The value of a phone call.

[George Maser]

Last week I got an email request from a customer who bought a flamethrower two years ago. He asked for documentation on how much pressure the valve would take for the fire marshal. I emailed back that I would send him a picture of the valve label (300 psi). Long story short, my emailed picture did not reach him and his reply asking where the picture was went to spam. He got mad (egged on by the fire marshal). I apologize. I should have followed up with a phone call. To everyone: please call with questions. I promise to return calls asap. I know you are busy and I don't want to waste your time. George Maser 864-761-7223

[Brandon_K]

I would just be thrilled at this point for vendors to ANSWER their phone, let alone pick it up and call ME. I'm HIGHLY disappointed in quite a few of my vendors this year. Simple things such as replacing a faulty controller that should have been replaced LAST SEASON when it was purchased (it was defective then, too). Phone call after phone call goes to voicemail, never to be returned. The one time I was able to get a hold of them, "to busy driving, txt me your address and I'll get it sent out". Two weeks later, still no replacement. It's not an expensive controller, either.

Another vendor was to busy to give me a few advanced details \ steps on his controller, to busy shipping out orders. What about the $2000 we spent with you last year?

We ordered 3 new animatronics from a third vendor; they arrived in good condition, looked great (one needed some minor tweaks to prevent a cable from breaking midway through season due to a poor design), but no sensors. Now, we ordered full props, with the controller and sensor package. A phone call or even a simple note inside one of the crates stating that "My vendor that I get my photoelectric sensors from has had them on backorder for 2 weeks so I wasn't able to ship them with the freight" would have been great. But instead I waste a week playing phone tag, only to find out his vendor has them on backorder and he'll ship them "when he can". "When you can" doesn't work very well for me, we open in 3 weeks and I need to get a game plan going here. A phone call, even an email, letting me know this before you shipped the props would have been great, so that I could order a few spares (from my vendor that stocks them) to have ready to go when the props show up. Oh, no regulators either, which from what I can tell should have been included (there was no mention that they weren't). When you are buying a prop, being sold as "complete, ready to go out of the box", I expect it to be that way. So now I have to dig into my stack of spares, spares that I keep for the season, not pre-season. $40 a pop for a regulator / filter adds up. That one order cost me an extra $120 in "we didn't disclose it properly" tax.

Same deal with a 4th vendor on a single animatronic purchase. No sensor. No word as to why.

I won't name names, none of the above really screwed us per-se, just poor customer service.


That said, the following folks have always taken care of us, very well. Sure, they might have messed up an order here or there, but the key is they answer their phone and make it right;

Froggys Fog

HauntBots Controllers (Pete Rondeau)

Gore Galore (PHENOMENAL customer service! WICKED FAST to send a repair kit for a Goat Head that was damaged by the freight company)

Brian Warner aka Gadget @ Evilusions, who while being SLAMMED opening a first-year haunt, took an emergency order from me and made it happen. I can't wait to go check his new place out!

There is always negative talk on the vendors screwing a customer (most of which I believe), unfortunately the guys that do truly bust their ass to make it all happen and make it happen on time, never seem to get the good praise.