Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 3:58:01 GMT
Its not like Keith Larman is personally doing QC at these prices. Even Keith has been known to miss things from time to time in that much higher price range. Long story short, $300 is not a lot of money...OC was right, you get what you pay for.
|
|
|
Post by septofclansinclair on May 19, 2010 4:29:38 GMT
I think it's a shame that so many people are criticizing the original poster for asking so many questions. Weren't we all there once? I bet if I sent an email to Jason at Arms of Valour he'd remember one of our early exchanges with my second or third sword purchase... if I asked less than 20 questions I'll be seriously surprised. And Jason took it all in stride, was patient and stuck it out with me - which is why I recommend him so much, more than pretty much any vendor besides Paul here at SBG.
Dealing with customers is a part of the game, and sometimes you'll have a customer that asks "too many questions" or "gets on your nerves." Best be prepared to deal with it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 6:01:01 GMT
I agree, Mr. Sinclair. Like I said earlier when I bought my munetoshis I sent around 24 emails, probably around 10 when I bought my ninja-to.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 6:24:48 GMT
Being in the sword business, I have a personal take on this, and it is much different from a consumer standpoint.
Generally, one can tell when a client is going to be trouble. Excessive questioning is one of them. Recently I dealt with a very nice fellow. We exchanged (counting) 63 emails total in a three month span about a custom blade. 63.
The deal kept changing, either he wanted the blade, changed his mind, wanted it again but asked for it $300 cheaper, decided he couldn't afford it, then wanted it, got my cell phone number, called a bunch of times, texted, emailed some more.... then eventually decided not to get it.
In my business I need to have a constant contact with a client, but honestly, after email 10, I didn't have a good feeling. Why did I keep it up for another 53 emails? because a check was "right around the corner".
To make a days wages, I need to work long hours. Marc does too. So often times it is much better to focus on pople than to endlessly answer the same questions over and over again. Extreme doubt on a product is a good sign the buyer may NEVER be happy with the product.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 6:34:07 GMT
i see what you guys are saying... as i pointed out myself research a product before you buy. all i see here is really a buyer probably inexperienced in such a purchase or product, that was nervous about quality. hind sight would show that in research of a product, it is better to get all those questions in before the purchase. in this case tho, there were conflicting opinions from all here. there was probably a communication gap in simply understanding as well as stating that this was merely a question on how to personally qa your own product once it arrives.
with the given, outstanding rep that marc has, i am sure that he would consider communicating with this customer on the possibility of future business. now that the misunderstanding is resolved.
also a suggestion to marc, is it possible to add a link in your site, or such, concerning sword anatomy, and how to disassemble a sword, and maybe even maint. and inspection. some sites have certain parts of these. it would be very helpful to facilitate customer service/satisfaction. havent ever done a website myself, so i dont know if it costs a lot tho, but some times prevention is cheaper than problem solving... just a thought bro.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 6:49:08 GMT
Thats a good point I think alot of websites need Sirtre. I know when I was looking to purchase one of those cleaning kits with the little brass hammer and uchiko, I wasn't 100% sure of the use, but SnA has an excellent video of Kevin doing a tutorial on how to use the cleaning kit. ( www.swordnarmory.com/Samurai-Katana-Sword-Maintenance-Cleaning-Kit-p/lh-a06.htm ) Very helpful when you are a newbie and just starting out, and have no idea what to do.
|
|
|
Post by wiwingti on May 19, 2010 9:07:46 GMT
I think it's a shame that so many people are criticizing the original poster for asking so many questions. Weren't we all there once? I bet if I sent an email to Jason at Arms of Valour he'd remember one of our early exchanges with my second or third sword purchase... if I asked less than 20 questions I'll be seriously surprised. And Jason took it all in stride, was patient and stuck it out with me - which is why I recommend him so much, more than pretty much any vendor besides Paul here at SBG. Dealing with customers is a part of the game, and sometimes you'll have a customer that asks "too many questions" or "gets on your nerves." Best be prepared to deal with it. just to let you know that sometimes i can answer up to 25- 30 emails witjoput saying anything man, it is just the situation that made me thik that this customer would never be happy and decided not to give him service. so please don't start to try to make me look like a bad guy just to give more credit to other dealers. a lot of people could tell you that they send me lot of emails without buying and i answer with no problem all the time.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 10:13:57 GMT
Agreed with ajustice. Even with my moderately small transactions on-line you get to know when something isn't right with a buyer or when buying.
On sending many emails. It really depends on the tone and the type of emails. Marc used his better judgement to make a call on this one transaction.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 10:56:45 GMT
I think it's a shame that so many people are criticizing the original poster for asking so many questions. Weren't we all there once? I bet if I sent an email to Jason at Arms of Valour he'd remember one of our early exchanges with my second or third sword purchase... if I asked less than 20 questions I'll be seriously surprised. And Jason took it all in stride, was patient and stuck it out with me - which is why I recommend him so much, more than pretty much any vendor besides Paul here at SBG. Dealing with customers is a part of the game, and sometimes you'll have a customer that asks "too many questions" or "gets on your nerves." Best be prepared to deal with it. just to let you know that sometimes i can answer up to 25- 30 emails witjoput saying anything man, it is just the situation that made me thik that this customer would never be happy and decided not to give him service. so please don't start to try to make me look like a bad guy just to give more credit to other dealers. a lot of people could tell you that they send me lot of emails without buying and i answer with no problem all the time. To be honest Marc, you continuing to try and justify your actions way past when you said you were done is doing more damage in my opinion than someone voicing how another dealer put up with 20 + questions. You say you can put up with a lot of emails from people without buying, yet you canceled an order from someone who did buy without explaining your reason until here in this thread. In fact you blocked the buyers emails so he couldn't even ask why you returned his money and canceled the order. That was the point of this thread, for him to find out why you stopped all communication and refunded the money canceling his purchase. Yes as people point out it is your right to decide not to do business. It is also the OPs right to let us know his experience with you and your poor customer service in his opinion. It is also others rights to state their experience of having better customer service with other dealers, or for people to state they had better experiences with your customer service. If you don't like your customer service being criticized then learn from your mistakes and improve yourself. Learn to tell someone who asks more questions than you wish to answer the reason you are canceling the order. Or to ask them to go do research before the purchase, and point them in the right direction. If you don't like being flooded with single questions per email 20 times then learn to ask the buyer to send questions in groups. Try to learn and become better, not just defend your action. See that obviously some people consider this not the best way to treat a customer. In this competitive market your sticking to you were doing nothing wrong it was all the buyer being annoying song will just make new buyers who might have more than 20 questions decide not to buy from you, no matter how good your deals seem. So I suggest you use this event to learn and grow. To become better with your customer service. Not as a place to keep saying how you were justified. *edit corrected some grammer
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 12:25:16 GMT
... also a suggestion to marc, is it possible to add a link in your site, or such, concerning sword anatomy, and how to disassemble a sword, and maybe even maint. and inspection. some sites have certain parts of these. it would be very helpful to facilitate customer service/satisfaction. havent ever done a website myself, so i dont know if it costs a lot tho, but some times prevention is cheaper than problem solving... just a thought bro. Many of these topics and tutorials are covered in the Wiwingti Sword Supply forums, along with reviews of Marc's Products and Service and lots of other pertinent information. I'm sure Marc directs his customers to the forums if they are seeking that kind of information. Maybe it needs a 'sword info' link button that leads to a page that lists the subjects and gives the link to the corresponding thread.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 12:36:18 GMT
... I have a bad feeling about this thread ... This is going the wrong way ...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 12:41:56 GMT
Its not like Keith Larman is personally doing QC at these prices. Even Keith has been known to miss things from time to time in that much higher price range. Long story short, $300 is not a lot of money...OC was right, you get what you pay for. Looks like he missed my $1250 Bugei Samurai.... cracked tsuka. I got the epoxy and syringe out.... It'd be great if one of these forges streamlined their blade forging process then spent more time on quality control. At a price of course... I think I'd pay a few hundred extra to have a solid sword fitted properly by someone taking their time and knowing what they're doing. China will never change, every business in China will always be a volume business.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 12:52:33 GMT
To be honest Marc, you continuing to try and justify your actions way past when you said you were done is doing more damage in my opinion than someone voicing how another dealer put up with 20 + questions. You say you can put up with a lot of emails from people without buying, yet you canceled an order from someone who did buy without explaining your reason until here in this thread. In fact you blocked the buyers emails so he couldn't even ask why you returned his money and canceled the order. That was the point of this thread, for him to find out why you stopped all communication and refunded the money canceling his purchase. Yes as people point out it is your right to decide not to do business. It is also the OPs right to let us know his experience with you and your poor customer service in his opinion. It is also others rights to state their experience of having better customer service with other dealers, or for people to state they had better experiences with your customer service. If you don't like your customer service being criticized then learn from your mistakes and improve yourself. Learn to tell someone who asks more questions than you wish to answer the reason you are canceling the order. Or to ask them to go do research before the purchase, and point them in the right direction. If you don't like being flooded with single questions per email 20 times then learn to ask the buyer to send questions in groups. I believe you have missed the pertinent issue here sir, at least from my point of view. The issue here is NOT the OP's desire to find out why his money was refunded and order cancelled. It also isn't about what the vendor SHOULD have done. IMO, the issue here is and always has been the way in which the issue was brought to light. I am confident that if the OP had started a thread titled "Hey Wiwingti, what happened?" or "what happened to my order" that this whole thing thing would have gone a different way. Remember, no one lost any money here, no scam, no fraud, just seemingly a lot of wasted time in e-mails that could have been prevented with 30 minutes of google searches on sword inspection and general information. However, that was certainly not the case. The OP decided to DRAMATIZE the whole thing and make it appear on the main page that the contents of his thread would contain information pertaining to a potential scam or shady business. Neither of those turned out to be accurate. Here is the point, so everyone pay attention. We ALL have the right to state our reactions to a business transaction. We ALL have a right to defend ourselves from said reactions. HOWEVER, we also have a RESPONSIBILITY to be accurate in our statements and not amplify, embellish or misconstrue the FACTS. We have a RESPONSIBILITY to be fair and not allow emotion to dilute the issue. I am not saying that doing so is an easy thing to do, however, that doesn't meant it isn't the RIGHT thing to do. So just as the vendor perhaps should have done things differently, so should have the buyer. But, making an effort to tarnish someone's reputation over essentially a non-issue is irresponsible IMO.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 13:01:12 GMT
Even Keith has been known to miss things from time to time in that much higher price range. Long story short, $300 is not a lot of money...OC was right, you get what you pay for. Looks like he missed my $1250 Bugei Samurai.... cracked tsuka. I got the epoxy and syringe out.... It'd be great if one of these forges streamlined their blade forging process then spent more time on quality control. At a price of course... I think I'd pay a few hundred extra to have a solid sword fitted properly by someone taking their time and knowing what they're doing. China will never change, every business in China will always be a volume business. Well I will say that Bugei yields a much lower defect rate than other chinese production stuff but you are a good example, sometimes, its just hype. Just out of curiosity, did you contact Bugei before you epoxied the tsuka. Bugei is usually pretty good about their defect issues and working with the customer to resolve the problem, as they should be, considering the cost of the product. If it is a relatively new purchase I would still contact them if you havent already and see what they say. If you have already contacted them and they denied you for an exchange I would curious to hear those details.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 13:08:26 GMT
I disagree marabunta, I think you are wrong. He didn't dramatise anything, he could have been a hell of alot more dramatic. He wasn't trying to tarnish anything he was asking a pretty reasonable question, I'd want to know why an order was cancelled as well especially when I had already paid. He got his money back but calling it a non-issue and telling him he is irresponsible like some father figure is condescending and rude. Misconstrued facts? What facts? Aren't you now allowing emotion to dilute your common sense?
|
|
|
Post by septofclansinclair on May 19, 2010 13:16:28 GMT
Marc, I think you missed my point. PM sent.
|
|
|
Post by shadowhowler on May 19, 2010 14:27:38 GMT
I agree with marabunta on this one. The Thread title itself... "Dealer Warning!" with the "!" just starts the whole thing off with a bad tone... then he goes on to basically warn people that, look out, if you buy swords from this guy he will... gulp... send you your money back and not sell you a sword!!! If he had posted something more like like this:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thread Title : "Has this ever happened to you?" Content : Recently I tried to buy a sword from a vendor that is spoken of well in the forums. I had a lot of questions, and he was answering all my questions until, when I asked this last one: (Insert Question here) I got no response and my money was refunded. I am a bit confused, why would that have been done? Has anyone else had a vendor send them their money back and not tell them why? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instead his OP was filled with venom and malice, starting with the title of the thread and going downhill from there. I the ""'s around Dealer, for emphasis as he claims, instead come off to me as very caustic. The whole tone of the post is reads to me as the writings of a petulant spoiled child ticked off that he did not get his way and wanted everyone else to agree with him about how badly he was wronged. As Mr. Justice pointed out, if someone starts asking a lot of questions and has a certain tone to them, a seller can quickly tell if they are going to be trouble down the road. I've worked in Auto Sales, I sell/trade TONS of swords on here all the time... in Marc's shoes I would have done the same thing. The one thing I would have done differently is inform the customer WHY I was sending him back his money... I think a polite 'I'm sorry, but it is really taking a lot of my time to answer all your questions... I appreciate your interest, but I think its better for us both if I send you a refund and you take your business elsewhere, as I do not have the time to render the service you require' would have been the way to go on that. It comes down to this... Marc's Margins, at the prices he is selling these swords at, must be PUNY. Some suggested he makes about 30 dollars per sword, I would guess it closer to 10-15 in most cases. He sells swords because he is passionate about them... because he wants to share that passion, and because he had some bad experiences as a buyer early on. He has another job as well that pays his bills, he does this for love. With the kinda customer service he has shown others, replacing multiple swords, sometimes out of his own pocket, I'd be shocked if he makes any money at all really... yet it takes up ALL his free time. 17+ emails with the promise of more to come and possible lost cash later, for a 10-15 dollar take home, thats a pretty hard pill to swallow. Marc's strength (and weakness) is his passion... he is super friendly and goes the extra mile for people, but his feelings are easily hurt... but then he is also quick to forgive. I've bought several swords from Marc and will continue to do so... because while I have gotten good services from other vendors like SBG, Arms of Valor, Sword Nation, DarkSword Armoury, and our own Marc Ridgeway's Zen Blades... (Not from the much beloved KoA, but thats a different story) I know that Marc will move heaven and earth to make sure I am taken care of if something goes bad... because he takes it personally. Thats good for me, the customer... but sometimes I worry he does too much. He has EARNED my loyalty and support.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 15:18:22 GMT
... also a suggestion to marc, is it possible to add a link in your site, or such, concerning sword anatomy, and how to disassemble a sword, and maybe even maint. and inspection. some sites have certain parts of these. it would be very helpful to facilitate customer service/satisfaction. havent ever done a website myself, so i dont know if it costs a lot tho, but some times prevention is cheaper than problem solving... just a thought bro. Many of these topics and tutorials are covered in the Wiwingti Sword Supply forums, along with reviews of Marc's Products and Service and lots of other pertinent information. I'm sure Marc directs his customers to the forums if they are seeking that kind of information. Maybe it needs a 'sword info' link button that leads to a page that lists the subjects and gives the link to the corresponding thread. some folks never read forums from the vendor themselves... they want third party info as it appears more unbiased. note i state appears. a lnk button to that forum page would be handy. some vendor sites have some of the items i mentioned. another thing here wouold be good is a warranty info page link. if you know what would void warranty, it would eliminate certain questions, most warranty info is too simple. exceesive use/abuse policies, and such. if sites...all sites... had info such as improper disassembly or disassembly beyond reassembly.... perhaps it would steer newbs into the right questions.... i guess it all brings back to it being a learning experience. both could have handled this differently. i will say this tho, if a vendor realizes his new customer is a sword newb, then he would expect certain questions. in this case i think the question, in question, kinda said that in a round about way. i would have been upset having my order cancellled but would have handled it a little different. thing is tho this guy is probably some one who didnt know really what to ask in first place. i dont look bad at either party. i just feel we should learn from it. basically, both parties had a kick in the pride from each other. pride happens before a fall... so let's catch ourselves and not fall. dust each other off and start all over.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 15:40:41 GMT
This thread is turning into a joke!Bottom line,any dealer should have the right to refuse service,just as any buyer has the right to choose who he buys from.Marc thought the OP would be a problem.He refunded the guys money,thats it.And now people are questioning his business ethic?It isnt our business,its his.I know its in our nature to question,to complain, to argue,and to try to prove the point.He doesnt do this to make money,which is even more reason for him to be cautious.I have no problem that the OP started this thread ,it was his right to do so and I honestly think he thought he was doing the forum a service.Then when I found out he was talking about Marc,ehh,,,Marc has more than earned my trust ,respect and support!
$300 is alot of money, to some. My biggest pet peave with the sword community,well you only paid--- for it you should expect and except that.Agreed materials may change with the price being paid,but the workmanship should not.Same attitude in the paintball world a few years back.If you wanted a high quality marker you had to pay $800 or more and get an Angel(hatem).Now you can spend $200-$300 on a Smart Parts,E-Tech,or a Proto that shoots just as well(E-Tech even better than) as an $800 Angel.Heck even Tippman and B.T. stepped up their game.Why?Because its what we wanted,supply and demand.Enough people complain, changes are made. Now I know this will bring on even more arguments, as I said,it is our nature.This is how I see things and my mind cannot be changed.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 19, 2010 16:04:42 GMT
This thread simplified: Both parties did something wrong.
OPs tone was out of line for a simple problem like this. a "Warning!" is hardly needed when it was just a matter of miscommunication.
Wiwingti should have sent him an email explaining the refund. I see a lot of people defending wiwingti for his right to refuse service, that's all well and good.. BUT, nothing justifies leaving a customer in the dark and worse, blocking his emails? Seriously not cool, no matter how suspicious you might be of him.
Really, there's not much point to keep bickering; OP got his money, Marc propably won't make the same mistake again, everyone's happy content.
|
|