More disappointing experience with South Bay Traps
Jun 16, 2016 16:31:23 GMT -5
rmeyer, pokie22, and 2 more like this
Post by meizzwang on Jun 16, 2016 16:31:23 GMT -5
From Yelp, Southbay Traps has closed? www.yelp.com/biz/southbay-traps-manhattan-beach
As an aside, customer service/sales is the hardest job you can take in any business, and no matter how good you are or how hard you try, as a seller, you'll eventually piss someone off. Surprisingly, a lot of plant vendors seem to get away with poor customer service by offering material that you can't get elsewhere, so as a consumer, you either deal with it, or you do without...that works until competition weeds you out or the market changes. Perhaps a large chunk of the vendors do this part time, so they treat customer service with less urgency?
This seems to be the culture in the cactus/succulent world. My friend ordered some plants, paid a few hundred dollars immediately, and the vendor eventually got back to him 8 months later telling him that they received his order! No explanation of why it took so long. He eventually got the order over a year later! Some buyers expect this and say it's normal.
As a buyer, when you're waiting so long, you wonder, did the vendor scoff at me when I ordered 5 items and the website says you can only order 3? Are they even going to respond to me? Did I ask for a rare item which they don't want to sell and the seller is so fed up with so many people asking them for this same item that they don't want my business? Did I not follow their complex order directions precisely which is their pet peeve and is causing them to ignore my order because they think I'm a dum-dum? Did they not like my brief matter of fact email request, and was I supposed to try to build rapport with them first? Did I look fat in my gmail profile pic and they didn't like it? It has to have been that zit...if that zit on my face was gone, would they take my order more seriously? Or did they not like my unprofessional email address? Did they find my request annoying? OMG, am I having bad luck from them because I walked under a latter a few weeks ago, or was it when I opened the umbrella in the house last December? Or maybe it was karma when I purposely squished a few ants, they must be getting back at me! Or did the vendor think I'm ugly because my email address sounds ugly? oh wait, I figured it out, it's because there's a ghost in my house who haunts me only with my purchases....
You have no clue why the vendors aren't responding and it's quite frustrating/nerve wrecking. When they do respond and offer no explanation for their incredibly late response, you don't want to give them negative feedback because you're worried they won't take care of your order or they may purposely not do a good job on your order(ie. never send food back to the chef)...you don't want to say anything in the future either because they might offer something you won't be able to get elsewhere.... so the vendor continues this behavior over and over and again and has no clue that they're building this reputation of distrust and poor customer service. The one off person who ends up canceling their order and venting on the vendor doesn't get their feedback taken seriously because nobody else is talking smack, so the cycle continues until something changes.
As an aside, customer service/sales is the hardest job you can take in any business, and no matter how good you are or how hard you try, as a seller, you'll eventually piss someone off. Surprisingly, a lot of plant vendors seem to get away with poor customer service by offering material that you can't get elsewhere, so as a consumer, you either deal with it, or you do without...that works until competition weeds you out or the market changes. Perhaps a large chunk of the vendors do this part time, so they treat customer service with less urgency?
This seems to be the culture in the cactus/succulent world. My friend ordered some plants, paid a few hundred dollars immediately, and the vendor eventually got back to him 8 months later telling him that they received his order! No explanation of why it took so long. He eventually got the order over a year later! Some buyers expect this and say it's normal.
As a buyer, when you're waiting so long, you wonder, did the vendor scoff at me when I ordered 5 items and the website says you can only order 3? Are they even going to respond to me? Did I ask for a rare item which they don't want to sell and the seller is so fed up with so many people asking them for this same item that they don't want my business? Did I not follow their complex order directions precisely which is their pet peeve and is causing them to ignore my order because they think I'm a dum-dum? Did they not like my brief matter of fact email request, and was I supposed to try to build rapport with them first? Did I look fat in my gmail profile pic and they didn't like it? It has to have been that zit...if that zit on my face was gone, would they take my order more seriously? Or did they not like my unprofessional email address? Did they find my request annoying? OMG, am I having bad luck from them because I walked under a latter a few weeks ago, or was it when I opened the umbrella in the house last December? Or maybe it was karma when I purposely squished a few ants, they must be getting back at me! Or did the vendor think I'm ugly because my email address sounds ugly? oh wait, I figured it out, it's because there's a ghost in my house who haunts me only with my purchases....
You have no clue why the vendors aren't responding and it's quite frustrating/nerve wrecking. When they do respond and offer no explanation for their incredibly late response, you don't want to give them negative feedback because you're worried they won't take care of your order or they may purposely not do a good job on your order(ie. never send food back to the chef)...you don't want to say anything in the future either because they might offer something you won't be able to get elsewhere.... so the vendor continues this behavior over and over and again and has no clue that they're building this reputation of distrust and poor customer service. The one off person who ends up canceling their order and venting on the vendor doesn't get their feedback taken seriously because nobody else is talking smack, so the cycle continues until something changes.