TBS - So disappointed (crappy service)

[blide]

I have heard all of these great things about TBS and was so excited to get my rock. I order 40lbs of rock on Monday and the lady calls me on on Thursday and says they can send my rock out on Friday. She tells me the flight number and I have her call me back to confirm the flight and she gives me the flight time and flight number.

So, on friday I drive 100 miles to the airport. The lady at TBS tells me to arrive an hour to 2 hrs after scheduled delivery (I arrive an hour later). I get to the terminal and Delta tells me TBS booked a different flight and it's not going to be in for another 6 hours. I call TBS 5 or 6 times no one ever answers (like always). My rock comes in 6hrs later and there is no water in one of the boxes. My TBS expierence is getting worse! So I get home 10 hours after I left my house and there is red slime all over the rock that had no water!

TBS finally calls me back the next day and tells my the rock is still awesome and that all of this was the airlines fault and that he had a rough night on the airline too. I ask Richard to just please send me another 15lbs to replace the rock in the box and he tells me that I should call the airline and get a credit..... I ask him to replace the 15lbs and I will pay to ship it again ($60) and he still will not replace my rock.

I can't belive they won't help me out! I was a first time customer and tried to be as polite as possible to get a resolution.

Need less to say I would not recommend Tampa Bay Saltwater to anyone.

[liverock]

But the whole story is...

We delivered the rock to the airport as we do all customers, was a booked flight with Delta, Direct flight to DFW.

Once we deliver the freight to the airport it is in the hands of the airlines and we are out of the loop.

The rock was in transit less then six hours, and arrived in perfect shape. The customer did not call the airport and give them the airbill number to confirm that the shipment was there, he simply went to the airport to get the shipment. The freight was bumped to a later flight so he had to wait at the airport.

He calls me and says he want another box of rock at NO CHARGE for him to be a happy customer, because of what Delta did to him. I explain that there is a declared value on each shipment and if he has an issue with the airlines, that declared value is what he can make a claim for.

We go to great extremes to have happy customers, but I refuse to be used, and I feel used here....I will not replace good rock for no reason.

We try real hard to make everybody happy, but this is beyond what I will do as I will not be threatened or ripped off for no reason.


This is the way I feel, others may not, but we have many thousands of happy customes, but there is always somebody you cannot make happy, this is a good example....

Then he calls back and says he is going to cancel the visa purchase, we advise him that is fine, but our product must be returned for a credit, he hangs up.

The credit card company will not credit his account if our product is not returned, if the did you could go buy a TV online, say it arrived late, and you were going to keep it and not pay for it????

where is the reasoning here?

Richard
TBS


:rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

[liverock]

Quality is not an issue here, customer satisfaction is.

Even though none of this was our doing, 15 pounds of rock is not going to break anybody, him or us.

When this customer called, I had just returned from North Carolina where I was for a week to take care of a death in the family. I flew US AIRWAYS and it was a nightmare trip returning, from Ashville to Charlotte, then to Tampa. There were tornados in Charlotte so all the flights from Ashville were delayed, so I was hours late getting to CLT. Then the flight from CLT was delayed. Then finaly when we were susposed to go, they came on the intercom and told us there was no crew to fly the plane to Tampa.

It was another two hour delay in CLT. I was susposed to arrive at 7:30 pm, but did not get to Tampa until 2:30 am.

I was a bit burned out when I got this call, was not feeling to good about the airlines either.

We all have airline problems, freight and passengers, and we are all human.

In case you have not noticed, we make ALL our customers happy, no matter what.

In retrospect, and in better state of mind, I should have simply said "OK" as I usually do and sent the man 15# of rock, but I felt I was being taken advantage of because a few hours of airline delay, and the experiance I had just been through.

Did US Air compensate any of us passengers for the delays?
If you have flown lately, you know the answer.

We will be happy to send another 15 pounds of rock to this unhappy customer, even though we did everything right, and the airlines did not.


Mark and I have been doing this for 30 years and, and customer satisfaction is a priority for us.

Our customers know how we treat them and everybody else, this customer will be no differant.

So when you are ready for the rock, call/email us and everybody will be happy.

I really am of to Alaska now, and will not be able to post until the 18th of July.

[blide]

Richard I appreciate you wanting to correct the situation. This was very frustrating for me because this is my first time to ever setup a saltwater tank and I’m so excited about creating this great underwater world. I have been reading the forum and studying for about a month now and decided to buy all the stuff I need for my 20L nano. I purchased all of the hardware and even some Fiji live rock (10 lbs) from the LFS to get my tank ready for the TBS rock. And when that day came and all of the bad TBS events took place and the phone call the next day it made my TBS experience very disheartening. I’m new to all of this and when you get a product that arrives in a different state than the vendor describes to you automatically think “oh man everything is wrong”. I’m sorry if you didn’t think I was polite (I tried very hard to be), but when you started describing how bad your personal flight was and telling me that’s just how things happen on airlines. I was extremely disappointed because I felt like I was getting blamed for you bad experience on your personal flight.

After seeing lots of posts on reefcentral and putting the rock in my tank I think things will be “OK”, and I accept your apology. I appreciate the offer to send me the 15lbs, but I don’t think I will need it. I have seen a few creatures running about so I think there is some life in the there. Everyone has bad days and what makes all of this good is actually talking about it and coming to a resolution. Every day is a new day… I hope you have a good trip and please contact me when you get this post.

Sincerely,

Bill


PS: Sorry for the loss of your family member

[liverock]

Bill
Thanks for the note and understanding, Richard had a real tough week, besides the airline problems, he was burned out from no sleep and the events of the week, I am glad everybody is happy, as that is the way we leave every customer, regardless.

We will send you that rock if you want....we will be closed july4-18 for a much needed vacation, as we have never closed before being a two man shop, we work 24/7, and I am diving today!

Thanks
Mark TBS