Re: [Harp-L] Harp Depot


On Mar 23, 2008, at 8:47 PM, Bob Laughlin wrote:

"The shame is that Doc and Richard are REALLY nice guys."

I'm certain, that on a limited, personal, and selected basis, these two,
"Doc and Richard", are "REALLY" nice guys. Trouble is, "niceness" isn't what
they're selling (maybe they SHOULD be, from what some have stated here), and
secondarily, how "nice" can you be to leave your customers stranded with
questions unanswered?

Sure, I agree. I DID say that they needed some work. See, it's all a numbers game here. In this automated world, there is less and less personal human contact/inter actions. If a business sells to (let's say) 886 customers and 6 get stung, that leaves 880. Actually, to be perfectly frank, a business can still survive. Maybe they have to move an awful lot of harmonicas to see daylight?

I like to call it the 'restaurant syndrome'. You can go into restaurants in New York City and get a positively rotten meal. Your complaint will likely be handled by 'Rocco'. So, best to just leave and never come back. But OH....wait a minute. With 9 and some odd MILLION people living in the area, they might could care less if you EVER come back.

Same here in Fla. for different reasons. None of the locals go to certain restaurants. They are pricey, fancy, have an impressive menu BUT, the food is marginal. What with the snow birds and tourists, all they have to catch you napping is ONCE. Then your money goes into their 'cash flow'. (The idea being to always operate on YOUR money). :)

My (personal) feeling is that HD (like the commercial) are letting their business paperwork get in the way of their business. In other words, there IS no paperwork. Thusly, orders get fouled up. Example:
Richard Farrell (God rest his fine soul) ran a mom and pop business. If you got him on the phone, you 'might' get your order placed correctly. If you got his wife, this might happen:

1... I called and got his wife. She took my order. 2 days later Richard called and said 'they' (the famous 'they) lost my order. Sooo, he wanted me to tell HIM what I ordered.

2... Being a detective, the first question I asked was: "If you did indeed loose my order, HOW did you know to call ME. After all, my order was lost. That would mean that 'I' was also lost".

3... In any case, I repeated my order. A week later my order came. But WAIT...it was my ORIGINAL order. How did I know? Because I had added an EXTRA diatonic the second time. This order was sans the diatonic. Right away I got suspicious and called. I was unable to reach Richard on several tries. I was trying to make certain that only ONE order was sent. He never returned my calls.

4... A week later a SECOND order came. It was my 're-order'. I tried to return the first order and mailed it back to Ohio. It came right back to me saying that "We do NOT take returned merchandise". To make a long story short, I had my second order (worth $215.oo) and I was now stuck with the FIRST order too ($201.oo) PLUS F O U R charges for shipping. This was a lot of money back then.

5... Over several conversations, it never WAS rectified, and I never spoke to him again. Meanwhile I was barred..yes, that's right, I was barred from ordering from him ever again.

Neither of these men being omnipotent, omnipresent,
nor omniscient, "niceness" can only go so far, in the real world.

For sure, I wasn't debating that. Not at all.

I would also say that further "niceness", further attributes such as
"answerability" and "timeliness" are necessary business characteristics, to
be called upon when the apparent "niceness" isn't readily available.

Since some here are responding that these two are indeed "nice", and others
are echoing the sentiments of those who feel, or have felt cheated in some
way, it becomes apparent that there comes a time when some, due to
constraints of time and resources, and human capacity, become victim to
these limits, in that they perceive a lack of care, or even of concern or
interest, inasfar as fulfilling their requests for product or even service
oriented timely response.

I've heard of this before, in some context,,"businesses that don't plan
adequately for the growth factor."

That's what I was sayne. There was no allowance in their time for..what word should I use?...accuracy?

Maybe these guys are TOO nice, letting their personalities write checks
their available resources can't back up.

I think it's a time factor. Hopefully they can rectify this.

But then again, the website DOES seem to warn of disappointing possibilities
on the supply side.

And that has also been bothering me. I think that 'face sheet' may be left over from when the business was in Indiana? I don't know, because I don't remember.
Joey

BL



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