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Terrible service on Order from Catalyst

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Nevyn

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« on: <03-05-15/1436:30> »
I placed an order on Friday, prior to Fri, 27 Feb 2015 14:25:59 -0600 (CST) as this is the date/time in the email confirmation header sent by Catalyst Games. The shipping offered was 2 days - and yes, I know that it was shipping and not amount of time taken to do the packaging but - the inference is that you'll have it in about 2 days.

I sent an email on March 3rd and received an awesome, and speedy, reply from support promising immediate action that the account on Battleshop would be updated as soon as possible. It was never updated so I sent another note on Wednesday which wasn't acknowledged.

It is days since I placed the order and I was hoping to have been able to get my filthy mitts on these books before the weekend. I'm really glad that I paid for the pdf copies but now I'm sad that I spent the money at Battleshop rather than using Amazon where I would have paid less and got, at least one of (Shadowrun: London Falling isn't in Amazon yet), the books next day. I'm just getting back into SR because 5 looks beautiful and I thought going to the source would be best for me and the game.

Am I alone in this? Are other players getting much better service than I?
« Last Edit: <03-05-15/1441:15> by Nevyn »
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Namikaze

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« Reply #1 on: <03-05-15/1518:04> »
You realize that in most cases, processing and delivery times do not include weekends?  Ordering something in the late afternoon on a Friday will almost certainly result in processing not beginning until at least Monday.

So two business days later, you received an email from Battleshop saying...  that they were beginning to process the order?  That the order was shipped?  Kind of confused on this bit.

Then you sent an email the following Wednesday, which would be yesterday.  Since it's generally good business manners to reply to an email within 48 hours, they're still well within their timeline here.

I think you're being unrealistic with your expectations here, Nevyn.
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Tarislar

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« Reply #2 on: <03-05-15/1542:36> »
I'm with Namikaze on this. 
If you send something late Friday, don't assume anyone is doing anything about that order till at least mid day Monday at the earliest.

Nevyn

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« Reply #3 on: <03-05-15/1639:31> »
I think 3pm isn't late. I think any time after 5pm is late.

I emailed on Tuesday and got a reply in 4 minutes... Which is clearly very awesome (which is what I replied to them). The reply was: "I will get back to you as soon as I get the work and I will also notify your account with the tracking information." but nothing has been updated 2 days later.

I don't think that a reply in 48 hours is best practice and I don't think that it's wrong to expect an order with a 2 day delivery time be delivered before 4 business days. Also - the order history went to 'Shipped' on the 27th and then 'Processing' on the 28th.

Just frustrated is all.. So neither of you have had service like this?
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« Reply #4 on: <03-05-15/1711:44> »
My experience with ANYTHING ordered online is a standard 7 to 10 Business days. (Meaning, you don't count Saturday or Sunday).

Usually this is an issue with the delivery provider and not the webpage. Meaning, they send out all the correct info, however the shipping company itself (usually UPS/DHL/Fedex/Loomis) either fail to pick up the order on time, or don't deliver it on time.

And to this international shipping (if you are not from the USA), And now you have Customs holding up your order.....


Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Also, you ARE aware many delivery services require orders to be placed BEFORE 10am for sameday pick up right? So the Earliest it was picked up for delivery was monday, March 2....
« Last Edit: <03-05-15/1716:35> by Reaver »
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Nevyn

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« Reply #5 on: <03-05-15/1733:53> »
Totally agree but:

I'm from the UK but I live in the USA.
When I purchased the items I was offered Priority Mail 2-Day .
I understand that not all companies are 24/7 and that is totally not expected, so even though its been 6 days, it's really only 4... But that is twice as long as it should have been and it hasn't even been shipped yet, according to the site. So - if the order is picked up right now I would get it Saturday earliest, Monday or Tuesday more likely.

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DWC

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« Reply #6 on: <03-06-15/1808:09> »
I've had pretty consistently terrible results with buying from CGL direct, which is why I buy all my PDFs from DTRPG and (back before I stopped buying their hardcovers when the editing process when completely to crap) bought all my physical books from my FLGS.

Maybe it's because I'm an engineering contractor rather than in small volume retail, but I'd consider taking 2 days to get back a customer to be abominable.

KarmaInferno

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« Reply #7 on: <03-07-15/0905:53> »
I dunno. I deal with shipping a lot. While it's nice when it happens, I pretty much never expect companies to get product to me in less than a week unless I pay extra.


-k

Namikaze

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« Reply #8 on: <03-07-15/1109:11> »
I've worked in retail (had to pay for college somehow), I've worked in IT, I've worked with the government, and I've worked with the military.  In general, phone calls should be returned within 24 hours and emails within 48 hours.  The problem here is that big ass companies that pay for an absurd number of customer service reps have changed the dynamic so much that people now expect return phone calls and emails within an hour or two.  The reality is often something completely different:

Recently I got into a huge fight with HP's customer service.  The tier 1 folks weren't able to help me out, so I asked to go to tier 2.  The tier 1 folks could reply within minutes or even hours, because they didn't have anything to actually say.  It was more of a repeat of what I'd said, and acknowledgement that they heard me.  The tier 2 folks weren't much more helpful though, so I had to go to tier 3.  The tier 2 person I talked to on chat.  Having run some of those chat conversations from their side before, I understand that often you have three or four chats going on at the same time.  With that said, there were often delays between replies of up to 10 minutes.  For a conversation that (over the phone) might have taken 3 minutes, it took closer to an hour.  With the tier 3 folks, I had to wait on the order of days to get replies.  They were doing a lot of research into my issue, trying to find solutions, etc.  This would mean that I could reasonably expect to get two emails a week back and forth.  Five weeks later, I still wasn't happy with their service, so I stopped communications.

The point of me telling you that story is to elucidate the reality of customer service.  Having been on both sides, I can assure that this was normal.  Tier 1 service generally can't do a lot so the replies tend to be short and swift.  Many places I've worked at in tier 1 IT expect a reply to be given to the customer (via phone, chat, or email) within a couple hours.  The reply is often unhelpful in any situation that doesn't fall into the 60% majority of issues.  Tier 2 replies tend to be issued within hours, simply because the issues tend to require a little more backend work and/or research to complete.  Tier 2 people tend to hate escalating anything to tier 3, simply because by the time you get past tiers 1 and 2, they've covered about 90% of the likely scenarios.  Tier 3 is where things get weird.  They're dealing with situations that aren't common, and tend to have to do extensive research and back end work to resolve the issue.  As a result, it's not at all uncommon to deal with tier 3 people over the course of several days.

Consider this: when have you dealt with a non-customer service person via email and gotten responses and answers within hours or even a day?  Let's say you're an engineer, and you need some schematics.  The person you contact might have them sitting right there, but probably won't.  The person you contact will likely have to go find the schematics, verify that they are what you want, and find a way to get the schematics to you.  Now consider that the person getting schematics for you has to wait on someone else to verify that the schematics are available, they've been verified, etc.  Each extra link in that chain results in a delay.

This is why it is generally good business practice to give your recipient 48 hours to get back to you.  Because the reality of dealing with people is that they are people.
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Reaver

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« Reply #9 on: <03-07-15/1125:23> »
I've worked in retail (had to pay for college somehow), I've worked in IT, I've worked with the government, and I've worked with the military.  In general, phone calls should be returned within 24 hours and emails within 48 hours.  The problem here is that big ass companies that pay for an absurd number of customer service reps have changed the dynamic so much that people now expect return phone calls and emails within an hour or two.  The reality is often something completely different:

Recently I got into a huge fight with HP's customer service.  The tier 1 folks weren't able to help me out, so I asked to go to tier 2.  The tier 1 folks could reply within minutes or even hours, because they didn't have anything to actually say.  It was more of a repeat of what I'd said, and acknowledgement that they heard me.  The tier 2 folks weren't much more helpful though, so I had to go to tier 3.  The tier 2 person I talked to on chat.  Having run some of those chat conversations from their side before, I understand that often you have three or four chats going on at the same time.  With that said, there were often delays between replies of up to 10 minutes.  For a conversation that (over the phone) might have taken 3 minutes, it took closer to an hour.  With the tier 3 folks, I had to wait on the order of days to get replies.  They were doing a lot of research into my issue, trying to find solutions, etc.  This would mean that I could reasonably expect to get two emails a week back and forth.  Five weeks later, I still wasn't happy with their service, so I stopped communications.

The point of me telling you that story is to elucidate the reality of customer service.  Having been on both sides, I can assure that this was normal.  Tier 1 service generally can't do a lot so the replies tend to be short and swift.  Many places I've worked at in tier 1 IT expect a reply to be given to the customer (via phone, chat, or email) within a couple hours.  The reply is often unhelpful in any situation that doesn't fall into the 60% majority of issues.  Tier 2 replies tend to be issued within hours, simply because the issues tend to require a little more backend work and/or research to complete.  Tier 2 people tend to hate escalating anything to tier 3, simply because by the time you get past tiers 1 and 2, they've covered about 90% of the likely scenarios.  Tier 3 is where things get weird.  They're dealing with situations that aren't common, and tend to have to do extensive research and back end work to resolve the issue.  As a result, it's not at all uncommon to deal with tier 3 people over the course of several days.

Consider this: when have you dealt with a non-customer service person via email and gotten responses and answers within hours or even a day?  Let's say you're an engineer, and you need some schematics.  The person you contact might have them sitting right there, but probably won't.  The person you contact will likely have to go find the schematics, verify that they are what you want, and find a way to get the schematics to you.  Now consider that the person getting schematics for you has to wait on someone else to verify that the schematics are available, they've been verified, etc.  Each extra link in that chain results in a delay.

This is why it is generally good business practice to give your recipient 48 hours to get back to you.  Because the reality of dealing with people is that they are people.

I work the construction side of things on the industrial scale. By Trade, my title is Industrial Instrumentation Mechanic And Electrical Specialist. Which is a fancy way of saying "I make things work without people" And to do that, I often have to place custom orders for specialized parts and equipment. Now, consider this. A typical 8" Butterfly valve is about $80. Want that Electrically controlled? Now it is $5000. Want that Electrically, pneumatically, and hydro controlled? $250,000.....

You would think when I place an order for almost $200 million in E/P/H valves they would arrive when "promised".. But they NEVER do. No matter what company the order is placed with, they always arrive at least 3 to 15 days late. (and the storage warehouse is located 10 minutes from one of the busiest commercial airport hubs in North America!)


Trust me, you're being whiny.
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Nevyn

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« Reply #10 on: <03-07-15/1424:42> »
Hey - most people I know who didn't get to where they are through the traditional route (college, uni etc) have done drudge work at some point. I've sold remortgages in a high volume environment both in-bound and out-bound. In my experience call-centre (nowadays contact centre) staff are supposed to call back within 2 hours.

Today, I'm a systems developer for CRM and Workflow and I can tell you that emails should create an automated workflow etc.

Now I don't expect that from Catalyst/Battlestore as I imagine that they're little more than a mom-and-pop-shop operation (and we've all seen teh stats to that sort of place, in fact some of us have had shootouts or runs (shadowruns ewwwwwww) in them.

What I expect is that if, perhaps, my order would be delayed then I might, perhaps, get an email response telling me this.

***************

What actually happened is the 2-day priority shipping that was quoted and paid for was actually turned into a standard USPS parcel which took 6 days to get here (arrived this morning). Worryingly, the company doesn't know where the order is and their Customer Service person, I think there is only 1, is struggling to find a shipping tracking number.

shrug/ Well - I've got the books.. yay
« Last Edit: <03-07-15/1429:13> by Nevyn »
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« Reply #11 on: <03-07-15/1855:51> »
Shipping is 2 days. This does not include handling. Handling is x days. So, you paid for x+ 2 day delivery.
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