Matt,
As an early customer I can say that the machines are really good for the price but will have a certain number of quality issues that go with that price (my motor drive blew early on). That's where communicating can make or break things. You were great to work with and seemed genuine in you interest in making it right, but getting in touch was the hard part at times and there were a couple of times the date slipped and I had to contact you guys to find out what was up. Take that same situation and I didn't get through to someone and never heard back and I'd be on here saying that I thought I was ripped off too. I stuck with it because when I did talk to you I got the impression you did care and were going to get it taken care of.
My feedback would be:
- The website could use some attention. Hosted shopping cart systems are out there everywhere and getting one setup that looks nicer could help things a lot. Knowing that things are out of stock and 90 days out up front would be much better.
- Set an expectation on email. Let people know it may take 3 to 4 business days to respond (auto-reply to a sales/service account). See if there is a way to have a person that can sort the basic questions out and respond so you can handle the technical things that are left.
- Maybe take the Grizzly tack and tell folks things are 4 to 5 months back-ordered and give yourself some room to breathe. Then if the order gets there in 90 days they are happy vs. having called you 5 times to check status. I know we all rolled our eyes at the Grizzly 'estimates' but in the end people knew to quit asking every other day too.
- Hire some folks to handle that communication and follow-up, even if part time. I called a few times and never got a call back and had to keep after it to get an answer which really did not require knowledge of the machine. A communication black-hole will tick people off in no time. They are left to decide for themselves why you don't get back to them and they will generally assume the worst. I hear you on the difficulty there but without it you'll keep seeing these kind of threads.
You guys are one of the few places importing a nice line-up of these machines and I hope that you do remain in the business of doing so and can adapt to the higher volume of higher-maintenance new guys.
CNC: Making incorrect parts and breaking stuff, faster and with greater precision.