If you expect to spend hobby budgets at a hobby vendor and expect commercial levels of service and reliability you are often going to be disappointed. As stated above many of these smaller companies are run part time by a small number people who also have other jobs or businesses, otherwise they would need to start making a full time wage which would drive the prices up.
Bingo!
Interesting thing is that some really small businesses provide superior customer service. One Bad Hawk provides fantastic customer service, and as best I can tell, it’s just Teddy. As noted above, Tim and Jackie at Wildman are also amazing. It’s just fun to talk with Jackie on the phone. I’ve always received world-class service from Apogee. And from Missileworks. My experience with Mad Cow has been generally good, as well, so maybe I’m just lucky.
Nope, not lucky.
Madcow is a perfectly reputable business, from I've placed six (6) orders over the past 24 months. All fulfilled without fail.
One time when I ran into a kit design imperfection, we exchanged a few emails, and they made things right.
I've also had positive experiences with every one of the vendors listed above, and then some.
All good people.
However, I never really expected any of them to answer my phone calls any time day or night. Even Apogee (got their VM too). Some calls do get answered, some answers are more useful than others. I don't sweat it. This is a part-time or after-hours business for many of the vendors, and many prefer to spend days going to launches, or working on something productive without distractions. I don't mind waiting a few days to get my emails answered, or packages shipped.
Nor did I ever ask someone to dig through their inventory, tear open sealed packages, and measure the ID/OD of some random tube.
:smile:
I also try to plan in advance, and like to be flexible about hobby-oriented quasi-deadlines and semi-commitments.
Speaking from someone at workshop who has been approached by student groups for various tasks it is usually 100% not worth dealing with. Low budgets, insanely high expectations and due to the low levels of training (they are students after all) there is usually a massive number of revisions, questions, errors and corrections.
Amen to that.
My better half teaches grad school students (and I myself TA-ed while in grad school).
Some are very bright, some are borderline retarded, but all struggle with time management.
It's always an emergency with them, and they always think their last random thought is the most brilliant and earth shattering brain fart ever.
The other major cultural trend now is that they can't keep their sh#t to themselves. They just have to "share" / brag about every minor inconsequential thing. It's just all about themselves, all the time.
Perhaps that will remind you of someone ?
:bangpan:
a