Rocketman Parachutes Black Friday Order still not received yet...

[rfjustin]

Hey everyone out there, I do not read forums often on Rocketry Forum, as it’s hard to read every section of every forum and every comment, but the best thing is if there’s ever a issue, please call, email us, or text us, my personal number is 612-599-2292, nothing is ever meant to be delayed and we have shipped every order we’ve ever gotten, sometimes things get delayed by more complicated orders, or we are low on certain materials. But if anything is ever needed in a rush, we can certainly find something that’ll work for your needs and make sure it’s a priority to get out. Regardless, I will make sure in the future to be more on top of orders, emails, and phone calls, we are a small business with a lot of auction designs that take a ton of craftsmanship and time. One thing is if we were a dropshipper, but another thing is every single part takes a ton of time to manufacture, insuring that we have inventory and overhead of materials. From now on if anyone has questions or issues, please email us and I will make sure to get you taken care of ASAP. Thank you for everyone in the community that has supported us over the decades.

Buddy, you mentioned "Regardless, I will make sure in the future to be more on top of orders, emails, and phone calls."

Sorry but orders, emails, and phone calls are in essence normal RTB (Run The Business) routines for any business and those tasks need to be executed in a reasonable amount of time. I'm paraphrasing here from (2) other threads, the root cause of a lot of customer frustrations are not receiving a response (not product) from Rocketman at all:
- "Bought $600 worth of parachutes on Black Friday 2023. Still nothing... no parachutes, no answer to a couple voicemails, no response to several emails."
- "Despite multiple attempts to reach out via email, phone, and even Instagram, I've received no response, leading me to eventually file a chargeback on my card."

In my business life, my lens has been for the most part very customer experience focused (in a variety of roles). The single biggest issue that plagues companies small and large is communication. Simply not responding to customer phone calls and emails in 2024 is just unprofessional, and is currently damaging Rocketman's reputation.

Time to make some meaningful changes to your customer communication policy and overall standards of care.

 

[AlexBruccoleri]

Buddy, you mentioned "Regardless, I will make sure in the future to be more on top of orders, emails, and phone calls."

Sorry but orders, emails, and phone calls are in essence normal RTB (Run The Business) routines for any business and those tasks need to be executed in a reasonable amount of time. I'm paraphrasing here from (2) other threads, the root cause of a lot of customer frustrations are not receiving a response (not product) from Rocketman at all:
- "Bought $600 worth of parachutes on Black Friday 2023. Still nothing... no parachutes, no answer to a couple voicemails, no response to several emails."
- "Despite multiple attempts to reach out via email, phone, and even Instagram, I've received no response, leading me to eventually file a chargeback on my card."

In my business life, my lens has been for the most part very customer experience focused (in a variety of roles). The single biggest issue that plagues companies small and large is communication. Simply not responding to customer phone calls and emails in 2024 is just unprofessional, and is currently damaging Rocketman's reputation.

Time to make some meaningful changes to your customer communication policy and overall standards of care.

All good points. I want to add something as well. If you cannot deliver within a reasonable time frame (4-6 weeks), I strongly recommend waiting to charge your customers until the product is ready to ship. At least that way if you are delayed many months or worst case, you simply cannot get the order done, your customer is not out money. I doubt very much any reasonable person would start complaining online if no money was lost for incomplete or severely delayed orders. I want to note that I have received everything I ordered from Rocketman, albeit sometimes with long delays. There was some anxiety when communications were minimal and I paid a lot of money for an order. The anxiety would have been non existent had the policy been "pay when ready to ship".

I also understand that for large projects you might need materials. If it is custom work, you should work something out on a case by case basis. My above comments are for standard catalog items.

 

[troj]

@rfjustin and @AlexBruccoleri both made comments that can readily be summed up in one word: Communication

Customers are very understanding when you communicate with them honestly.

 

[ShadowSpire48]

All good points. I want to add something as well. If you cannot deliver within a reasonable time frame (4-6 weeks), I strongly recommend waiting to charge your customers until the product is ready to ship. At least that way if you are delayed many months or worst case, you simply cannot get the order done, your customer is not out money. I doubt very much any reasonable person would start complaining online if no money was lost for incomplete or severely delayed orders. I want to note that I have received everything I ordered from Rocketman, albeit sometimes with long delays. There was some anxiety when communications were minimal and I paid a lot of money for an order. The anxiety would have been non existent had the policy been "pay when ready to ship".

I also understand that for large projects you might need materials. If it is custom work, you should work something out on a case by case basis. My above comments are for standard catalog items.

As long as he doesn't take another page out of Curtis' book and give fake tracking numbers to get around the "pay when ready to ship", it's the best option for things like this.

 

[DrJoe]

Another data point: I ordered about $700 for Black Friday. Emailed late December, no reply. Called - told “waiting on a couple items, should ship in week”. Mid January called - waiting on one item, asked to delete that item and ship. No shipment by end of January. Forced to dispute charges with cc.