Homasote follow-up.

Tried the "Dealer Locator" on the Homasote website and made two interesting discoveries:

(A) The "distance to dealers" function is completely wonky; showing the stocking dealers to be much, much closer than they actually are. For example, the page claims a dealer in San Diego is 39.5 miles from my home, when in fact San Diego is 90 airline miles away and a good 110 by Freeway. The other distances cited were equally off-base.

(B) The list of stocking dealers that I printed out was also completely -well, *almost* completely- useless.

NONE of the listed dealers I that called stocked Homasote, and a typical phone response went something like this: "Homasote? Can you spell that? What's it used for? Naw, I ain't never heard of it and we sure don't carry it. *CLICK*

The saving grace was a guy who knew what it was and said no, they'd never stocked it, but who took a moment to look up the availability of Homasote at the other retail outlets in his chain, and (bless him) found a place only 25 miles -*real* miles, mind you- from my home that has it in stock.

Now skeptical, I took the time to confirm by phone that this dealer *did* in fact have it in stock (they do) and that they were willing to sell it in whatever quantities I needed (they will).

Wanna know the kicker?

The place that *does* have it in stock -and indeed, the only place I could find it in southern California- does not appear on the Homasote website's "Dealer Locator"!

I've notified Homasote by e-mail of what I discovered about their website, but knowing how business hierarchies work I'm not really expecting anything much to happen.

-Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling
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Amen to that. It would be a pleasant SURPRISE indeed if they responded positively, but if a business is big enough, it can make the Federal bureaucracy look positively the model of rapid responsiveness.

Now, for a morale booster, after recent news of Micro Engineering switches with improperly milled point rails in On30 posts, the head of the company came on, explained the problem, apologized, told how to fix it, and offered to replace any returns of that's what the buyer wanted instead.

Hear, hear!!!

Reply to
Steve Caple

"Steve Caple" wrote

I'll second that! Unfortunately, it seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

In my line of work (I build and repair high-quality guitars, Etc.) I run into the same sort of problems on a regular basis: sluggish response -if any- to well-justified complaints and/or warrantee problems; a response that's the opposite of the interest these businesses showed in getting the customer's money to begin with.

There's an old business cliché that goes, "If you go out of your way for a customer he *might* mention that fact to one or two of his friends, and send a little business your way as a result. But should you shaft a customer -even by accident- and fail to make it good, he will tell everyone he knows all about it, in detail, and he will continue to do so for

*years*!"

It's true, too. Being absolutely honest is not only the moral thing to do, but it's good business as well.

-Pete

Reply to
P. Roehling

When it comes to customer satisfaction and information, some companies are absolutely brain dead WRT to people skills. I recall requesting Imperial Oil to provide fuelling station locales in the Maritimes. Some of them were listed as mail box addresses. Truthfully, some just don't care.

Cheers, John

Reply to
John Fraser

On 4/17/2008 7:44 PM P. Roehling spake thus:

[...]

I'm not sure whether this is more a testament to how bad most company's websites are, or to your own naivete in expecting them to be better. You weren't born yesterday, were you?

But I really don't mean to lambaste you here, Pete, since you are correct about all this. The other day I was looking online for laser printers for someone, and when I went to Fry's website

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I found it completely useless for trying to find this most common of items that they sell. Most other computer web sites have a separate link for printers, but not Fry's; they seem completely clueless that someone might want to see their line of printers without having to figure out just the right search terms to use ...

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Hmmm - not to make any point for Fry's, not at all, having had the lovely experience of shopping there and asking clerks where things were, but at the outpost.com website (fry's) it took just a few menu clicks down from PC Computers to get to several choices for laser this, laser that, etc.

Reply to
Steve Caple

"David Nebenzahl" wrote

As always, Dave, you pick the one way to express yourself that's the most likely to get a "f*ck you" in response. Then in the very next paragraph you try to pretend that you weren't being insulting in the hopes that you'll be seen as an innocent party. See below.

For future reference: insulting someone and then claiming that you didn't intend an insult doesn't change reality. It just means that (A) you're so dumb that you didn't know you were being insulting, (B) you think everybody

*else* is so dumb that they'll fall for your apologia, or, (C) you're a world-class hypocrite.

If you really want to be helpful instead of being a royal pain in the ass, try suggesting solutions to problems rather than being nasty to someone who had the temerity to be helpful by sharing some first-hand experiences with readers who might be about to go down the same path.

Reply to
P. Roehling

On 4/19/2008 3:29 PM P. Roehling spake thus:

Gee, a little tetchy there, aren't we, Pete? I was merely pointing out that complaining about wonky web sites as you did is a little like saying that oil company execs are greedy pigs, and suggesting that we write in and complain about it in hopes they'll change their ways.

However, as Steve pointed out, I picked a lousy example, so I withdraw my comments and apologize to you. I really have no beef with you. And if you think you can get the attention of some webmaster and get them to fix their broken site, more power to you.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

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