Bad Business Owners
 

In an industry that could loose its luster at any moment it absolutely blows my mind that some well known small manufacturers can't get their $#!? together enough to even say "Hey i appreciate your invite to do business, but we are unable to fill that order right now."
Before i go any further i would like to thank RC4WD, Axial, Vanquish and Tekin for bringing excellent customer service.
I have e mailed and begged to get products from a roll cage builder and a body panel builder. No luck whatsoever.
What is the etiquette for getting small business to take notice. They may not need my money but i may need their product to complete my build and further more keep me from getting frustrated and LEAVING THIS HOBBY!
I tried building my own with silver solder, it was a disaster and waste of a lot of money and time. I don't weld!
If one person leaves this hobby then his kids, friends, neighbors, coworkers may not take notice. Get it business owners!
I got two builds sitting because i can't get parts. How frustrated should i be before i quit?
And yes I feel better venting, you get excited about your build. They should take down their damn website if they are not going to operate as businesses should.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Well.... I understand what you are talking about. However, you are that lucky as you are a US citizen and even get a reply. As a European i don't even get a reply from some of the names which you praise for their service.
Only one the names mentioned by you replied after 6 e-mails simply saying: "warranty does not apply to Europe" (even i bought it on their website).
So consider yourself lucky :)

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Being somebody outside the U.S. that buys a LOT of spare parts of every kind i've realized that the first contact is the hardest to do, specially by email. Once you start buying and they realized you're a customer for real the service improves a lot. I believe that it has to do a lot of people just ask questions that have been answered a lot before.
I've bought from some vendors in this forum (Beef tubes, titanium axles, DCW wheels, spools, etc) and the customer service has always been great

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

@SWCrawler, I understand what you're trying to say, a lot of smaller companies just don't know how to do or what customer service is.
But being from Europe/NL, I also agree with MaFoDes

@MaFoDes, so true, I'm in NL too, and it's a complete disaster to get in contact with the companies he mentions, let alone buy a lot of the nice crawler/scaler stuff that the guys in the USA can get quite easily...
Or it can be bought, at an crazy high price due to shipping, taxes etc.

I'd love some nice Vanquish Method 1.9 wheels (just checked, $211,50 incl. shipping), but then taxes set in making them around $280.
Then some tires, coming in at around $80 if I buy RC4WD, making a grand total of $360 for a set of wheels with tyres...

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

A lot of the guys that do tube and body work have 40+ hour a week day jobs, families, entire lives outside of rcc. You're not helping anything by whining about them taking time to accomplish something you know firsthand is difficult.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Having been a tube frame builder I can agree with exactly what Spookyseven just said .......... Frames and custom builds don't just finish themselves in a week. Ive had frames take up to 4 months to finish.

90% of your custom build vendors (I would say) on here do it for the sport and passion of building. And they know their limits so maybe you hit a builder up during a time where he is loaded with orders or has real life things to do.

Whining about them on here isn't something many will look at as being a positive business adventure with you. Nor is it an example that you will be happy with something they produce even after all arrangements are made.

Theres plenty of builders on here - maybe keep working with some others and things will come together for you. Or keep practicing and reading and learning how to do it yourself and build exactly what you want. Or keep watching the For Sale section and maybe something will pop up you can use.

Complaining with a site membership that's 3 months old isn't gonna go well with vendors on here. Just a thought to think about.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

I understand the frustration but i am with everybody else in the "people are just busy" camp.

Its a long process and hundreds of people want one that isnt off the shelf. Would you rather give money to a busy person and wait a year in hopes they dont stop building before they get to yours or find somebody that can actually fulfill your order?


I also cant help but notice you didnt post in the vendors marking looking for a builder. Thats where all the vendors post and look at new products so im sure somebody who has a lull in their building action would take notice.


again, i do unerstand the frustration but you want something that hundreds of other people have wanted before you.... gotta wait your turn


if you want something right away look at ebay. Couple tube chassis ready to go

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

I totally agree on that! I even have the biggest respect for small companies ( i am self employed) who provide and build cool things. Take my word on that.
No whining there.... However, i am not talking about custombuilders, but about companies like: RC4WD, Vanquish, Axial, Tekin.
I dare not calling them small companies :ror:

Overhere, when working on the servicedepartment and not answering a question or else. You just might loose your job 8).

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

I agree that vendors get busy and may not have to time to fill an order especially a custom job. I have no problem with a vendor telling a customer no but isn't this guy just saying that instead of being ignored he would've accepted an email saying "sorry we're busy right now"? It's always good business practice to reply to your customers regardless of the answer.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

either way its kind of a lose/lose situation for the vendor. Some take getting no reply as "they dont want my money".

Some will take a message of "we are not taking orders at this time" as "they dont want my money"

I know not everybody will understand this and that is an example of what i am explaining in my post.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

After seeing fab vendors come and go for over a decade, it can be certain that you (1) don't want to pay enough for the guys that treat it professionally, and (2) the people that are more affordable get swamped quick and rarely last more than a few years as a vendor.


Tube work is difficult, very difficult. Either learn how to do it yourself or pony up some big bucks and be prepared to wait months. If neither of those sound like good options then I suggest you take your own advice and leave the hobby. This is not one for the impatient and unwilling to learn.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

My statement wasn't asking for a clarification of your post. No offense meant but I'm confused as to why you quoted/replied to my statement at all.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

its a forum for discussing and thats what im doing. "thumbsup"

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Well I guess that and two more will get you to 318 then.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

It's a crazy concept that many of us around here have just accepted over our years of being around it. As a new comer, I can totally understand the frustration. A lot of it comes down to volume, and not just volume of what they do for tube work (for this example) but volume of people contacting them.

Right now my PM box is sitting at 2,178 unread PM's. I read every PM when I get the email notification but I fall behind on replying. If something is life or death then I get a reply out ASAP, but when it's a question that I have answered in a thread that is already a sticky and should be easy to find I don't really jump on it right away... and then it falls into the queue of the many others I haven't gotten to!

In other words, I'm sure they'd love to be able to answer every PM but you have to remember that if they want to actually get anything done then sometimes they just have to let that go.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Bad customer service is inexcusable at any company in any industry and of any size.

One of the biggest players in the crawling portion of the hobby is RC4WD and they have the absolute worst customer service. So it's not just small vendors.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

After having dealings in one form or another with three replying to this inquiry thread I gotta say that my previously hewn conclusion on their straightforward and honorable dealings has just jumped another peg or two. We all have lives outside of this thing. Whether it sits as a hobby, sport, livelihood, or lifestyle people like them continue to share their being with people like me who scratch out the spare time and coin to drive toy trucks. I hope the coming year really carries some good vibes to such individuals that have hammered out a kinship within the community.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

When building a custom rc it takes time. I'm just about done with a shafty rig I started before Thanksgiving closer to holoween. I've use lots of vendor's on here to make it happen even some in Europe. All have been helpful one told me up front I'll get it done but it will take a while. Another said I'm 2 plus weeks out. I had 2 vendors that should have dropped me as a customer because I didn't really know what I needed / had to have to make it work. However both vendors worked together and got me fixed up. I sent losts of pms I emailed several vendors to find what I wanted. I even pm and sponsored driver to ask what rig would be better off to start out with. Long story short custom work take time and effort for all involved. Thanks again to all the vendors who guided me.

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

I don't like that it is normal for some vendors to be hard to reach, but it is also the margin of running "after work" business. While our time here has seen many fabricators come and go, it has also seen the aging of our community. Wives, kids, day jobs; it just becomes more difficult to balance a night time business as time goes on. It doesn't make ignoring a customer right, but sometimes it is the least bad. If given the choice between ignoring a potential customer and giving my family some time, family would always win if I had already put in a square work week. And that is the position that most vendors are in, it is a business only as far as the fun can reach, and beyond that there is real life to attend to.



I almost closed down Holmes Hobbies when I couldn't handle the customer support load. Instead, I turned off PMs on all forums, closed down my Q&A threads, and insisted on emails and phone calls only. It helped focus my efforts enough to coast to the next step of hiring help, which led to moving out of the house, which made me run everything more professionally.



Nobody should have to work day and night, but it is necessary for almost all vendors when they start up. For many years I worked 20 hours a week at Holmes Hobbies with no pay after putting in a full day at the "real" job. After going full time with the business, I worked 60+ hours a week for years with less than minimum wage pay. Only in the past 4 years have I been capping myself at 40 hours and pay others to do the rest, and my pay is still about 1/4 of what I would make at another firm with my degree. But to be free and accountable to only my own schedule is far more valuable! On friday I left at 4pm and picked up the kid early so we could play in the yard before dark. Makes the decade of crappy pay totally worth it! Now I'm in the same boat with Holmes Motion Control. I've been paid $2.5 per hour for my time since starting the company :lmao:

Re: Bad Business Owners
 

Go order a custom 1911 and wait a few years for it to arrive, if you can even order from your builder of choice.

People who are good at what they do stay busy. Some things can be scaled up and produced more efficiently, some things take time. You can pick up an Integy Wriath cage for like $60, in stock. Or you can wait and pay 10 times that.