Group dead?

"Mike" wrote in message
...

"Rob" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 00:12:27 -0000, "Chris Nowak"
wrote:

Maybe the problem is the feedback is not constructive just abusive. I
do'nt
blame people for not wanting to take that flak.
Chris


They took some flak yes. But if you check the archives you'll find
lots of reasonable queries posted by apparantly reasonable people not
getting any sort of reply.

To me constructive feedback isn't "dabs managed to deliver an order I
placed yesterday". It's more "an order arrived from dabs which wasn't
as described. I rang/emailled and within 2 hours had an RMA number,
which they collected and replaced the next day/day after".

You will find precious few of those sorts of feedback.

-Rob


I think Dabs, ebuyer etc wanted to contribute to the group in general, not
to sit and answer personal order queries though.
The group started to become known as uk.comp.dabs because people were just
using it to complain
about their dabs/ebuyer orders day after day because they knew the dabs
staff contributed to the group. It all got very boring.

Agreed, but if no sensible - or otherwise - response could be got from these
companies it's no surprise that people feel they have to resort to groups
such as this.

My complaint about Dabs was not that something went wrong, which was my
fault originally, but that it was so impossible to correct the situation
because of their appalling response to emails and lack of phone contact.
Mal

"Mal" wrote in message
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"Paul Hilder" wrote in message
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"Nigel Sandell" wrote in
:


I stopped posting here a while before the troll problems began. Used to
have people from Dabs etc posting but no longer. It's still a very
useful group as a few, Aria, Tekheads etc still post here.

Can anyone say what led to Dabs etc no longer posting here? Or are you
going to make me trawl though the archives?

Paul.

They can't even answer email queries properly so fat chance of working out
how to post here!
They also know they'd get a roasting added to which they don't seem to
care
a toss.

Mal


There is some truth in that. We are doing nearly 7,000 parcels a night in
what is still
a price-led market, and some mistakes happen. If you don't get your parcel
as scheduled
or before (Parcelforce deliver the bulk of our standard stuff on the next
working day) then

0.05% (1 in 2000) - the system says we have one (in Bin XYZ123) and it's
not there (bug, human error, dishonesty on occasion)

1 or 2% - parcel does not reach the right person on the right day (UK road
conditions, PF staff and vehicle issues, multi-
occupancy building and someone else has it). Of these, most are cleared
within 24 hours of request.

3 or 4% - Customer wishes to return. Half our returns are non-faulty by our
test - that does include DSR returns -
but they are all service failures from your eyes so they matter. And if we
sell without presales advice or
inspection facilities we must not sell low quality stuff - which we don't as
a principle. Nearly all returns are components,
and many have clearly died from static HT. When we sold wrist straps, no-one
ever bought them.

dabs rarely make errors ourselves because the only dabs person that
physically works on consumer orders is the warehouse picker,
dropping your items in a box

The returns system is automatic to raise a return, but partly manual
thereafter, but the problem is not their general
speed, but the one or two returns which appear to fall through the cracks.
If someone has been waiting a week for
an email reply, well we're currently about a day behind so there must be a
reason. We're not a week behind on all
returns, there'd be customer riots in our car park.

But I totally understand. I buy online all the time and if it fails for you
don't care if they fail 1 in 2 or 1 in a million.

There is a definite correlation between the heavy complainers and people who
buy on price every time and don't
stick to one dealer. All the established firms will have similar failure
rates - but the regular customer learns how a firm
works - what is easy - for example confirming a return's arrival into us -
and what is impossible - stopping an order
after the delivery note is printed - even when it prints at 11pm Friday and
we ship on Monday night's trunker. I know
some of ebuyer and Scan's logistics, and they could probably catch such an
order. But we are better on other things,
for example we separate stock we hold now, and stock in our supplier's
warehouse now (well, today). Some firms aggregate
the figures. It's not vital, most trade stock movement comes in when it
should and everyone is happy, but we think
our way gives you a little more information.

But when you write "you let ME down" replies, look at the complaints on here
and scale that to 7,000 - 5 nights a week
150,000 parcels a month. dabs is 250 normal people working hard and trying
their best, in the end, to make it work for you.

We definitely get more complaints on here if we post here. We do lurk every
day and problems are dealt with. Roll on Dec 27,
a month's RMAs in one day, and "you ruined little Johnny's Christmas - and
his rabbit died the day before". So do a quick QC on the kids' stuff before
sending it to Santa. And buy some four-blocks.

Happy Christmas

--
David Atherton, dabs.com plc

"David Atherton" datherton at dabs dot com wrote in message
...

Snipped for bandwidth-friendly reply

--
David Atherton, dabs.com plc


At the risk of sounding sycophantic, thanks for the post...it's refreshing
to hear the other side of the argument. I can imagine that you leave
yourself open to all sorts of abuse when posting here, but I for one would
be more likely to buy a dabs product if I thought there was someone from the
company taking an active role in this newsgroup.

I've been using ebuyer (amongst others) for years but, following a bad
experience, I recently placed my first order with dabs. It went fine
(although how something can be in stock in "1-3" days for over a week I
don't know ), but had I been aware of the negative voices out there, I may
not have risked it. Just do a search on this newsgroup, or Reseller
Ratings, or Romulus2 etc etc...all the complaints appear to stem from the
lack of a phone number to call. I mean, Ebuyer's phones seem to be engaged
90% of the time, but at least I can hold for 3 hours & get through if it's
important enough to me. Whereas, by limiting your customers to email, you
take away any control of the situation they (perceive) they may have,
resulting in one powerless and ****ed off ex-customer.

As someone who has my own company, I appreciate that it comes down to a
business decision. You're obviously shifting more boxes than you can handle
anyway, so why bother if you're losing customers on the way due to poor
service? If low prices really are the biggest driver then, sadly, this is
probably the way of things from now on. Personally, I just tested the
waters & ordered from a well known e-tailer in the States. They responded
to my emails within an hour, their stock arrived when they said it would,
and I received the items on time. It cost more, but there's still a few of
us who are prepared to pay for customer service...I just wish there were a
few more!

Cheers & Happy Christmas

Mark.