Date:         Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:59:22 -0900 (AKST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         JOHNSON THOMAS H <rsthj@aurora.alaska.edu>
Subject:      Re: Butting Heads with Transform



Greetings all, 
I had a completely  different experience with Rocky Mountain Motor Works 
that I thought I'd pass along.  

I ordered two $.95 reduction box gaskets and they sent the wrong ones.  
When I called to tell them, they never questioned me and were extremely 
apologetic.  They offered to send me new ones w/o my first returning the 
old ones.  I'd already made my own so I declined.   Then they offered to 
credit my account or send me a refund (still didn't want the old gaskets 
back)  I told them that it wouldn't be necessary--I had just wanted to 
let them know that they had goofed.  They made more apologetic remarks 
then we hung up.

About a week later a box arrived.  RMMW sent me two of their "Invest in 
Precious Metals"  Bus coffee cups along with a short note apologizing 
for their error.  In so doing, they made a customer for life.

-Tom


> To All:
> 
> Seems to be my day for it.  First, JCW overcharges me ninety bucks for a pair
> of front wheel bearings then Transform sends me some junk... and has the gall
> to tell me "You received exactly what you ordered."
> 
> Isn't that neat?  Jeff the Omnipotent, guru of customer relations at
> Transform is apparently able to project his mind the hundred miles from his
> office to my shop and peer over my shoulder as I opened the package.
> 
> Having pulled the tranny on my '65, I saw it as a good opportunity to replace
> the nose cone and hockey stick, installing a '67 or later nose cone to get
> the backup-light switch, and a new hockey stick, which 'Jeff' (no last name
> offered) at Transform implied they carried.
> 
> What arrived today was a nose cone WITHOUT a backup-light hole, although the
> bill read 'NC RB Swg-bus w/switch hole'.  So much for 'getting exactly what I
> ordered.'   To top it off, the nose cone, which was used, as I expected it
> would be, had a nice shiny coat of paint glopped onto it... but spots of
> hardened crud on the inside.   And the hockey stick wasn't new, it was used,
> although plated with cadmium to bring the shaft back to spec. 
> 
> I wanted a NEW hockey stick.  I've already got USED hockey sticks that are
> closer to spec than this piece of crap.  If I wanted junkyard parts I'd go to
> a junkyard and pay junk prices, not the $107.51 floating there on the bottom
> line.
> 
> Called them.  Got the 'exactly what (you) ordered' bullshit.  I said
> something appropriate to the occasion, hung up.  I've no time for idiots.
>  Then Jeff calls ME,  upset that I might have 'misunderstood', finally agreed
> that I could return the mechandise "...if that's what you wish."   Eh?  Did
> he think I was just kidding when I ordered a post-'67 nose cone?  Or that I
> would really pay forty bucks for a USED hockey stick when I've got a coffee
> can full of the things under the bench? 
> 
> Having been in business, and dealt with the public, I understand that errors
> can occur in the best-run organizations.  A good rule is to make things right
> with the customer and try to learn from the exception.  What I ran into with
> Transform was the assumption that they were incapable of error -- that the
> customer HAD to be wrong ("You received exactly what you ordered.")
> 
> When I was in business I had this quaint notion that I should listen to my
> customers before shooting off my mouth.  Just old fashioned, I guess. 
> 
> -Bob
> 
>   
>