Poor Customer Service

[RumJohn]

You guys should experience a time in China. There is no such thing as quality control, customer service and the customer is always wrong here. But its also like being on holiday all year long, so one puts up with it.

I have only had one piece of mail in 12 years and that was a new passport. Why it got though I have no clue.

[SDeurope]

that seems fare to me,nice one michael, my order took 3-4 working days so was ok .i ordered an element from the usa on tuesday lunchtime and received it thursday afternoon how about that

It's no secret that express shipping costs next to nothing over there. Prices of UPS or DHL can even be lower than USPS in the states, but here in Austria they are completely out of range. I know that if you order something you want to have it as soon as possible, but express shipping at any costs is definitely not what our customers want, considering that the majority of the parcels we ship are in the upper weight range. Austrian Post is a good compromise, they don't rob you blind and usually less than a week throughout Europe is not that bad.

[Phantom]

Hum? Well I can sort of see both sides.......

I sympathise with Aidan, but at the same time know where Michael comes from as shipping is partly my world (mixed national and international).

Within the EU, unless it's a quite expensive guaranteed/air freight arrangement, it's most likely to be road freight.

Plus you may have used a national postal service, but no way of knowing who will deliver to the receiving end. It's not guaranteed to be the local post office - some of those have contract agreement with commercial shippers.

It only takes a few tiny cracks in the chain to make delays a number of days........

If we are late delivering something that's had the time guarantee premium paid on, then if the delay is our fault, we end up delivering for nothing........

Ireland is a marvellous place but there does seem to be issues with "normal speed" delivery (in both directions), so if it's something you feel is important, I suggest the premium service - just that that often ain't cheap, especially within the EU.......

[Almanac]

I get what you're saying P, I'm a retired Transport Manager myself so I know how it works.

I had no problem with how long it took for the order to arrive it was the fact that we were given to understand it would arrive within a specific timeframe. Not a precise time and date but 3-4 working days, as quoted to my son, by SD customer service, when he enquired about the order he had placed.

In fact, when I placed my order I was unable to find any reference to length of time for delivery. But there was a tracking system and I believed that would tell me when my order would be delivered.....except that it didn't, it went dead for four days!

That's when I discovered that my son had also placed an order and he couldn't get any tracking info for three days either.

The missing orders weren't hiding out in Ireland, Irish postal workers weren't sitting on them, there was no local difficulty, it wasn't, as Michael suggests, "due to your specific location, if the delay is induced by local circumstances."

In fact, the parcels in question weren't in Austria or Ireland, they were in a third country because Austria Post don't ship direct to Ireland. For logistical purposes Ireland is grouped with the UK so anything for Ireland, other than Air Freight, ends up in jolly old Blighty and forwarded from there to Ireland at certain intervals.

If SD told me it wouldn't arrive for 30-31 days I'd be happy with that, as long as it did arrive in 30-31 days!

If the carrier puts "Sent Abroad" on a tracking system most people will expect that order to arrive in the destination country within 48 hours with delivery in the following 24-48 hours. But when that same tracking system shows zero progress for a fourth day I, for one, start to get nervous that the goods have proved too attractive to some cleptomaniac in the transport chain and they've fallen of the back of a lorry! Don't laugh, this happens and, these days, the first sign that something is wrong is when a scanned item stops being scanned because the goods are gone!

Enough of this already. I got one parcel and the other one has arrived in Ireland and should get here in the next few days. At least now I know I can now ring our local sorting office and tell them not to deliver the parcel until Tuesday because I won't be here tomorrow when the postman calls around 11am and he needs a signature for the parcel.

AM

[Admiral Toad]

Well according to the tracking info it's on it's way..........I think

agree with AM not the best delivery info is it .......

[SDeurope]

Well according to the tracking info it's on it's way..........I think agree with AM not the best delivery info is it .......

Definitely on its way. The shipping info is coming from the postal system, so we have no influence on that one, and it's not always updated in real-time (I've just checked on a parcel which has been picked up today morning, still showing "electronic info been submitted" or the likes).

But this is really misleading, we are posting in a thread labeled "Poor Customer Service" which in fact has absolutely nothing do do with our (hopefully outstanding) service. As already said, we can't do any better than shipping the same day an order comes in, and we absolutely have no influence on what's happing once deliveries have been picked up. Austrian Post is really not bad, international runtimes of up to a week (and yes, sometimes longer) are not bad for that buck either, so I think we can really leave it at that.

[Easydrinker]

+1 Michael.
You are treading the fine line between cost and service.
I think you have it right.
I'll be back.
Robert.

[Admiral Toad]

Fair comment Michael I appreciate that your end of things appears to be spot on its merely the carriage that seems to be the area of concern
When I was restoring my old Moto Guzzi in the spring I ordered quite a few batches of parts from a company in Germany. I usually ordered online on a Sunday when I knew what was next needed and would get them by the following Thursday or Friday latest.They use DHL whose online tracking is excellent ...just a thought.
Anyway looking forward to getting the order and i'm sure, like others and Arnie 'I'll be back !'

[Almanac]

OK! I started all this and I'm withdrawing from the thread because Michael is getting bent out of shape and is sticking to the line that they're not responsible for our orders once they're collected from them.

One final thought, Michael recently told me, "We take no responsibility for any carrier service, our fulfillment ends with pickup by the carrier, our terms of service make this very clear, shipping and shipping risk is on the customer side." (I checked, it is in their Shipping Policy.)

So, I'm left wondering what happens if an order does go missing. If, as Michael says, SD's responsibility ends when the package is collected from them, then who is entitled to make the insurance claim? how? and how long would it be before replacement goods could be ordered? - without additional cost! As buyers we have no contract with any insurer, yet, according to SD,"shipping and shipping risk is on the customer side"

Anyway, I have most of what I want from SD, in terms of equipment so I'm leaving this to you all to play with

AM

[SDeurope]

Aidan, your parcel has arrived on 1st December, yes it was late for unknown reasons, but it has arrived. I have no idea why you still think that any of this, which has not been in our area of influence, has anything to do with our customer service, after I have explained the situation in exhausting details.

And yes, we handle shipping on customers' behalf, so if a delivery should get lost or damaged during transport, we'll take care of the postal investigation and insurance claim. I don't know why this is causing you troubles now, we make no secret of how we conduct business, it's all clearly laid out in our terms of service.

As information for others reading this thread:

There is just no way around Austrian Post for us. There is no real competition, like it's in the USA with UPS vs. DHL vs. USPS.

Of course we are not happy if the customer is not happy, but as said, there is nothing we can do about it, we are stuck with Austrian Post, any alternative would add a lot to shipping costs, making it totally unreasonable in most cases.

Nobody else has experienced any problems with the Austrian Postal Service so far, and it's indeed strange that both of Aidan's deliveries were over time. Interestingly the estimated delivery time to Ireland is stated as less than to the UK, so I'll send another inquiry to postal services. My guess is that they should have been shipping direct, but maybe something has changed in their hand-off protocol. I can not promise that we'll get any useful feedback from them, nor can we know if anything will change, but other customers in Ireland have received their parcels in time, so it may not be a general problem after all.