It takes a lot for me to get restarted when I’ve been inactive for awhile, not unlike Art Carney’s portrayal of Ed Norton on “The Honeymooners”; the ceremonial repetitious pulling up of sleeves, lots of tentative reaching hand motion and cautious testing approaches, yet somehow never quite getting on with the task at hand.The sure sign of project procrastinitus is when I begin placing online orders for small parts; springs, screws, more springs, drill bits, bore brushes, – Anything cheap that will create the semblance of forward motion. Based on UPS performance, each order is worth a week or two of dwell time.
I sat down at my desk, opened Front Page to Real Guns, scratched my head, panned the room, and noticed the tires on the Harley looked a little low. Couldn’t have that – I cranked up the compressor, found the air chuck has a slight leak, so I headed over to the tool box, pulled out some Teflon tape, and noticed all of the sockets and extension bars somehow got mixed in with the screw drivers. I cleaned and rearranged the tool box, then Teflon wrapped the air chuck shank, then realized I couldn’t find the tire gauge. No problem, a quick run over to Pep Boys and back; no more than an hour.
The tires were low 29 PSI front and 35 PSI rear, well below the recommended 30 front, 36 rear. Good save. Gees that bike was dusty, a quick roll outside and wash, followed by a little liquid detailer. Much better. The Fall in California is pretty wet, sporadic rainfall, just enough to get that oil film really slippery and make safe motorcycle riding a challenge. Today, however, was cool and dry, almost like Fall in real parts of the United States, and I began wondering how long the bike had been on trickle charger life support with that tank full of gas. I figured a quick warm up would make certain everything was in good working order, so I cranked the engine over and watch it shake until I could take it off choke. The weather was so nice, and the roads so deserted…. I took a quick run through some of the local surface roads. When I finally got back it was quite late. All I needed to do was figure out which of the six possible projects I should move forward, but I was too exhausted to go on.
Industry Customer Service
With ever in creasing frequency, I seem to be getting e-mail from long time shooters asking if I’m experiencing getting the run around from companies product support people. Today I heard from someone who had received a Remington rifle with deep cross tool mark extending 3/4″ in from the muzzle of each gun. After discussing the problem with Remington the customer sent the rifle in for what was committed to a few weeks turn around, only to find they had no replacement production barrels in stock. A commitment to turning the gun over to the custom shop for barrel fitting fell through, and months later he is experiencing a “What was your name again” routine – New defective gun, never fired by the customer, work done at Remington’s convenience and timing. I’m a big Remington fan and I have had no direct problems with their service, however, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually interacted with that part of Remington. I have sent three simple product feature questions to Remington customer support via their web site, and I have never received a single response. Over the past half dozen months I have gotten several reports of serious accuracy problems with synthetic stocked Model 7’s from credible shooters and two reports of rough chambers that required factory clean up to get bolts open after firing.
I hope Brownells gets back to their original philosophy of customer service. When I was writing the article on the Moyers trigger for the Ruger No.1, I contacted Brownells tech support with a detailed explanation of an obvious product problem, and asked if there was something I had overlooked, or if there was a plausible explanation for what I had encountered. I knew how to make a correction and make the part useful, but it seemed that I shouldn’t have to repair or modify a new part to get it to perform as represented. I never received a response from Brownells, not even a “Go away”, “Drop dead”, “Kiss my butt”, or “Don’t bother me.” – Quite unBrownells like. The issue is not so much that they didn’t answer a question, this is unfortunately prevalent with manufacturers regarding e-mail or web site tech support forms, but rather Brownells has been typically excellent on tech support, the lack of response is notable.
Tech support isn’t a favor extended to a customer, or something nice to do when time allows, it is an essential part of any business that sells products that require assembly. For some reason, and with growing frequency, Brownells and other industry companies have developed a posture that e-mailed question that do not directly put support people on the spot require no response. I’ve seen firearms publications suggest that e-mail isn’t a valid form of communication and it should be ignored. Actually, not responding is a sign of disrespect for customers. The company message becomes, “I can take your money, but you’re not worth the effort to support the products we sold.” I found it a bit ironic that Brownells packed a “Tech Help Wanted” flyer with my recent shipment. Hope they get well soon, and hope they pay more attention to the material they catalogue for sale to their customers.
As an example of excellent customer service, I sent an e-mail to Wolff Springs with a question regarding a spring designation that was stamped on a label. A couple of hours later, I had a detailed explanation of the markings, as well as a description of applications for the springs and a note on the change in spring characteristics based on various modifications. I don’t think this is a unique level of support, since I’ve always gotten the same quality of response whenever I’ve contacted them.
I believe periods of poor customer service are tied to a weak, rather than a strong economy. Sales slump in the face of hardworking employee efforts because people tend to tuck in on discretionary spending. Companies take the fall off in business personally, and tend to create new policies and attitudes that look as though they are intent on punishing the customer for not buying or for being more selective in purchases. I noticed, in business communications a quite a few more hostile folks – hard to understand where it’s coming from sometimes. Then I noticed this is the same trend we see around big holidays, lots of stress. This past week I spoke with eight or nine customers who have been out of work for over six months and the effects are getting serious. I worry a lot when I hear George Bush give his, “As long as there is one job that needs to be done, we will welcome our brothers from foreign lands”, especially in his vote getting campaign speeches it’s, “I know we have Americans hurting and out of work, and I’m going to do my best….”. I have decoded the words. What George is saying is, “As long as technology companies need low cost employees, I will flood the country with people on visitor visas, and agree we have a border problem, but do nothing about it”. The second vote getting statement means, “I think you are so incredibly stupid, and you have so few choices, I’d lie to your face and gamble on the consequences”.
Joe
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