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Daniel Wallace
Location: Pennsylvania USA Joined: 07 Aug 2011
Posts: 580
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 Posted: Thu 31 Oct, 2013 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| Sean Flynt wrote: | I suspect that one of the problems here is that some folks get into this profession in long, slow steps, starting with making for self as a hobby, then for others informally and locally, and finally as a deliberate interstate business venture. Casual personal communication habits might carry over, so that non-professional becomes unprofessional.
As a PR guy and consumer, I would suggest that anybody thinking about "going pro" in this field should give serious thought to the communication demands as well as the more obvious issues of supplies, tools, workspace, pricing, web presence, etc. |
yes, I think this is very true - i agree because this was the way i almost put together my own little metal sculpting home business idea. word got out and i was able to communicate pretty well, but it started to get out pretty far pretty quick, quicker than i expected. the crummy thing is, if your going to go into business - of any kind - its feast or famine. work will boom and then it will die off for a while. when it booms people can't get their stuff fast enough, i remember talking with people and telling them what they were asking from me was impossible time wise and lost their business because of it.
communication is just so key with your clients, they are the heart of you business, you satisfy one customer and they come back, and they spread the word about your work to others being good and they come to you. and the same is true for a bad customer service experience, one bad experience by someone multiplies itself.
i agree that its so irresponsible for a production company or personal smith to just check their e mail once a week - and give you an update on its progress. just one little sentence letting you know that your work isn't lost in their inventory, that 'hey, i worked on your project a little this week, here's whats done.'
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Daniel Sullivan
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| Posted: Thu 31 Oct, 2013 4:40 pm Post subject: Venders |
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Communication is the "keystone" to all endeavors. When a vender does not respond to inquiries, one has to realize that alone is a message from them OR about them, or maybe their product line.
I am with Julien ... I will spend my bucks and time elsewhere.
Regards,
Dan
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Thu 31 Oct, 2013 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Julien M wrote: | Contacted the ollin sword design team about a quote for a guard and pommel a few weeks ago.
No reply to this day. Another email followed to politely check on the status of my request that was equally unsuccessful.
Checked my spam folder, nothing.
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The same happened with me last year. It won't happen again.
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Edward Lee
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| Posted: Thu 31 Oct, 2013 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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I had this problem with windlass(MRL) before. Had to call them multiple times to get a respond.
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Shane Allee
Industry Professional
Location: South Bend, IN Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 506
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| Posted: Fri 01 Nov, 2013 10:10 am Post subject: |
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If you look back at the news page on Ollin Sword Design, Mark posted about a year ago that he was stepping away from things. His hope that maybe at some point he could step back into making as a hobby. I can tell you that he is living with a friend over a hour from his shop and working full time.
As far as this idea that everyone has cell phones, tablets, etc and is connected 24/7 that not anywhere close to realistic. Spend some time in rural America and you will find large areas without cell signal. Not to mention that there are some of us that simply don't feel the need to be plugged in all the time. I do not have a cell phone and will not have one. There is a technology addiction in this country that is not exactly healthy to society going on right now.
Shane
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Jason Elrod
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| Posted: Fri 01 Nov, 2013 10:29 am Post subject: |
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| Shane Allee wrote: | If you look back at the news page on Ollin Sword Design, Mark posted about a year ago that he was stepping away from things. His hope that maybe at some point he could step back into making as a hobby. I can tell you that he is living with a friend over a hour from his shop and working full time.
Shane |
I had thought that Mark posted that he was going to step away from things. Found it on his news feed dated 12/01/12,
"I've been wrestling with some decisions lately... I am going to scale back the sword work and turn it more into more of a hobby, although I may still accept custom projects from time to time. At the moment, I simply don't have the time to dedicate to swords that I used to, so hopefully I'll be able to get back into the shop and create some new pieces and enjoy the process again before too long."
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Foong Chen Hong
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| Posted: Fri 01 Nov, 2013 10:34 am Post subject: |
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Happened to me with a historical shoe maker.
The first time I emailed him for price list, he replied after 2 week.
Then when I finally get my salary and emailed him one week ahead, no response. Emailed him again after two weeks, still no response.
Fine then, my money to go to VikingLeatherCraft instead. Your lost not mine.
Descanse En Paz
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Jason Elrod
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| Posted: Fri 01 Nov, 2013 10:45 am Post subject: |
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| Shane Allee wrote: |
As far as this idea that everyone has cell phones, tablets, etc and is connected 24/7 that not anywhere close to realistic. Spend some time in rural America and you will find large areas without cell signal. Not to mention that there are some of us that simply don't feel the need to be plugged in all the time. I do not have a cell phone and will not have one. There is a technology addiction in this country that is not exactly healthy to society going on right now.
Shane |
You can take this position, however most consumers know about your business through the internet which means you have the capacity to respond in a timely fashion. You just choose not to because you don't want to be "plugged in all the time". If that is your stance, that is fine. You can run your business as you desire, but it seems clear from this thread that you will loose potential customers.
A simple solution might be to post on your website that you only answer emails once every week or 2 weeks.
The important thing is to set the expectation. Most people wont object to waiting 1 or 2 weeks if they know that is how you operate.
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Lee O'Hagan
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| Posted: Fri 01 Nov, 2013 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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I'd spoke to Ollin's a few times via email, nice guy's, I did see the step back message, which is a shame, they do some nice work,
Also spoke with BKS via pm, again, decent guy's, but very busy, which is good,
Fast response is no basis to think all will be well,
for example,
I was dealing with Randal Graham in 05, emails answered in 24-48 hours,
payed up for the project, four figure's+,  three years of excuse's and nothing for the last five year's,
in those eight year's I've dealt with people who have returned contact, anything from next day to the next month, but everyone delivered as promised and better than expected, so two thumb's up for the good guy's, 
Personally I dread to think of the time involved with the smaller one off maker's, time spent answering mail's that never turn into order's,
it'd be interesting to hear the opinion's of the bigger company's who have dedicated staff to do the email-phone reply's,
as to how much traffic is tyre kicker's over actual pay the bill's customer's.
For many people out there, there's never enough hour's in the day, so it can be a vicious circle deal, so to speak,
As Jason say's, just put a note to say reply's may be slow,
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Julien M
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| Posted: Sat 02 Nov, 2013 1:40 am Post subject: |
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| Shane Allee wrote: | | If you look back at the news page on Ollin Sword Design, Mark posted about a year ago that he was stepping away from things. |
I did not find mention of this after 5 minutes browsing the website. It is likely buried in the news section. Bottom line is that if the Ollin Team is not opened for business anymore this rather important information should be featured on the home page. Would save people from wasting time inquiring about their products.
| Shane Allee wrote: | | As far as this idea that everyone has cell phones, tablets, etc and is connected 24/7 that not anywhere close to realistic. Spend some time in rural America and you will find large areas without cell signal. Not to mention that there are some of us that simply don't feel the need to be plugged in all the time. I do not have a cell phone and will not have one. There is a technology addiction in this country that is not exactly healthy to society going on right now. |
I did not say that one needed to be connected 24/7 (we can debate whether extensive exposure to internet is healthy or not, but it is a much broader topic that has little to do with the discussion at hand). I was referring to a query that remained unanswered through the course of one and a half month.
It is undoubtedly realistic to expect from a business owner that he replies to customer queries, in rural area or not. I'm sure there are landlines in rural america, able to support a decent internet connection, or satellite based broadband, even an old 56k modem without broadband would be enough to check emails . In any case setting up an internet oriented business model (yes, sword making/selling has become an internet based business) without proper access to an internet connection seems to me a contradiction in terms and something doomed to failure.
Beyond proper email communication, you'll notice that the most successful makers tend to branch out to social media, or make themselves available to others for open discussion on forums such as this one. You can't turn back the clock and reverse the prominence of the internet, so I'm afraid that polishing your online presence is now a requirement for the modern smith and quiet simply the clever thing to do.
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Kerry Stagmer
Industry Professional
Location: Maryland USA Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Guys, Yes we just are that busy. It is a good thing. The business is growing and there is plenty of pain with that for us, but I believe it is all good in the long run.
I am honestly sorry I cant get back to everyone these days and I do hope to catch up. We have 2 seriously past due customs that I can think of off the top of my head and Bryan W is one of them, the other is a Case of Rapier for someone local. Bryan, you have my cell number please if you can catch up with me or I have not responded, just call me. I dont give that number out unless I feel the customer really needs it and that is why you have it. Just call or txt me. If I see your name pop up, I will answer if I can.
We are in the midst of additional construction and other positive stuff around the shop and are overwhelmed. In such a rough time for the economy I feel very fortunate to be having these issues. At this time we have no one working here who is not hands on, everyone here working is a maker. The plus of that is there is no one working on your projects who is not skilled and a maker, the negative is there is no one in the office or sitting by a phone. Matt , John and I try to juggle it all as best we can.
We have indeed moved to the social parts of FB for our day to day things. It is often faster to chat with us and catch someone online there then any other way.
There is a dealer network as well who actually have stock on hand! KOA, Legacy Forge, Age of Chivalry and a few others are just waiting to hear from customers who want to buy the stock they have invested in. Legacy Forge keeps close to 200 items from us in stock, KOA must have around 80 or so items. That is not to say we dont want to hear from you guys, very much the opposite but if you want to get something right away, they are sitting by the phone and have stock on hand to sell. I have little or nothing on hand here beyond the couple of custom pieces we might post on facebook.
http://www.fireandbrimstone.com
http://www.baltimoreknife.com
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Kerry Stagmer
Industry Professional
Location: Maryland USA Joined: 20 Aug 2007
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Thu 14 Nov, 2013 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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Karl, in the case of your email it was forwarded to John Mitchell on the 10th of this month for him to contact you when he can. John makes most of our initial contacts for new business these days but I sent him around 30 inquires to deal with and I would suspect it will take him sometime.
John is here in the shop from 6 am to 2 pm , then works evenings dealing with new business as well as making all of our leather work from home. This is 6 or 7 days a week.
http://www.fireandbrimstone.com
http://www.baltimoreknife.com
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