I found a post on another forum (dated 2008) concerning customer service of MustangSteve products.  Every once in a while I do a search to just keep up on what all is being posted.

I think most of you know I am very responsive with any emails or questions about my stuff.  It seems a guy had bought tie rod adapters and they did not fit his tie rods.  He emailed me and "never got a response".  Emailed again later and was "blown off" with no response at all.

I am certain that if I got an email from the guy that I immediately replied.  The problem was most likely his email would not accept my response for one reason or other.  I get alot of replies back as undeliverable due to an overcrowded email or whatever other reason might make an email not go through.  Maybe he had his spam filter on and the DOTCOM address at the bottom triggered it to get dumped.   I have no idea.  But if I had no way to reach the guy, how could I answer him?  But I still got slammed in that forum...

I have a pair of returned tie rod adapters on my desk right now that came with no paperwork or email or phone number, and no instructions as to why they were sent back.  I cannot read minds.

I know this is unrelated to your post, but in that same light, whenever you try to contact a vendor, it is always helpful to tell them what you bought, when you bought it, what your expected outcome is for the situation, and a phone number or email address that actually works.

I know some vendors just have no clue on how to treat customers.  They think their shop exists as a favor to the customer.  That is just not the way to run a long-term business.  One of the guys that used to work for me as an engineer summed it up pretty good for shops like Mastercrap or like the vendor you are dealing with.  If they are in a really large metroploitan area, there are so many customers, and those customers do not communicate with each other, that even if the piss off every customer that walks through their door, there still exists another thousand that will keep coming in.  Kind of like lemmings going over a cliff...

Last edited by MustangSteve (6/02/2013 11:49 AM)

As far as email replies go,  some people THINK because they hit the SEND button that it was actually SENT.     Have you ever went to a website, like one for careerbuilder, and there's a button that says "send email to company" and a blank email opens up, and they fill it out, and they hit send.  Well... That will only work if they set up an email client program on the pc such as Outlook express, Live Mail, etc.  I have seen people that use WEB based clients such as Yahoo, Google, etc, and they go to yahoo.com, sign in, and they get thier email from there and send from there.  BUT, you will not be able to send out emails from your pc if you don't have an EMAIL client program Set up on your pc that is configured with your email provider.   I have seen people go to craigslist, and they hit the reply button, to respond to an ad on craigslist, and a blank email form will open up, and they fill it out, and hit send, but its not going to be sent because whatever email client program popped up on your pc to give you that blank email form, has to be configured to send and recieve emails from your email provider.

Unfortunately,  with Windows vista and windows 7 there are NO email client programs included on the pc unless you download Windows Live which will include an email program. 

By the same token,  I have had users who set up the same email account on multiple pcs, such as one at work, and one at home, and one at thier shore house, etc.   When you set up an email account, in a email program such as outlook express on MULTIPLE pc's,  if its not set up correctly,  it is possible, that whichever computer happens to be the first one to PICKUP the email from the server will get the email, and the other pc's will not have a copy of that same email.  YOU have to set up the email account on the WEB client to save a copy of each message on the SERVER so that it will be there for EACH pc that has that email address stored in a local email client program.  FOR example, If you have 3 pc's ( home desktop, a laptop, and work pc) and each one you have a gmail email address stored in a local email client program ( such as outlook, outlook express, windows live mail, etc...), and you dont' have it set up to save a copy on the server, then when I send you an email,  if your home pc is OFF, your laptop is ON and checks for new emails every 15 mins, and your work pc is ON and checks for new emails every 3 mins, its possible that your work pc will pick up the original email from the server, and not leave a copy on the server,  and your laptop and your desktop pc will not recieve a copy of that email. 

i have also seen people send emails from thier work pc to someone that is not business related, and it will be blocked by the companys filters for spam, etc. 

I also think that business, should have more than one email address.  One address should be just for support such as support @mybusiness.com.   And this email address should be set up to automatically send a reply to customer to confirm receipt of thier email and the time frame thier email will be responded to, hours of operation, away for vacation, and  along with phone numbers. It also helps the business to weed thru all the emails they get that are for support of a product from standard emails.  If a customer claims that they never heard back from you, then you can ask if they got thier receipt confirmation email which may prove that their email was either never sent, or they may have it sent to thier spam filter, or there is something wrong on THIER end as to why thier email to you was never acknolwedged.  

Last edited by MarkinSC (6/02/2013 3:37 PM)