Extremely Bad First Experience W/ Supplier

[dirtclod]

I'm sorry you have had a problem. I have bought from them for years and never have had a problem.

[StevenSiegel]

Hi,

This is Steven Siegel.

Your refund was issued on Thursday according to our records.

Please accept my apology. Your refund should have been issued earlier. You are absolutely correct and should have had an earlier resolution.

On Thursday, I had an experience with a vendor that I had been trying to reach for weeks. I received an email on Wed to call the vendor on Thursday. I made 6 calls to the vendor with no success. When I sent the vendor an email to tell them that I had been trying to reach them and could not, I was called a liar and delusional. I sent them a copy of my telephone records to show the 6 calls made.

I do care about my customers. That is the reason that we offer free return freight. But, when we overpromise and underdeliver, it is not good for anyone.

Again, I do apologize for the delay that you incurred.

Regards,

Steven Siegel

[Johanna]

Subject: this just isn't working out for us... the customer that complained was not truthful....

please pull ALL of our ads IMMEDIATELY

I handled all parts of this issue and the customer was not truthful

This forum does not work for us.

I am sorry, but I need to let it go.

As you can tell, I have been up the entire night because it bothers me so much that you published a complaint about our company which was not truthful.

I still have ½ a month left on the advertising. If you have a policy to refund unused advertising space, I would like a refund for the remainder of the month,

Regards,

Steven Siegel

[tg lucas]

Oh wow, that is really unfortunate on so many levels. I really am conflicted on so many aspects of this post and others like it. First, it is a loss of advertising revenue for the website and I have personally come to see it as a real resource and hate to see it suffer in any way. I have chosen to become a subscriber to help continue it and help offset any loss in income and I hope others may see it as motivation to so as well. One of the reasons I view it a such a great resource is because of it's candor and honesty when it comes to all things leather, good and bad. The admin's do a great job of keeping things focused and I have even been edited when my focus of a post was a little off subject, funny but off focus.

The website's main responsibilities are to the leather artists and craftsmen(persons) and not to suppliers. Suppliers that do not fulfill or meet their client/customers needs should expect negative feedback and this website should never been held as leverage against its members versus it's advertisers. To do so is to make this website an advertising/marketing outlet of the advertisers and limits it's ability to achieve it's primary mission, which is to serve the leathercrafters of the world with relative, honest and useful information.

Again, it is my belief that good customer service is vital to any business. One lapse, one off day or attitude of this can wait until tomorrow can have very negative results. I am very sure that this company has had many years of very happy customers but it only takes a few poor customer service errors to destroy a company's image. As harsh as it may seem, "perception is reality" when it comes to a company's reputation. This all could have been made right by the owner getting on the phone to the client, sending a personal email, doing something positive and proactive instead of posting to the forum for all of us to see his customer service failure personally. I still am puzzled by the off subject paragraph in the middle of his response to the customer about his own supplier issues, it is not relevant. If anything it should have made him more closely appreciate what his own customer was going thru and more dedicated to her satisfaction.

If you were up all night worrying about what was being said about your company, it is my belief you should have been trying to find a way to correct the problem and showing your potential customers how dedicated your are to their satisfaction and not their flippant dismissal. I would also certainly would not be holding the website at fault for publishing something you do not agree with and eliminating a potential source of sales for your company, that kind of knee-jerk reaction is called "biting the hand that feeds you"

Edited February 13, 2011 by tg lucas

[rawhide1]

Mr. Siegel

While I have not ordered from you in the past I will in the future if the need arises. And I will let my own personal experience with your company be the deciding factor if I'm a repeat customer. I know when I read these post that I'm probably not getting all the facts. As it's humane nature to skew the facts in ones favor. I also feel if a member wants to state their experience good or bad they should. But folks need to keep a open mind while reading them. While it is certainly your right to advertise as you see fit I wish you would reconsider.

Mike

[tg lucas]

(in my best Elvis voice) why, umm, thank you, thank you very much....

and Ferg.... do you you piss off everyone? lol well I for one think you are great, you crusty old pot-stirrer!

[Bar C Leather]

I don't feel that I posted anything that could have been read as untruthful or libel. I laid out the facts. I'm pretty easy to please and this fire could have been smoldered by a phone call, an email or anything. I was somewhat happy to see the apology, until I saw that Steven then was pulling his advertising here. My apologies to the site for that but I made sure before hand that the other members wanted to know and that I wouldn't be frowned upon for sharing.

I know as well as anyone that sometimes things just go wrong. All I wanted was a little personal attention and a personal apology, not one that was simply for public damage control. I only shared because if there was a supplier out there that had such terrible customer service, I would know to enter business with caution.

If it wasn't clear in my first post, I did receive my refund finally.

Steve, if you feel any of this is not the full truth than that would be between you and your staff, because I never did get to speak with you or hear from you in any way. I can prove via phone records that nobody ever contacted me and if I had to, I could get the times and dates of all those phone calls I made. As I said before, I'm pretty easy to please and a genuine, heartfelt apology would have been an easy fix. I was as nice as I could possibly be each call I made until the call last Thursday when I had reached my limit and even then there was no yelling or cursing or negativity... just straightforward about my frustration.

Several times I considered calling or writing a letter to let Steve know what was happening because if it were my company, I'd surely want to know. That was until I was waiting on hold to speak to him and he 'LEFT' without answering my call. It was then my opinion that he did not care.

It is now clear that I'm not the only one who had customer service problems. My prayers are with you Steve that you can find a way to fix your problems. Good luck to you.

[Ferg]

(in my best Elvis voice) why, umm, thank you, thank you very much....

and Ferg.... do you you piss off everyone? lol well I for one think you are great, you crusty old pot-stirrer!

Hi TG,

I suppose I do piss off a lot of folks. I am opinionated and have never said I wasn't. I have taught all my kids and grandkids that you speak what you believe to be the truth ALWAYS!

I started this debacle and think I should end it with this,

If you have grown to love this forum, including the ADMINs, as much as I do..... send whatever you can afford to the folks running this fine forum so we can offset the loss of AD revenue, they will have my contribution

as soon as I finish this.

One more thing. I also tell my kids and associates, "Don't ask my opinion on something unless you are prepared for the answer."

ferg

[StevenSiegel]

HI

I find it particularly disappointing that Leatherworker.net (through Johanna) has turned this into a public issue. She has chosen to not disclose to y'all that the request to edit the previous posts was originally HER idea, not mine.

Well I am sure there are some of you who have made up your minds and some of you who have not yet formed an opinion.

I am sure that most of you expect people to do what they say they are going to do. I do also.

I have email trails of promises from Johanna which were not kept.. There are a plethora of unkept promises. This is a vendor issue.

I joined this board to exchange information. I have donated 100's of thousands of dollars of leather over the years to so many people. So maybe some of those people are on this board. However, this is consuming too much of my time, which does affect customer service.

Y'all take care.

Steven Siegel

[Johanna]

Bar C, Please don't fret about this post. You followed all the rules, and scratched the proverbial "tip of the iceberg". There is a lot more to this saga than just this post, but I don't want to hang the man's dirty laundry up for everyone to see. He knows where the problem in his business is, and it will take satisfying one-customer-at-a-time to regain his good reputation in the leather business. Yes, losing a sponsor hurts, but we would not have been able to accept Siegel's advertising anyway, not with all the customer service complaints we've receieved.

Johanna

PS Thanks FERG!