Thanks for the welcome in guys. I always struggle for the best way to approach negative reviews, it's a different deal each time. Since I'm new here, I'll start with a bit of an introduction (as short and relevant as I can make it). I founded BD back in 2005. Before I sold my first part, I setup a feedback and reviews forum on BD (back then it was SpiderboxPerformance). I still maintain and update the reviews forum, these days I grab and re-post every bit of public feedback (both positive and negative) that I can find on the internet, and I respond in long-form if I feel that it will help. Our aggregate self-rating is tougher than the BBB and Google Reviews, who rate us 4.56 and 4.6 out of 5 respectively. Adding up all our reviews across platforms, our self-rating is 4.22 out of 5 (now 4.17 if Joe considers this transaction a 1-star experience). I can't claim to be personally unbiased, but I hope it says something that I rate BD lower and with tougher criteria than both Google and the BBB.
Here it is:
https://www.buggydepot.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1
In line with that tradition, I've copied this complaint over to the BD reviews forum, which also shows directly on the homepage of BuggyDepot.com for our everyday traffic to see, read, and consider until the next negative review. I mention all of this to hopefully show my intentions when handling complaints and negative feedback. It's not a "sweep it under the rug", or "deny the problem and defer blame" kind of thing. I've spent 6 hours so far today looking back at the history of this order, and interviewing support staff to get a clearer picture of what happened. What I find isn't always what I want to hear... and sometimes it's not what the customer wants to hear. But the hope is that my approach is perceived as an effort in good faith.
Also, the BBB is useful, but I actually found this complaint thread by Googling "Buggy Depot". This page was the 8th result on Google. We haven't been served anything yet from the BBB related to this order. Also, I'm glad I found this thread quickly enough to be able to participate in the conversation, as there is a previous thread here on DIY from 2015 or so that I found too late and had closed before I had a chance to reply to the concerns.
So with all of that preamble out of the way, I'd like to address each of the concerns mentioned. Joe, you've been very frank in your comments above and very clearly spoke your mind, I hope you'll understand me doing the same as I go through each issue raised.
Concern #1: Delay on Spindles (Noted in the listing)
Since May 2017 we've only made spindles on Friday. And also since May/June, we've had a note at the very top of the spindle listing description to make buyers aware of this up front. I made sure to place a giant bold header pointing attention to this at the very top of the description so that everyone's eye catches the delay notice first before looking at the rest of the page.
Here is the spindle page if you'd like to confirm.
https://www.buggydepot.com/product/138/bdx-heavy-duty-spindle-set-even-3rd-generation.html
When you called on Jan 2nd and spoke with Sami, she was right to repeat that information. Her training is to read the listing for any important notices and repeat/pass the appropriate information verbatim to the customer. She did well in this. I have the ability to see how far down the product page a person read. Joe I can see on the order record that you scrolled down fully through the listing before adding it to your cart, thank you. But I think you must have missed the delay notice at the top.
I'm relieved to see that you scrolled down. People hitting "add to cart" before reading the listing has become a huge problem, it got so bad that I ended up coding a popup that stops people from adding an item to their basket if they only scroll down 30% or less. This doesn't really apply to your situation, but I feel it's important to highlight some of the measures that I take to make sure that the right information is available
and understood up front. Reading the listing thoroughly is the best way to make sure that expectations match the reality of the situation as closely as possible at the very beginning. That way there are no surprises later on.
Reasons behind the delays...
The history behind the spindle delays goes back to an article I wrote in May 2017, going into detail about why my spindles are getting produced on a limited basis (every Friday). In short, it's mostly due to low volume.
Full May 2017 article:
https://www.buggydepot.com/tech-center/bdx-heavy-duty-upgrades-seeing-2017-cnc-overhaul/
Full May 2017 article:
https://www.buggydepot.com/tech-center/bdx-heavy-duty-upgrades-seeing-2017-cnc-overhaul/
Fast forwarding to January 2018, I was asked on our feedback forum why certain products seem to have stock accuracy issues on the site, the answer is the same as May 17, and my reply to his post goes into more detail. The root problem is sales volume on these items is too low to keep a steadily production flow. My inventory tracking system doesn't have a good way to handle items that go in and out of stock constantly.
January 2018 post "Re: Lightning deals in stock issues"
https://www.buggydepot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3271#p11304
Here's the TL;DR most relevant excerpt:
The updates problem affects certain items that don't fit very well within the inventory system (logistically, not physically). I call some of these "stop and go" items, because there isn't enough sales volume on them to keep a steady flow of production. The system doesn't really have a good way of keeping track of this.
I can improve the inventory system to better handle these items. The update will take about 5 - 7 days of dedicated time to code, then some time to reprogram how our scanners function. It's on my ongoing list of improvements. 5 days of coding time translates to about 1 - 2 months of juggling to fit it in. Priority on each issue depends on the amount of feedback. So you're doing the right thing asking questions and letting me know this is an issue for you. The more articulated and frequent response an issue gets, the quicker I put resources towards making changes.
... [also,] delays more than 2 days from the order date affect about 13% of orders right now. That 13% usually consists of the items I talk about in the article, stop/go stuff. I feel that it comes down to volume as the root issue, making sure there is enough flow of each item that they can stay on the shelf and can go right out.
That last part leads into the concern over our stated shipping timeframes...
Precision matters: We always say "should ship by", never "will ship by"
It's frequent in reviews to hear that our site promised that the order "will ship" on a certain date. But that phrase is something that
doesn't exist at Buggy Depot. We
never post definite ship dates on the site. We never
ever say "
will ship out" unless it's an emergency order, or a rush order with a guaranteed shipping method. We always on
every product page say "should ship by [date]", and all shipping timeframes are given as "
E"ta's. They're stated as estimated, because they are estimated. The difference between "should ship" and "will ship" is critically important, one is an estimation and the other is a promise. I don't think "should ship by" is ever misread on the page, and I don't think its perceived wrong or needs adjustment. It says exactly what I intend to communicate when a person is ordering. I feel that projecting the claim that we said something "would ship by" a certain date is something that occurs on an emotional level during negative reviews, IMO to stretch things a bit and give more weight to the complaint. Joe, I'm not saying you're being dishonest about this. I'm just saying that the misrepresentation of our
ETA precision, and mixing up our estimates as being a "would ship by" promise just seems to be a common part of the complaint process.
But it's not real.
More importantly, I've posted actual real shipping stats throughout our Checkout pages. This graphic exposes
our real world shipping performance statistics, accounting for average delays. We present this in a huge bold graphic so you know what to expect when ordering from us.
The screenshot above is exactly what you see on our shipping calculator,
and on our final checkout page before you can place the order. It is placed to take up a big portion of the screen and front-and-center, I don't want anyone to miss this when placing their order. I don't know of any competing companies who do this, but I think every one of us should.
My point isn't to be pedantic or to try to slide out of shipping on time. "Should ship by", plus the chart above, is an exact representation of what to expect from us. Plus the delay notice on the listing description.
[Continued in second post due to word limit]
