putting up with that? When a person orders their food, and four hours later the place is closing up and they still didn't get their food yet… Well, I’m pretty sure they would have walked out at the 30 minute mark.

But heck, here in the pool world, people will put up with a lot of crap to get some product they perceive as a “must have”... And they are falling all over themselves to get it no matter how much misery it leads to. So until people go out of their way to penalize bad businesses, it will continue.

I’ve been doing a bit of my own research on cue builders in the last year, and there really seem to be a lot of great ones who are honest and good solid business men. These are the people who should receive our hard earned cash. When we focus our support on the good ones, the bad ones go the wayside.

By the way, for the record, of course any business can have bad feedback against them... That happens to every business, no matter how good it is. All my comments above are in regard to the gross violators... And there are a lot of them.

Sorry, this was long… I’m kind of tired and not paying attention… I just started typing and a lot came out.

Cheers
 
Its a coin toss!!

Jerry Olivea, Andy Gilbert Great customer service and great cues and I know there are many others that are good guys too...., but I have had more luck buying new or used cues from brokers because the cue is right there.

Customer service across the board in this country is at an all time low, its sad, but true.
 
ronscuba said:
This is not limited to billiards. People who try to turn their passion or hobby into a money making business and have no management/business experience or education will have problems.
Click to expand...
Sometimes true.
Also, we are talking about a product that likely has a ton of intangible input, so the production of the item is not on a logical schedule for anyone other than the maker/ artiste!
 
The maker in question is building a case for me. I understand the "final" completion date is hard to nail down. But returning a call, or an email shouldn't take weeks.

A simple ball park time would keep most buyers satisfied.

Mike
 
Hey Mike, This forum is loaded with stories of this nature and somehow it continues. Does the case maker have a deposit??
Dan
 
While I have never bought a custom pool cue, I do have experience of buying custom optical stuff. Optical stuff that asctually is One-of-a-kind. Take a completed blueprint and optical prescription of the item to be manufactured, take/send it to a manufacture who does this KIND of work all the time, pay 100% up front, wait 6 months for them to work it into their schedule, another month to manufacture the time, another month to perform the coatings work, and sometime about ayear later, the item arrives.

Were I to have spend 1 hour a week trying to get it done faster would have actually slowed the process down.

I was informed of the lead times, costs, and basic dates up front, and after being so informed, gave them the money and the "go ahead". Overall, I am happy because for that particular item there were about 4 major places in the world that could manufacture it. Getting a nobody like me through the gantlet was probably harder that all the other miscellaneous setps in the process.
 
Hey Dan,

Yes he has had a deposit since February of this year. We spoke 4-5 weeks ago about the design, saw some rough ideas the following day. I emailed back a few questions, and also asked for a lay out of the tooling. Never heard from him again.

I was told it would be 2 weeks after we spoke. The timing is not the issue at all. He could have said 2 months. Just reply to my questions, so I know you are building what I think you are.

It is extremely frustrating.

Mike
 
I completely agree with you Mike. I just asked to see what pressure you could apply to the maker. If it follows the natural course then the case maker will say you are an a--hole for pressuring him to reply. He probably thinks it's OK to not reply after all he is an artist and who would dare expect an artist to be bound to normal business practices.
Dan
 
While I agree there should be some communication its my opinion that folks that prefer to build custom products do so because they love the challenge and also love the solitude of being alone in their shop. I'm sure there's much satisfaction producing a product that the customer loves but many require that they love it too. Working and taming materials from mother nature presents inconsistancies which is part of the challenge but also part of the delivery problem.

You may just be working with a guy that won't let something go till he's satisfied and is simply not a good communicator.

Some take this attitude with $$ and interchangeable with calls/delivery
Here's my labor rate. $1.00/hr
Here's my labor rate if you watch. $10.00/hr
Here's my labor rate if you help. $100.00/hr
 
tksix said:
I am having a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to get answers out of our "one man" shop, industry manufacturers. I don't expect a receptionist, I don't expect a Christmas card. or coffee mug. But common courtesy would be nice.

Look, I get it.............one guy doing all the work, an artisan!! I am good with that, and honestly I prefer it. What I have a problem with is the lack of communication, the lack of doing what they say they are going to do, or when they are going to do it. The lack of understanding their own time lines or lack of timelines.

Is that what made Balabushka great, or Szamboti great?! Or was it their commitment to the customer?!

I feel like a pest sending an email to ask about seeing the design, or a pest when I ask 3 weeks later after a phone conversation and a promise that I will see it Monday!

I am not a novice at buying custom in our industry, I guess I have been spoiled by the people I have purchased from in the past. One guy in particular tells you 5-6 years and he calls you in 5-6 years!!

And that is my point....................on the initial down payment, or the initial put my name on the list, they need to tell you........."Oh by the way, I will get started in 20 years!" O.K. then, as a customer you can decide if you want to wait that long or not.

This open ended, non communicative, leave you hangin by the computer waiting and hoping for an email like some chick after her first date............... who needs it!! I feel like a Billiard Industry Baby Sitter!

Sorry for the vent!!

Mike
Click to expand...

I don't think you're being a pest. Depending on the amount of the down payment I may just write it off and have someone else build it for you. Then when the thing is done if ever you can give him a taste of his own medicine by totally ignoring him. Don't take his calls or answer his E-mails. But of course you're not like that are you? You couldn't sleep at night if you behaved like that. But he can, so fvck him. Life is way too short to deal with flakes and invest your emotions. Money is way easier to replace. The trouble is people like this will never "get it". I feel your pain.

JC
 
tksix said:
I am having a hard time understanding why it is so difficult to get answers out of our "one man" shop, industry manufacturers. I don't expect a receptionist, I don't expect a Christmas card. or coffee mug. But common courtesy would be nice.

Look, I get it.............one guy doing all the work, an artisan!! I am good with that, and honestly I prefer it. What I have a problem with is the lack of communication, the lack of doing what they say they are going to do, or when they are going to do it. The lack of understanding their own time lines or lack of timelines.

Is that what made Balabushka great, or Szamboti great?! Or was it their commitment to the customer?!

I feel like a pest sending an email to ask about seeing the design, or a pest when I ask 3 weeks later after a phone conversation and a promise that I will see it Monday!

I am not a novice at buying custom in our industry, I guess I have been spoiled by the people I have purchased from in the past. One guy in particular tells you 5-6 years and he calls you in 5-6 years!!

And that is my point....................on the initial down payment, or the initial put my name on the list, they need to tell you........."Oh by the way, I will get started in 20 years!" O.K. then, as a customer you can decide if you want to wait that long or not.

This open ended, non communicative, leave you hangin by the computer waiting and hoping for an email like some chick after her first date............... who needs it!! I feel like a Billiard Industry Baby Sitter!

Sorry for the vent!!

Mike
Click to expand...

This is exactly where the value of the middle man comes in. Purchase a custom (or anything for that matter) from my shop and you will get pleasant and timely communication throughout the entire process.

Also, I will apply my own quality standards (I can be a pain in a cuemaker's ass, as I see everything) to each and every product; finding and solving any problems before you ever get the product. Fewer post purchase issues. And if there ever happens to be an issue...prompt resolution to your satisfaction.
 
If you are not willing to wait, don't order custom. Buy from the secondary market or off the shelf production. No respectable cuemaker is going to rush his work and send out something sub standard.
 
Bigjohn said:
If you are not willing to wait, don't order custom. Buy from the secondary market or off the shelf production. No respectable cuemaker is going to rush his work and send out something sub standard.
Click to expand...

He's not complaining about the wait for the case. As I read he's fine with that. He's complaining about the communication he's receiving from the "artist". A two line E-mail response is not a lot to ask for, especially when you've been told something specific will occur in a specific time frame and it hasn't. So far it doesn't sound like he has been confirmed of anything other than that his deposit has been spent. This is a lousy way to do business, I don't care who you are. Nothing custom is worth dealing with a person who can't/won't communicate with you in a rudimentary fashion.

JC
 
Not sure who the case maker is, but I have never had a problem getting a hold of most any of them. If it is a JB case....be aware that John is quite frank about his email answering lapses...which is why he does ask folks to contact his wife, Karen. karen@jbideas.com and you will get a response.

As for having communication issues from cue makers.....my rule is simple: if I contact a maker, and do not get a response from my initial email, then I typically move on. To me, it screams....'I don't need/want your business enough to do you the courtesy of responding to you.' Fine by me.

Look, often times you just gotta listen to your gut. If it feels 'off', it probably is. One needs to have complete confidence in the person you're dealing with, otherwise, get out....quick!

I have never had an issue with cue maker communication...or even delivery times. But then again, I have always made sure everything was clear on both sides as to what was expected, right outta the gate, in writing. The only 'surprises' I have ever encountered when ordering a custom cue was a little extra work...which made the cues even nicer.

Lisa
 
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