My experience with several PS vendors- am I the only one?

[Almost There]

I''m not going to name the guilty parties, but now that the ring that Whiteflash is making for me is done, I wanted to post a general heads up to some of the other vendors here on PS so that they might treat other potential clients better in the future.



I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for both in the stones and the ring itself but I had some specific questions that really needed to be gone over in a quick conversation before selecting a vendor to get into more detail with.



I started out by calling one vendor who has gotten excellent reviews and told the person answering the phone what I was looking for and some of the questions I had. Those of you who have followed my thread on "Show Me the Ring" know that I''m putting together a pretty nice ring. Not that someone spending more money should be treated better, but I would definitely have thought I''d at least get their attention.



That''s where I''d be wrong. They put me on hold and then in the background I heard the main contact person there tell them to tell me to send an email. This was after I told them I had specific questions that I wanted to discuss on the phone.

I sent the email though their web site and never heard back from them.



That led me to Vendor 2. I emailed them, and never heard back. Period. I made a short but detailed and serious inquiry and it simply vanished into the internet etherworld.



I then tried Vendor 3. I called them and got ahold of someone right away. They seemed knowledgable and reasonable and I thought I''d found my vendor. Later that day I was checking out their website and it said something about how they only accepted wire transfers. I was planning to pay by credit card so I emailed them asking if they had any way to take AMEX. You guessed it, I never heard back.



By the way, my email seemed to work fine with everyone else I sent it to that week.



That led me to do another search here for more vendors and a Whiteflash thread came up. I called them, got a live person, and have had a good experience ever since. They''ve answered my calls, returned my emails promptly and generally walked me through every step of the transaction.



I''m writing this because those of you vendors who never replied to me should know that not only did you lose a nice sale this time, you lost a client for life.



Having detailed info on your site about the stones you sell is great, but if you can''t answer a customer''s basic questions in a timely manner (or at all) it seems to me there is a real problem.



As a business owner myself, I''d want to know if I''d lost a customer. If you are reading this, you may not remember me, but I''d guess you would at least have a general idea of what I am talking about.



I''m curious...am I the only one to have had this experience?

 

[aljdewey]

Gee, I have to say I'm really surprised. I began shopping for my ring the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I finally came to a decision ten days later.




Recognizing that this is the absolute BUSIEST time of year for them, I picked up the phone and spoke to every one of them. They were all generous with their time, responsive regarding my inquiries, and a pleasure to deal with.




It may be that your experience was disappointing because your contact comes at a ridiculous time of year for them.




I do wish, though, that you had mentioned who your vendors were. I realize you may have been trying to be kind, but vague statements like this cast aspersions on all the vendors......even those who you may not have contacted. These vendors can all take constructive criticism, and it's much more fair than painting the vendors with such a broad brush.




EDITED TO ADD: As a frame of reference, I was only looking to spend about $3800, and I got exceptional service from all.

 

[strmrdr]

I agree with aljdewey I would like to know which ones dropped the ball.
In particular Id like to know who the first one was that had a customer on the phone and said send an email.
That was rude.
If they were busy at the moment they should have taken a number and called back when they had a few minutes to help you out.

 

[valeria101]

Nice to hear from you!
I wish I knew what is this "customer filtering" all about. Intuitively, communication with an online business should be a sparkling experience, right? And so often it ain't.

I am not sure wether this is an attitude, ability or policy issue, but I did go through the same at B&M stores shopping for a sapphire. What's wrong asking for a poor 3-4ct, medium-dark blue, eye clean, unheated, oval medium-high dome, blue sapphire cab? Looking down to it as I type, it looks like a regular pebble to me now... Too bad that there is no better tradition of customer rerlations in this industry (talking about average customer experience here), yet.

 

[Kamuelamom]

I am such a service driven person and am so sorry for your experiences. Looks like you & Whiteflash came out the winner in the end!

Congratulations again. I can barely contain myself waiting to see the final outcome of your ring.

Service rules!

 

[Mara]

I also concur that you should note the specific experiences you had with the other vendors. Here on Pscope, we take the good and the bad...the other vendors may not know who you are or what they did wrong...constructive criticism may help them treat the next customer better.




I have heard of emails getting lost or some non-responses happening across the board, no one in particular.




Congrats to WhiteFlash and again KUDOS on your amazing ring!

 

[Almost There]

Thanks for the replies. Being new here I didn't want to slam anyone specifically because these may have been isolated incidents. But since the consensus seems to be to disclose the vendors, here goes:



The phone call where they requested an email was made to Good Old Gold. A woman answered the phone and when she couldn't answer my questions she asked Jonathan (or at least that's who I assumed she talked to)...I heard him say "tell him to send an email" and then she got back on the phone and relayed the message herself.



There are two possible sites that could have been the one I sent the email inquiry to through their web site. I thought I remembered which one it was but when I went back to double check before posting this I was not positive, so I don't want to name either of them.



The third vendor was Ice Store. While I've seen them mentioned, I don't know if they are an official PS vendor. As I said, I had a good conversation with Ari and then nothing after my email.




None of my comments were meant to dissuade customers from using a particular vendor. They were really more in the spirit of a wake up call to vendors to treat every customer like a "big" customer because you never know who may turn out to be a client for life.



BTW, my emails and phone calls were made over a month ago, long before the holiday rush got into full swing.

 

[strmrdr]

Interesting.
They should have offered to have him call you back.
Email is not always a substitute for talking to a person when making a big decision.
While email can be good for passing out information it is not very good for learning about the person behind the information.

 

[Heyjud]

The Internet is king and e-mail rules
But one thing will always be true
Human contact and a friendly voice
Is what we respond best to![/b]