Is it just me??

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Splitter
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Is it just me??

Post by Splitter » Sun Dec 17, 2006 4:00 pm

...or has the customer service in the shop taken a tad of a nose dive?

:::disclaimer:::
No disrespect to the owners of the shop, you know I love you guys.
:::disclaimer:::

So, today I go to the shop to buy ammo and maybe a shiney new (to me) toy to shoot.

I walk in the shop, there is one family being helped by one associate, and another fella being helped by the other associate.

I wait patiently by the used case for help. 30 minutes I wait without so much as a "Howdy". 30 minutes, during which, the guy helping the family could have said "Hey" to me, or the guy helping the other customer, could have looked up to me as he watched the customer fill out a gun transfer form.

Once the family is gone, the new guy helps me (mainly because I accost him). I ask to look at the .25 in the case, and he hands it to me. Not another word about it. Then I ask about JHP ammo for my Sig, "we are out". He tells me he only has ball ammo in two flavors and no other ammo for my Sig in the shop. During which, the other guy never even acknowledged I existed.

Nice.

Here is where my psuedo-rant begins, again no disrespect to the owners:

When a customer walks into the shop. That customer needs to be treated as if he/she has an unlimited credit card ready and willing to buy everything in the shop. That warrants a greeting at a minimum.

No greeting means you don't care if I'm here or not. No greeting means you are too busy with the ONE customer you are helping to even look at me and say, "Hi".

Pretty sad.

I can tell you this. Today, was in the mood to pick up a used gun and some ammo. Had I been treated with the proper customer respect, I would have walked out with added iron, not to mention many many more boxes of stuff to shoot.

I don't particularly like going to the shop downtown, but I do. I go there because even though he is higher in everything he sells, he is extremely customer service oriented.

I love your shop, I'm a regular. You guys have fixed and refinished at least two of my weapons, sold me at least three weapons, and countless accessories and ammunition.

I'm very disappointed in the lack of customer service, as well as the lack of customer multi-tasking that went on today during my visit.

This is the exception and not the rule I'm sure, as I've been party to many awesome visits to the shop over the last two years. But, if this is what is to come for the future, I'll have to stick with the shop downtown.....

End of psuedo-rant.
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scottc
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WOW and sorry is all I can say

Post by scottc » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:34 pm

I am sorry you were treated like this. Not just a regular customer, but anyone customer deserves more respect than that. I will make sure Marie and Bill see this. Chris, shoot me an email with the names and date of when this happened. This will be taken care of.

Scott

scott@the-armory.com

Splitter
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Post by Splitter » Sat Jan 20, 2007 8:35 pm

All I can say is: wow.

So I get a call from one of my police buddies who frequent the store. He says that seems like my complaint worked and he got good service. Being that I haven't been to the shop in more than a month, I thought I'd give the used case a going over.

So, I venture out on Friday afternoon to see what was in the shop.

I walk in, not a word. I hovered around the used case for about 10 minutes, not a word. I walked over to the small caliber case, not a word.

I guess, since I don't wear a badge, or gucci's, I don't warrant an FU at a minimum.

While the work done my guns has been great, and I have gotten a few good deals from the shop, I can't get over the extreme lack of customer service in the store. And for the life of me, I can't understand why I don't even get any kind of acknowledgement from any of the store personnel during my last few visits.

So.... I'm not going to frequent the shop any more. Bob's is only 6 blocks from my house. I'll stick with Bob's. At a minimum, I get acknowledged in the shop. The prices are high, but I'll pay more if I feel the love.

Sorry Bill, no offense meant, but you have some work to do.

/regards..

Chris Griffin
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dave
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Post by dave » Sat Feb 24, 2007 4:27 pm

Chris,

Sorry to lose you as a customer. Unfortunately, most of our employees were military (myself included) and we just haven't been able to keep good people lately. In many ways, the shop has grown faster than we could have imagined and we're unable to keep up with the personnel side of the house to get good people in and keep them at the counter before duty calls them away.

I started as a customer here in 1997. By 1999, I was an employee. During the golden years of our expansion, I was on shore duty and could work/manage regularly. Suffice to say, it's been three deployments and four places other than Virginia Beach that I've called home since 2003. With that, we're always looking to hire great people and we value your opinion--if you have some friends who you think would work out well for us, for part-time, low pay, and have the second job to support the cost of working in a gunstore (I rarely took home a paycheck and the shop usually took more money from me than I made from the shop)...then send them our way to fill out an application.

Splitter
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Post by Splitter » Sat Feb 24, 2007 8:16 pm

I've been back once with a friend to help him look at a prospective purchase.

My experience was a little better this time, still not what I think I expect. But since the gun show and my great chat with Bill, I'm not going to worry about that... I'll wait until the new shop opens up, make my rounds, buy some stuff... and see where it goes...

Thanks for the post.
Support Israel!

SigSauer P239 .40SW
SigSauer P230 .380ACP
Glock G27 .40SW
SW Model 10-6 .38SPL

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