OK, so it's true! I'm hard to get on the phone, especially on Mondays or Tuesdays. That being said, we actually now have 3 phone lines (they are toll free) and if you get the answering service it's only because the other 3 are tied up - NOT because we're ignoring you. Currently I admit that the phone answering and return call situation is somewhat deplorable and needs to get fixed. We try valiantly to get them all answered, but sometimes we miss the boat - I'm really working on making it better and that's the best I can say about that. If you like (but I DESPISE) we could institue one of those interative menu's where you get to push a ton of buttons on the phone in order to shuttle calls around, but I really hate those things to instead you just get the answering machine if the other lines are busy.
Do we miss things sometimes? You bet...we've grown to the point where I don't personally do every order anymore so things happen...kind of like they did when I got my RV kits from Van's with missing pieces. But, I'm working to make that better too. No good excuses for that either. If you're the guy who indeed had "every order" screwed up, that's not right and I'll fix it...
We now have 9 guys working here so we're no longer just me, myself and me. I have another full time guy starting next Monday and that will no doubt help. We just moved into a new 6,000 sq.ft facility that is also helping out logistics quite a lot but we're still "moving in" so things are caotic. I didnt' publicize our move nor use it as an excuse, because I hate making excuses for things.
I don't have any really good excuses at all for the difficulty in getting hold of us on the phone, except that Mondays and Tuesdays are really bad, but Wed,Thurs and Friday are much quieter. Emails usually are much better,
sales@steinair.com is always monitored for orders and inquiries, and my personal email (stein@steinair.com) is less reliable just because of the huge bulk of emails I get..but I try - there's a reason I'm still in the office at 8:30 tonight!
My apologies to anyone who got a screwed up order or an un-returned phone call. We are always terribly busy on Mondays and Tuesdays, and I'm guaranteed to be on the phone for at least 8-9hrs solid for those 2 days, so is at least one other of my guys. Not so much with orders, but hours up on hours discussing autopilots, efis's, wiring, etc... I find that most of us small companies (just like GRT, AFS and others) all run out of hours in the day to call people back but we're trying to get better. The only solution is to raise the prices a bunch in order to hire more help, but that's a fine line to walk.
Anyone who's ordered from us knows that if you're unsatisfied for any reason we'll make it right (as much as we can). We accept returns with no questions asked (even if you just ordered something to "try it out" - and believe me, some of you do) giving full refunds. If we ship you the wrong thing (which we've done occasionally) we don't ask for it back, and if we mess up on shipping we eat it.
Anyway, I didn't want to rant about how perfect we are, because right now we're far from it, but I just wanted to let people know we're very much alive and kicking, and really striving to make this a good business for both us and you. Is it easy, NO but we're trying the best we can right now.
Cheers,
Stein.
Where to buy electrical supplies
Linear Mode
