[Mariss Freimanis]

Hi,

I had a very unpleasant phone conversation with a customer using our G202 drives. What made it bad was it was the last call of the day before I had to go in for some minor surgery. Doctors, hospitals and procedures freak me out; I just don't deal well with that kind of stuff.

This guy calls up and says all four of his G202s have crapped-out on his machine simultaneously, he is losing work, contracts and he may be sued for breach of contract.

He says he has heard G202s are crap on the internet and has talked to two people personally that attest to G202s being crap.

I'm listening to him on the phone, I feel his panic and fear as his machine is down and I'm thinking my face being carved on by a surgeon in half an hour. I'm feel his his concern about his machine being made right. Talk about divided and disparate attention.:-)

So he says, "Send me 5 G201s right now; everyone says G202 are crap and I need them to replace the crap G202s!". I say "Send back the G202s that don't seem to be working for you so that we may see if there is anything wrong with them."

I ask him if he bought the drives from us. He says no, he didn't. I ask if he built the machine, he says no, he didn't. I ask who built the machine, he says it doesn't matter. I say it does, he says no, it doesn't. He says "Stand behind your product and support it" I say "Give me the courtesy of evaluating what you say doesn't work so we can make it right." He says "No, send me 5 G201 drives right away." I say I cannot do that without getting the problem drives first. The conversation ends there on that down note.

I drive to the hospital thinking about the hole that will appear in my right cheek and wondering about how I might have handled that conversation better. I feel he was an honest man faced with exasperating problems and that there was something more I could have done to have made things better for him. His problem was his intransigence continuing with insisting on his demands, my mind being elsewhere and his unwillingness to give me details necessary to solve his problem.

Bummer of a day in general. We keep work sheets on many of the OEM customers that buy our drives. Maybe one of them built his machine. Maybe the mfg info on that sheet would have held corrective information. I'll never know now.

Mariss

[TOTALLYRC]

Let me first off say I hope your surgery went well and that you are feeling better.

I have been in your shoes when I was running my hobby stores. The customers will be upset and not want to provide all the information needed to help you solve the problem.

I also have been on the other side of the fence as I am sure you have been too. You buy something and it doesn't work or has a problem.

The difference is, that you and I understand what it is like to be the seller/ maker of an item and will take the time to give all the details needed to make the diagnosis/repair/replacement happen.

If he was truly in that much trouble, he would have provided all the details needed to fix the problem.
It almost sounds like he was ashamed/hiding something about the problems he was having.
Instead of giving you all the information needed to fix his problem, he is still down and not making parts and still might be sued for breach of contract. There is aslo a very good possibility that it is software/hardware related and the g201's won't help him at all.

Hopefully he realises that just yelling replace everything for free won't work.
Since he didn't tell you who made it, how are you to know how old it is or who put it together, or if it was installed incorrectly, or he is switching the dc side or a million other things that could be wrong.

If it was a new widget, and he placed the call to the maker of the widget, I don't think he would have been treated as nicley as you treated him.

Your writing this here is also a testament to how good a person you are. You are truly upset and concerned about this and I can see you loosing sleep over this problem. It is tough having a conscience and wanting to give the best customer support possible.

Having not spoken to you personally, but having had email contact with you I am very happy with the way you treated me, and I recomend your products repeatably because of the way you treated me and how well your products work.

Mike.

[derekj308]

Hi Mariss
Since the guy did not buy from you directly you are not obliged to assist him. He should (perhaps he did?) approach the builder of the machine and ask for support from them. If the problem is actually your drives it should be the machine builders speaking with you, not the end user. It would also give you a little more confidence that other sources of error were checked before the drives were deemed to be at fault. He sounds like a desperate guy clutching at straws and you are the easy target because you are accessible. Just because he doesn't have redundancy built into his manufacturing operations doesn't give him the right to demand new drives from you.

You can't please everyone.

Good luck with your op.

Derek

[moxy]

Hi Mariss, Hope your procedure was not too rough. After the event it usually seems a lot more trivial! Gecko drives you can fix.... bad manners are a different thing altogether. We are all very aware of how you value and treat your customers so I suggest this guy be cast into the round file next to your desk. I reckon that your legion of followers (customers) would happily visit this fellow and perform some much needed mods on him!
Best regards
Les

[Santa Fe Al]

Hi Mariss,

I hope all went well with your surgery. Hopefully, you'll have a fast recovery.

I'd comment about your good looks, but I haven't met you yet. Therefore, I'm not sure if your surgery will be an enhancement or blemish when it heals.

Regardless, I hope all went well !!!

Al

[Mariss Freimanis]

When I ask her, my wife tells me I'm a very handsome guy.:-) The surgery was no big thing; I had a cyst removed. She suggested I ask the surgeon to give me a cool diagonal dueling scar (from above eyebrow to bottom of jaw). He refused so I'm stuck with this wimpy little 1" incision.

Mariss

[Geof]

Sounds like you dealt okay with 'that kind of stuff'.

I am in your court when it comes to hospitals and people hacking at me; I dislike that even more than customers from hell.

Regarding the 'wimpy' one inch scar tell people you duel with small swords.

[TOTALLYRC]

When I ask her, my wife tells me I'm a very handsome guy.:-) The surgery was no big thing; I had a cyst removed. She suggested I ask the surgeon to give me a cool diagonal dueling scar (from above eyebrow to bottom of jaw). He refused so I'm stuck with this wimpy little 1" incision.

Mariss

My wife says I am good looking, at least on payday.

[LeeWay]

Actually, what it sounds like to me is that this guys machine is not actually broken. He just heard from someone that the 202 may not be as good or something. He did not want to send the drives back because there isn't anything wrong with them. He just wanted a free upgrade. IMO, this is why he did not fill you in on the details.
When I had something wrong with a drive, you better beleive that I supplied probably too much info and pictures concerning every aspect of what the problem was. I would have even told you guys what my blood type is if it was asked. I wanted it to be working again.
I think you just talked to a guy that was not at all happy with what he bought simply because someone else said he had sub par stuff.
Don't loose any sleep over this one. If he isn't willing to share the needed info, he isn't very honest. Shrug it off and get back in that hot tub.

[edferg]

Mariss,

Don't lose any sleep over that call.

Think about it - if his mfg. operations were truly down and he was in jeopardy of losing a contract, he would have spent $500 plus FedEx for 5 new drives and worried about the warranty claim later. That's what I would have done.

I'm sure if he had ordered new drives and asked for an evaluation and warranty determination on the old ones, you would have obliged.

It's unreasonable to call a manufacture and demand they replace a product without the opportunity to gather information and make an evaluation. Especially if you have no record of him purchasing from you. For all you know, he has no drives or bought them on ebay.

I own a business and use Gecko drives. Down time, even for one day, would hurt me too. That's why I have spares on hand of critical machine parts, motors, belts and tooling, including a spare Gecko drive. (Never had to use the spare Gecko

I've also discovered that 3-5% of customers are unreasonable regardless of how much you try to help them. If he lets his business suffer because you did not ship out 5 new drives to a guy you never did business with in the first place, he deserves it.

Ed

[vid1900]

Total scam.

The guy was trying to bully you out of 5 drives, that makes him a thief and an A-hole.

[keebler303]

Sounds to me like word has gotten out that Geckodrive has good customer service so now people think they can tyr to bone you. As the others have said, if it were a matter of life and death for the company, they would have had replacements overnighted and worried about settling the score later.

Keep your chin up Mariss, we still like ya!

Matt

[Mariss Freimanis]

I meant to post an update. Here's what happened; we got 5 "crap design" G202 back. Every one of the G202s didn't work but the reason why was interesting. Every G202 had the STEP opto-isolator LED current limit resistor burned 'open'.

These limit resistors are 200 Ohms and rated at 125mW. A little quality time with my calculator says 5V across 200 Ohms is 125mW. The 200 Ohm resistor is in series with the LED which has 1.5V forward voltage. That sums to 6.5VDC as the maximum STEP and DIRECTION input voltage.

The STEP and DIRECTION inputs are designed to run with 5V logic. In practice the 200 Ohm resistor begins to char the board at 12VDC and blows open without charring at 24VDC or more. These resistors were not charred.:-)

My guess? For reasons unknown this guy probably attached the motor power supply or the 24VDC output of a PLC to the STEP input. Guessing further, he blew up one G202, replaced it with another, blew it up, etc until he ran out of drives. He then read somewhere G202s are crap and he had 5 G202s that clearly proved it's true.

Mariss

[edferg]

Yep - Ohms Law proves your point. Case closed.

When I was an Air Force electronic tech years ago, we had a guy from the radar shop bring in five very expensive microwave detectors - all blown up from excessive input power. He just kept replacing them because the prior one was "bad".

Ed

[tauntdesigns]

Did I say that out loud

[Mariss Freimanis]

tauntdesigns,

I had the opportunity to read what you wrote before you retracted it.:-) Naw, people generally are not like that. I've had the pleasure of dealing with thousands of people over the course of the last decade and I have to say 99% are as honest and moral as the day is long.

This guy I have to put in the same class. People deal with challenges and problems differently though. I'd say 90% approach a problem dispassionately and just concentrate on getting a problem solved in a cooperative and emotionless way. They are a pleasure to deal with.

Other people are more passionate and their emotions can sometimes get in the way. They are just as good and honest people though. It's just that their makeup is different. It's kind of like when you're by yourself and you get confronted with a seemingly intractable problem, do you kick things to relieve the pressure or do you get icy-cold serious. I personally kick things and cuss; it makes me feel better.

So I figure this guy is in a tough position. He has a machine he needs running and it doesn't matter what the reason is. He sees everything collapsing around him and he is desperate. His emotions get in the way. Desperate people lash out but that should never be taken personally unless the person is evil. He I think is just a guy that got in a jam and was struggling to get out of it. He knew why the drives were bad before he returned them; he just didn't want more rain to come down on him. I've been in his shoes.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

Ed,

Kind of like being a quality control inspector in a kitchen match factory. Yep, that one lights, yep, that one lights,...

Mariss

[tauntdesigns]

tauntdesigns,

I had the opportunity to read what you wrote before you retracted it.:-) Naw, people generally are not like that. I've had the pleasure of dealing with thousands of people over the course of the last decade and I have to say 99% are as honest and moral as the day is long.

This guy I have to put in the same class. People deal with challenges and problems differently though. I'd say 90% approach a problem dispassionately and just concentrate on getting a problem solved in a cooperative and emotionless way. They are a pleasure to deal with.

Other people are more passionate and their emotions can sometimes get in the way. They are just as good and honest people though. It's just that their makeup is different. It's kind of like when you're by yourself and you get confronted with a seemingly intractable problem, do you kick things to relieve the pressure or do you get icy-cold serious. I personally kick things and cuss; it makes me feel better.

So I figure this guy is in a tough position. He has a machine he needs running and it doesn't matter what the reason is. He sees everything collapsing around him and he is desperate. His emotions get in the way. Desperate people lash out but that should never be taken personally unless the person is evil. He I think is just a guy that got in a jam and was struggling to get out of it. He knew why the drives were bad before he returned them; he just didn't want more rain to come down on him. I've been in his shoes.

Mariss

Mariss,

It was my bad..... I didn't read the 2nd page of the thread before I jumped to a conclusion.

It just reminded me of a previous G202 guy who was not as honest as he could have been. My first thought was that it was probably that guy that was telling this guy the drives were junk.

Sorry about that,
Jack