What is the plan?

[Adobo]

Jason/Jeremy/Cory,

What's the scoop over there at Premium Aquatics? I've had all kinds of difficulty trying to reach you guys. It used to be that when you called PA, you got to talk to Jason. Then, things got busy and so when you called, you could talk to Cory or Jeremy. Then it got busier so sometimes you talked to Cory or Jeremy but often times, you had to leave a message.

Now, I don't even bother calling. I just use chat. And my batting average with chat is not as high as it should be. I prolly abandon about 1 out of 3 chat sessions that I initiate with you guys. And quite frankly, some of the stuff I've bought with you and other vendors have been pretty expensive. Asking about them over chat is not my cup of tea.

First question... is there ever going to be a time where I can call there and ask about stuff from people I know? I asked about talking to Jason one time and was asked if I expected to be able to talk with the president of any other company. (How things change over the years.)

Second question... why is my batting average so low with chat? Look at what I went through today:

Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.
Chat InformationWelcome to Premium Aquatics! An online representative will be with you shortly. You are number {PlaceInQ} in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately {AvgWaitMinutes} minute(s) and {AvgWaitSeconds} seconds. Thank you for waiting.

Even when someone did pick up, the lag between my question and his response leads me to believe that he is multi tasking and does not have his attention set on me. I feel kinda like a second class citizen when I do business with you guys recently.

Just so you know, this year alone, I bought a new light fixture from you guys but didn't bother shopping you guys for my new skimmer, calcium reactor, water pumps, tunze stream, test kits and so on. I just couldn't imagine asking about a $600 protein skimmer over chat. Staring at "Thank you for waiting" messages just gets to me after a while.

Ted

[zhangg3]

Hi Ted,

Did you try emailing Jason? I have always had great response from him. Most of the time will get a response within hours.

[Adobo]

Did you try emailing Jason? I have always had great response from him. Most of the time will get a response within hours.

I'm not saying that you can't reach selected people via e-mail. What I am saying is that when you spend $250 on a powerhead (Tunze stream), it is nice to be able to converse with your retailer in real time to ask about the product. Sometimes, the products we buy are just far too complex to expect to be sold over e-mail or over chat.

Ted

[Jeremy B.]

Hi Ted,

I'm sorry you are having problems reaching us. We do strive to offer 1st class service which is fast and well informed. We only use hobbyist as customer service people and because of this, we have a limited staff. We do not have 10 phone operators ready to take your order because so many customers need some personal attention and help with product selection.

Right now we have 4 phone lines plus our fax line. We did have 4 phone sales (CSR)'s. Cory is no longer with us though, at least in the CSR side, he does some freelance work for us. So we are down to 3 phone CSR's right now. Most of our customers like to ask questions about products and there tank, so often calls take a while and we try not to rush people. So this means more times you'll get voicemail, but we'll call back asap. Every call is very important to us.

For the chat, that was a new service we started a few months ago and we feel it makes an excellent addition to our phone and email support, but it is very labor intensive and sometimes we are talking on the phone and chatting the same time. Chat was not meant to replace the phone or email, but mainly for quick easy questions. Do you have this in stock, how much is this etc. Often we get some chats that are very long with many questions from how to I setup my tank from scratch. So then we are in a chat session for a long time and others have to wait.

We are looking for more help right now to speed up our service. Since we prefer to use well trained people that know the hobby, it takes us longer to fill positions to answer the phone. We hopefully will have another new person very soon. We just do not want to do the "walmart" thing and just have people answering phones and not knowing the hobby. We could very easily just hire a phone operator system to take calls, but we would never do this.

As to me (Jason) not talking on the phone. That is correct, i had to quit talking on the phone. I actually had to few years ago. I was just stretched way to thin. As of today, i work 7 days a week and have for last several years. I answer over 150 emails a day personally, plus the day to day operations of our business. So i'm here working, just because I'm president, doesn't mean I don't help our customers. I just didn't have the physical time to answer phones anymore and that is why we have developed a well trained staff for the phones. Take Jeremy for example, he is one of the most well versed reef hobbyist you'll find in this business. So it's rare for Jeremy to not be able to help you. Jay & Rob are also very well trained hobbyist and all 3 are eager to help anyone that needs it.

So that is basically it. It's not that you are not important, the lag of time is because we feel you are so important and that we treat our customers with such high regard, means sometimes we have slower phone service.

If you check around though, I think you'll find we are actually quite fast. You can't compare our phones to professional phone operators, but if you compare us to other hobbyist geared businesses, you'll find we are extremely fast and efficient, we are just overloaded a little right now.

Our shipping is fastest in this industry, we ship 99% of all orders placed by 2pm the same day. I don't know of any other mail order company in our industry that can make that claim. Most of the larger companies that are comparable in size to us have a 2-5 day ship out time.

Thanks for the feedback, we will improve our service. We have been through growing pains before and we'll get through this one as well and be 100% very soon.

thanks

[jasonfrey]

***above post is from me, somehow got loged in as Jeremy

thanks

[Adobo]

Jason,

Thanks for your reply...

Ted

[jasonfrey]

Hi Ted,

Very welcome. We need to hear that kind of feedback so we know where to focus our energy. So you I'm going to look harder for more help. Customer Service is what we built this company on and we want to always be known for the best customer service.

thanks