TxSioux Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I know several suppliers read these posts, so just wanted to make a comment about suppliers that follow the simplest concept of customer service & answer their emails. Today I had a question for YES Supply re: containers I'm interested in using. I wrote at 4:30p & had an answer within 1 hr. That impressed me immensely ... considering how often I NEVER get a response. Today I was deleting old 'sent' messages & noticed I have 2 emails to Greenleaf & 1 to Flicker's that have never been answered. I realize I'm not a major player, but I'm not wasting my time spending money w/ anyone that can't answer a simple question when I'm asking to spend money. Also, I ordered a sample pack from Greenleaf that took 9 days to arrive. This is a supplier within 90 minutes drive time from me & I never got any kind of email w/ confirmation of order or tracking instructions -- I finally had to call to find out the status of my order. I really like the samples I received, but think I'll be looking for other suppliers that care more about customer service. Am I being too picky about this? Does anyone else agree that customer service is equally important to a quality product? BTW -- who are the 'good guys' in this area?Susan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tara Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I am not a big "buyer" of GL either but do get my wax from there and that doesn't sound like them at all. I am sure it was just a fluke or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenleaf Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Hi Susan,I wanted to address your concerns about our response to emails and to your order. I have searched our email inbox and have not found any emails from you. If we have missed it then I certainly apologize and am always more than willing to answer questions in emails sent to us.I did find the order that you reference and the explanation of the delay is easy enough. The payment for the order was made through Paypal as an echeck. There is a waiting period by Paypal for that payment to clear before we are even notified by our cart that we have an order. We do receive notification that there is an e-check pending. That notification came in on 1/31 from Paypal. We received the cleared notification from Paypal, and your order from our cart, on 2/5 at 8:46pm. So we would not have had any order in our hands until the morning of 2/6. We did ship within a couple of days after notification as we put it in line with the other orders that were already in.We do apologize for what seems to be a very long delay but we had to wait for payment to clear before getting your order in line for shipping. This is our only option as we do not ship until payment has been received.Please let me know if I can address any concerns or questions and apologize again for any misunderstanding or oversight.Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaytee_316 Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Green Leaf .... that was a very nice reply. It's great to see that you took the time to check into the situation with TXSouix. How refreshing! I haven't ordered from your co., but because you seem to care about your customers, I'll be giving you a try!TX Souix, I agree about customer service. We've been in business for a few years now and have run into some real "hum dingers" as far as suppliers go. Needless to say, our policy is ... if a supplier doesn't treat us right on the small orders ... they won't get our larger orders either ... somebody else will!I also want to add that recently I had an incident with a supplier about some wax I ordered for testing. It was only a 10lb slab, nothing major (as far as expense) but it wasn't performing like it was supposed to according to the threads on this board. I emailed the company about it and recieved a prompt response. Not only did they email me back but we talked on the phone twice after that. Now, I did not get the wax situation resolved to my satisfaction ... but because they really seemed to give a hoot about a small order ... I'll definately go back to them and put them on my supplier list. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS VERY, VERY IMPORTANT!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carol k Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 i just wished one of the places that is having a .99 cents sale this week would actually read what is put in the comments box. i ordered 9 samples and i had put in the comments box please ship priority mail if it qualifies. well it does (1lb). well they shipped it ups & the shipping was over $8.00. i know they are a very busy company, with alot of people checking orders, just seems like someone would have caught it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon WY Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 i just wished one of the places that is having a .99 cents sale this week would actually read what is put in the comments box. i ordered 9 samples and i had put in the comments box please ship priority mail if it qualifies. well it does (1lb). well they shipped it ups & the shipping was over $8.00. i know they are a very busy company, with alot of people checking orders, just seems like someone would have caught it.If you're talking about Bittercreek, I also placed a small order of some wicks and a sample FO, asked for USPS in the comments section but it shipped UPS with the note on my invoice stating "No USPS for Fragrances". This must be because of the USPS policy changes in shipping flammable liquids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logcabinmomma Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I shoulda read here before posting in fragrances... I had the same problem with BCN this week. And they didn't apply the discount to some fragrances. AND the UPS shipping charge was way under what they charged me. AND they only wanted to refund me their mistake (non discounted FOs) via store credit... I told her not with that shipping charge! Ugh... whattamorning...-Kristi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carol k Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 yes that's the one. when did usps change the shipping on fo's? i have got fo's coming from candlescience & i've shipped out fo's on monday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLSoaps Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Unfortunately, you can't claim bad customer service if they're refusing to ship fragrances via USPS. Most FO/EOs CANNOT be shipped via USPS any more. They changed their regulations regarding these types of items last fall and they're very strict. To sum it up very quickly, there are three tiers.Tier One: If all bottles have flash points of 201 degrees and above, they are considered safe to ship. Just the normal shipping liquids policies apply.Tier Two: You may ship ONE bottle up to 32 oz via air mail if the flash point is 141 (I'm not 100% on this number) - 200 degrees. Other bottles 201 and above may be included in the same box. You may not ship multiple bottles even if they total less than 32 oz - 1 bottle only.Tier Three: Again, not exactly sure of the temperature ranges, I just know I have one flavor oil that falls in this category. I think it's 100-140, but please check. You may ship ONE bottle up to 32 oz, but it must ship ground only, and the box has to be marked a certain way to ensure it doesn't get tossed onto a plane if they had some extra room. This cannot be combined with anything in the Tier Two, and again, only ONE bottle, not several bottles totally less than 32 oz. It can be combined with anything from tier one.So if you're ordering a Fragrance Oil Sampler Pack from ANYONE, it will most likely always need to ship UPS, FedEx or DHL Ground Services only. I agree that they should have taken 1 minute out of their day to send you a very quick e-mail to let you know that it would be shipping ground, not USPS, and very briefly explaining their reasons why. However, I'd also bet that this shipping policy is also listed somewhere on their site, which is why it wasn't responded to. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it's possible. If it's BCN that you were talking about, well, good luck ever finding it. I've always been impressed with the products I've received from them, but I HATE ordering from them, because IMHO, their website it the most difficult supply site I've ever tried the maneuver through. Which is a shame. I know many many many people share my opinion on this. So you'd think with how big they are that they'd be able to hire someone to fix their website for them. It's a mess. If I can get it elsewhere (and pretty much everything I can), I DO get it somewhere else. Anyway, it wasn't right for them to have completely ignored your request, but they were only following new shipping regulations put into effect by USPS. If they had broken them, the penalties are outrageous. Basically, they're not worth breaking, even to try to offer us better customer service. And just one last thing regarding e-mails. I know I personally have a LOVE-HATE relationship with my SPAM filter. I routinely check my SPAM box on all my accounts, simply because I have found e-mails in there that shouldn't have been in there. So I'm sure some of my sent e-mails have been caught by spam filters as well. And some of the new filters don't even let them through. So the person you sent an e-mail to may not even get a chance to pull a filtered e-mail from you out of their junk folder, because their set up doesn't even let them come through. I've got a few customers that no matter what we've tried to do, we can't communicate through my business e-mail. So we correspond through my yahoo e-mail. It's not the most professional, but it works for us. However, because I know how much of a problem this can be, well, this is exactly the reason why I include a phone number prominently on our website. I encourage my customers to call me with questions, concerns, etc. And I usually get several calls a week. Sometimes several a day if I'm walking one of my customers through using one of my bases. I know I can't stand it if a supplier doesn't list a phone number. Okay, I was a lot more long winded than I expected to be. I'm sure there are things regarding your order that made it so it couldn't be shipped how you requested. I agree that they should have contacted you, but they may have tried, and it got caught in a spam filter. There are lots of "excuses". Sometimes they are exactly that - excuses. But I've found, the majority of the time, there are usually very good, and excusable, reasons for the Customer Service "Problems" that occur. We just seem to assume the worst, and not try to find the real reasons. (like the paypal e-check)Just a few thoughts from someone on the supplier side... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon WY Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 If you click on the link on BCN's home page that says they offer USPS on smaller orders, it states that there is no USPS shipping of fragrance oils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logcabinmomma Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 *My* problem is that their UPS shipping calculator must be old, cause it was $9.18 for shipping instead of their estimate of $7.47. And not an email in sight about the change. A much heavier order shipped from them 8 weeks ago and was more than a dollar cheaper shipping. Lots of people are gonna be surprised by this because of the sample sale right now.They also only send out an email with the total charge to the credit card. I wasn't told why my order that should be $19.35 was $24.77. They messed up a few of the oils' prices and raised the shipping, but since it's not itemized, there is no way to know what happened without calling.-Kristi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carol k Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 i have received at least a dozen different sampler packs from different places & if they offer usps shipping that is the way they came. just to name a few, ics, thecandlesource, candlescience & they weren't shipped in individual boxes either. my local post office told me anything over 140 flashpoint can be shipped my usps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxSioux Posted March 13, 2007 Author Share Posted March 13, 2007 Just want to update & let everyone know I received a private email from Flicker's - very nice & I appreciate the contact. Also, I appreciate GL's response. I was going to follow-up w/ a couple questions privately, but I thought the answers may be helpful to others. So, if it's not a bother ... my questions for GL, or anyone who can help ... 1) Not really important, but the 2 emails I sent were asking about products I was interested in buying. 1st email asked when Maduro would be available, as it had been out of stock & I wanted to wait for an fo that had such rave reviews. 2nd asked a couple questions about the potash votive holders. I really don't have the time to stop & call, plus I feel like a pain stopping yalls day for piddly questions. Email seems easiest for all, is there a way to make correspondence more reliable? Do suppliers REALLY prefer to get direct calls from customers?2) Re: Paypal -- I'm not being argumentative here, just trying to understand the process. Your payment posted to my account on 2/1 -- does that not mean the payment is complete & yours? I certainly don't know the process of PayPal, but I feel safer using PP online & it's always been a quick process. Guess I just found it odd that a supplier closest to me took the longest. Perhaps it just means you're the busiest, but please send a quick email & tell me to hold tight! I certainly try to be a good customer & really find this board helpful for shining light on topics I had no knowledge of. So, if there's anything I can do better I want to know! I do expect acknowledgement of my order & a general idea of when my order will arrive. I guess we're all like kids at Christmas waiting for our orders!!Again -- thanks to both suppliers for addressing my frustrations.Susan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenleaf Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Hi Susan,I'm so sorry I missed the emails on that. I am more than happy to answer them for you here.1. a) Maduro is back in stock and has been for a little while. We even had a sale on 16 oz of it when it first got back in. I will certainly extended the $16.95 for 16 oz price to you since we somehow missed your email. not sure what the questions are on the Potash Votive Holders but let me know and I will do what I can to answer. c) Communication - hmmmm, we don't mind phone calls from customers at all. If email is preferred you can send to the address on the website (which comes directly to me) or you can come to our board and PM me or email me from there. I check our board several times a day to see what questions need to be answered. You can send me a PM through CT but I am not up here as often. I do try and stop in at least once a day.2. Paypal - not sure on that one. The delay must be through Paypal. I have the email notification from them and would be more than happy to forward it to you so you can see the date we received notice of the cleared funds. The payment is not "ours" until Paypal puts it in our account. We are just left hanging until they notify us. I appreciate the suggestion of the notification. I really never considered that you wouldn't know what the delay was until last night. We will definitely work that into our process - thank you!We appreciate your honesty and want to make all of our customers as happy as possible and will continue to work to improve our communication, responsiveness and bringing in new items that will always make it seem like Christmas Thanks again, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I have to interject here that general helping/participation in the forum, by suppliers, is fine and encouraged. However, anything related to the sales, announcements or products in stock (and all other information deemed as advertising) should be posted in the Supplier Announcement section of the forum as a weekly announcement or supplied on (their) site by the supplier.Beyond that, suppliers are encouraged to contact their clients directly regarding order status and the like rather than through the forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLSoaps Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 2) Re: Paypal -- I'm not being argumentative here, just trying to understand the process. Your payment posted to my account on 2/1 -- does that not mean the payment is complete & yours? I certainly don't know the process of PayPal, but I feel safer using PP online & it's always been a quick process. Guess I just found it odd that a supplier closest to me took the longest. Perhaps it just means you're the busiest, but please send a quick email & tell me to hold tight! I know for me with PayPal, if I send an e-check (which means it has to pull extra funds from my attached bank account), it will still post in my paypal account. But it will be listed as 'pending' until it clears. And it usually takes 3-5 business days. I've even had it take longer when it was a large amount. I also have received e-checks as payments. Luckily they've only been for pre-buy payments, not regular orders, so I had some leeway time anyway for them to clear. I have it set up to be notified when I receive the e-check, and when the e-check clears. I'm sure there are other ways to set it up, but this works best for me. However, I do have the money put into my account until the e-check clears. I just wish they'd do the same with pending items going out. I had a USPS Shipping Label fail to print 3 times last week. Finally the 4th one printed. I still have 3 payments pending to USPS, but they've already pulled the funds out for them. USPS says it'll clear on it's own, and PayPal won't let me dispute until it's cleared one way or the other. So I've got nearly $30 in limbo right now, and that ticks me off.PayPal isn't perfect, we all know that all too well. But I know I'd lose a ton of business if I didn't offer it. You requested that they send you an e-mail asking you to sit tight...their e-mail previously stated that they don't even get the order sent to them until the e-check cleared. They probably didn't even know it was an e-check until they read your postings here, and went and looked into it. I know I'm grateful that I have my paypal account attached to my bank account, but I hate how long it takes to clear if the paypal account has to pull from bank funds. The best way to make sure this doesn't happen in the future is probably to either pay with a credit card, or to make sure the full funds are in your paypal account, so it doesn't need to pull from your bank account.And hopefully, Greenleaf will take a few minutes, and put something in their ordering policies about the e-checks. I know I never ship until a payment clears. And it's in our policies. But it also might be beneficial to mention that they don't even see the order until the e-check clears. As we've seen here, it can make a huge difference in shipping times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenleaf Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I'll double check policies but I think it is there as far as cleared payments go - however, most people don't spend much time in that area. We do get a Paypal notice when we receive a "pending" payment and it says that it will notify us when it clears. We have always left it at that since our cart doesn't send the order to us until the payment clears. I'll look through the sections of our cart that we can append and see if we can add a statement.Thanks Sara for the clarifications - can she PM me through this board with her questions?Thanks all for the suggestions,Brenda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLSoaps Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 i have received at least a dozen different sampler packs from different places & if they offer usps shipping that is the way they came. just to name a few, ics, thecandlesource, candlescience & they weren't shipped in individual boxes either. my local post office told me anything over 140 flashpoint can be shipped my usps.I love shipping USPS, they've always been great with my packages, but I do know my own local USPS guys didn't know anything about the new regulations or exactly what they entailed. I also have heard many other stories from others stating that when they asked at their local post office, they were given photocopies of the OLD regulations. (this was after the new regulations went into effect) When I started tracking down the official regulations, I had to dig through the USPS website. It was hard to find, but I eventually did. It was hard enough to find that I actually haven't been able to refind it. What I eventually did was call their hotline, and I got transferred to my state/local mailing regulation department. Even the rep I talked to had to look it up, and it was even confusing to her. And this is HER JOB, to understand all of the shipping regulations. After about an hour on the phone with her, we were able to decipher the regulations, and figure out exactly what I could ship and how. It's a mess to figure out, but very very important. You CAN ship many FOs through USPS, but there are restrictions, and it's not as simple as anything 140 degrees and up are safe. I believe (not sure since I wasn't shipping this kind of stuff until VERY recently), that those are the old regulations. Now, anything 201 degrees and up is safe regardless of quantity, size and shipping method (air vs ground). If all the suppliers shipping FOs don't know about the new regulations, then they're shipping at their own risk. Anyone shipping FOs in garage sales, and the like, they need to follow these regulations as well. Yes, they're a PITA, but it's kind of like the new laws at the airport. They're tightening up security all over the place to prevent terrorist attacks. It is my understanding that these new regulations came about because of a thwarted terrorist attack using a combustible liquid being shipped air-mail. The cargo holds on planes are not pressurized. It's the pressure changes that will potentially cause these bottles of FOs to explode. I certainly don't want to be held responsible for that. Anyway, off my soap box! I don't know how these other companies are shipping all these FOs via USPS. They may simply only sell FOs that are 201 degrees and up. I know several do that. They may also not know the new regulations. I just hope they're not blatantly ignoring them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLSoaps Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I'll double check policies but I think it is there as far as cleared payments go - however, most people don't spend much time in that area. Unfortunately, as a supplier myself, I realize that not many people spend much time, if any, in the policy section of the websites they're purchasing from. It's always been my belief, that in many cases, we wouldn't have nearly as many supplier complaints if everyone did read the policies. I know some of the complaints I see over and over (don't remember what company) has to do with small order costs, or shipping charges being amended once weighed. It's clearly stated in their policy page, which makes it completely legal. Yet people complain that it's deceptive when they see a charge they weren't expecting. Are there cases where it could be more clearly stated? Certainly. Are they not clearly stating hope to fleece they're customers, I highly doubt it. These policy pages are there for a reason. If people don't take the time to read them, it's their own fault, in my not so humble opinion. I don't have anything "sneaky" on my website, but I still encourage everyone to read my policies page BEFORE they order! It's just good practice, a good habit to get into, especially when ordering from a new company you've never ordered from before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenleaf Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 I don't mind trying to make it more obvious and make it easier for them to understand. I think I may be able to put a statement in the email that gets sent to them when they order and then it won't be so confusing I don't think Later, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted March 13, 2007 Share Posted March 13, 2007 Thanks Sara for the clarifications - can she PM me through this board with her questions?If people are looking for questions to be answered by a specific supplier, then that should be done through email or on that supplier's website. Customer support should not take place on the forum. The forum is more specific to the crafter, and to promote an environment that members feel comfortable in discussing suppliers and their experiences with suppliers, we encourage the forum to be free from solicitations and/or marketing (except in the designated SA area and through sponsorship of the forum). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJay_23 Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 This may be slightly off topic, but if you look on PayPal's website, there used to be a section (somewhere) that explained about the different transaction types. I know from experience, that paying by e-check is the slowest method they have, and can take up to 10 days to be processed - basically, it would probably be faster to send a check via snail mail.It's usually best to do an instant transaction - that's really the only method they offer that is pretty much instantaneous, although paying by c.c. is very quick as well. (As long as you have your account backed up by a c.c. or a bank account, you can pay instantly even if there aren't enough funds on your PayPal balance.)I don't understand why the e-checks are held when everything is handled by computers (it seems absolutely ridiculous to me, but I'm not PayPal or a bank lol) but to be fair to suppliers who offer PayPal, or any other company for that matter, when paying by e-check there is a long wait that is simply the process of PayPal and something the companies can't do anything about.Just my !Kellie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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