Quote:
Originally Posted by ClownsRCoo
I have no idea. All I have been told is that this will find its way to the local airport and I pick it up from there. I've never done something like this before so I'm totally clueless.
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It'll get there by horse and buggy!
I'm sorry it's been so frustrating for you. I really wanted this thread to be about owners of these Dreamboxes and not the issues that a couple have faced in the last several weeks but in the interest of transparency, we will not be moderating these posts and instead will we address them and learn from them.
As I said before, I feel your pain and I am sorry about the issues. There is no good excuse for you to have had to endure this chaos. What i can tell you is that there have been some serious changes at the factory which I am going bring to light as those changes are in part the reason for some of the issues you have experienced. Let me say first that your timing couldn't have been worse. As I told you when we spoke on the phone a couple weeks back, 3 people (all related to each other) were relieved of their duties at the factory. One was overseeing production, one was in charge of billing/shipping and logistics and the other was in packing among other things. This was a long time coming and something that needed to happen for the better of the company as they were inhibiting growth and making it difficult to bring in new people. They also weren't accountable for the screw ups which was an issue in and of itself. Not that there were a lot of screw ups because there wasn't but even so, the attitude certainly didn't reflect the brand or what the company was about and it wasn't creating a good environment suitable for growth . It took a lot of balls on Klaus's part to see this through and without a doubt it was the right thing for the better of the company even though the transition created it's own issues. The likes of which you experienced.
Heiki has taken over for Andrea and unfortunately in the transition, Andrea didn't leave any instructions of information on how to do the job. Everything was more or less in her head and not shared. Granted she had been with the company for what I understand was an eternity. She was also responsible for the shipping and freight forwarding. The departure of the 3 people including her was kind of abrupt. In the end, like I said, it was long overdue and it's for the better though the transition created some (an understatement) chaos for Torsten who has had to pick up a lot of slack in areas that aren't normally his "expertootleidge". Unfortunately that buried him and impacted his communications and followups. He was suddenly wearing several hats while also doing training and hand holding. It appears he is seeing the light now and not nearly as stressed has he has been since this all went down. The new people are seemingly getting well up to speed and things are progressing better. In fact, the new team along with Torsten just got a container out and in route to Ft. Myers with one of the largest shipments of skimmers and pumps that we have seen in a long time as well as getting customers Dreamboxes built. This is something that had been in the works for a few months now.
I will say that while I have not met Heiki, she seems to be getting a handle on things fairly quick and she actually cares about doing a good job which is something I haven't seen from that department since I came on board. This says a lot believe it or not since she is the one that interfaces with the customers when it comes to shipping and invoicing from Germany. She is also VERY well spoken which is a very pleasant surprise for those of us on this side of the pond. She might just be the best english speaking person at the facility in Germany and like I said, she is very well polished in her communications skills.. I know that even our resellers are pleased with the direction things are going despite the bumps along the way. She has however been dropped quite literally into the fire head first and I am sure it's been quite a challenge having to blindly fill the shoes of her predecessor. Things like dealing with the freight forwarders, shipping methods, customs documents etc all fall into her lap. Fortunately, near as I can tell, she has been up for the challenge and I truly think she is going to be a huge blessing for the company.
That said, things are settling down there and I feel like things will be flowing better than ever. The transition created a bit of a backlog but it appears there is light at the end of the tunnel. I will say that Royal Exclusiv as a company is 10000% committed to improvement. A year or two back, the US operations were a mess which was reflected on the forum in many posts by rightfully unhappy customers. They invested in a facility out here and then made the necessary changes including getting good inventory here and hires to insure that things were handled the way they should have been all along. You no longer read about people complaining about service and support out here on the US distributed products. In fact, there has been nothing but praise for the support and the expeditious response time to warranty related issues. That credit goes to the factory for doing what was needed on the US side and being committed to improvement. Now they are doing what they need to do for the factory side too and that will be reflected in response time, production turn around etc. Especially once the new team members get fully up to speed.
Change isn't always easy and it certainly presents it's set of hurdles but despite these issues in the last couple months, I think this was change that was needed and certainly change that will be for the better.
Again, I am sorry you had to deal with these head aches. I hope that once you get your new sump, you will have a big smile on your face and put this behind you and appreciate the hard work and skill that went into building that beautiful sump.
