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What is a reasonable vendor response time?

BeekeeperBetty

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I gotta tell you, I'm feeling like a pariah here. I've been emailing vendors about an anniversary gift, and getting zero response back. I feel like a response within 24 hours is good customer service, and if it is going to be longer than that, then I expect an auto-reply. Is this unreasonable? One particular vendor I have tried contacting several times and only got one response, now I feel like I'm being ignored. The other vendor I have contacted a couple of times with nothing back at all. These are both vendors commonly recommended here.

What would you do in this case? My feelings are starting to get in the way and I feel like I shouldn't have to chase after a vendor in order to get them to sell me an item they have for sale.
 

Gypsy

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Call.
 

msop04

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I agree with Gypsy. Just call them. You may even have to leave a message. Sometimes they're just busy... I always give it 2-3 days before I start to get annoyed. HA! [emoji56]
 

Resonance.Of.Life

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check your spam-- I've had a couple messages from vendors end up in my spam box. And then call them if none is found

The most recent vendor I emailed right before JCK and didn't expect a response till after... a week later and still no response so I decided to email another response. Come to find out, the reply was sent to my spam box :errrr:
 

BeekeeperBetty

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I've checked the spam, of course.

I have 4 young kids, and it's summer break. Finding a quiet minute is pretty much non-existent around here. This reply was interrupted 4 times. :lol: That's why I prefer e-mails over calling.

The one vendor replied to my first e-mail, and then has ignored the others. I feel like he/she doesn't want to bother with me.
 

Gypsy

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I swear, it's not personal. They aren't avoiding you.

Just have your husband watch the kids for a couple hours on a Saturday and call. Most of the vendors are open weekends, I think.
 

PintoBean

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Gypsy|1467171771|4049530 said:
I swear, it's not personal. They aren't avoiding you.

Just have your husband watch the kids for a couple hours on a Saturday and call. Most of the vendors are open weekends, I think.
Some close for the sabbath so they arent open on Saturdays, but open on Sunday, or vice versa. Keep in mind...You're heading toward the July diamond district "holiday" where it shuts down for a week or two. I bet lots of vendors are backed up or on vacation.
 

Gypsy

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PintoBean|1467173390|4049540 said:
Gypsy|1467171771|4049530 said:
I swear, it's not personal. They aren't avoiding you.

Just have your husband watch the kids for a couple hours on a Saturday and call. Most of the vendors are open weekends, I think.
Some close for the sabbath so they arent open on Saturdays, but open on Sunday, or vice versa. Keep in mind...You're heading toward the July diamond district "holiday" where it shuts down for a week or two. I bet lots of vendors are backed up or on vacation.

Great point!!!
 

BeekeeperBetty

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That's a good point about the July holiday, but neither vendor is in NYC. Why do they take July off? And if they're extra busy, wouldn't they send out an auto reply e-mail to let potential customers know?

My husband works every Saturday. Summers are tough because they are always short staffed so he works a lot more in the summer than in the other months, plus they have to train the new residents and interns, and that's extra work. And it takes a few months before they can really do much of anything without a staff physician holding their hand. Things tend to level off in the fall.

Obviously I do make phone calls, but it's just extremely inconvenient. Why would a vendor have "Contact us!" all over their webpage linking to their email if they never return emails? I sent out e-mails to 2 vendors on Sunday, now it's Wednesday and I got nothing, not even an auto reply that they'll get back to me. It's just bad customer service, I think. This isn't exactly the first time I've bought online, but it is probably the first time this has happened when I have sent e-mails telling people I want to send them thousands of dollars and asking for more clarification how to do that and about the product, and I get completely ignored.

My personal situation aside, what is the general consensus for a time frame for a vendor to get back to you about a product they have for sale? At what point do you walk away and go to another vendor?
 

PintoBean

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Any response when you live chat?
 

Ariadne_Theia

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BeekeeperBetty, I think I am dealing with one of the same vendors as you. And my reply time frame is almost the same as yours, haven't heard from them since very early Monday morning. Tbh, I felt so much better when I saw you were waiting for a response as well. I am hoping something came up and they are going to email soon.

Just wanted to assure you that it's not just you. I am in the same boat.
 

Loves Vintage

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Hi BKB,

In the real world, reasonable vendor response time is within 24 hours. In the PS world, this varies by vendor. This topic comes up time and time again with the same vendors and there is often a "just call" response. I hear you on managing multiple priorities completely. I also think it's complete bs to suggest that your husband does nothing to help with the kids and getting him to babysit on the weekend will magically solve the problem. Let's say a week passes and you still wanted to work with a vendor so you manage to carve out was it 2 hours on a Saturday. You make this call. And, you get a vmbox. Ok still no communication and now more frustrated.

I have a lot of calls to make, and I absolutely prefer email as that gives the other person time to respond and I also don't have to waste time with phone tag. Agree it's ridiculous that as business person can't send a simple reply like -- many apologies, really swamped right now, let's schedule a time for a call or I'll get back to you in 72 hours or something else that is nice, allows them to manage their time and is still responsive to the customer.

If I understand you, you have questions about a ready made item? You aren't looking for custom work? That's kind of crazy that the vendor wouldn't make it a priority to respond. If custom work, I kind of get it. That's happened to me before - I asked for a quote, twice, never received a reply. I assumed vendor was too busy, had seen complaints on here about non-responsiveness and just moved on to plan b.

But for a ready made piece. If it were something that I really liked, I guess i'd keep trying to contact vendor in hope of a reply. A post on here usually helps in that regard.
 

PierreBear

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Just wanted to mention that after talking to a vendor today, the summer months are for some reason their busiest months. I noticed that my contact sent an email at 7 PM and had to email her that I appreciate her dedication but my project is not urgent enough to eat up into her personal time. There might be other people with a hard deadline to propose, but I'm not one of those.

Anyhow, just wanted to share that in terms of the jewelry business, though I'm a newbie, it is probably due to the influx of projects and that might be due to kids being out of school or getting ready for school etc etc...

GL with it!
 

packrat

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Frustrating. I can't speak to how busy vendors are-it's sparkly shit and there's a lot of us who want it, so I'm sure they've got all sortsa balls in the air. Most of the vendors, if I email once, i'll wait a couple few days, email again, and then after that, I quit. I don't want to call and hey how are you oh I'm fine hey I have a question on blah blah and talk about it, especially if I'm not entirely sure what I want to do. So, depending on what it is I'm after, sometimes I will wait a couple months if it's not super pressing like I want it NOW this very second, and then try again. Or I'll contact the vendor on their FB business page and maybe even send a message to their personal account letting them know I did. Or say hey I want to ask about such and such, is a FB message to your business page ok or would you rather i use your work email? (or if it's an Etsy vendor, I'll ask if it's better to message thru Etsy) That's worked wonderful for me-Jonathan/GOG, Erica/LAD, Caysie/CvB, Erika, Alistair Kelsey, I've contacted them all thru FB and asked them to direct me to where is better for them, b/c I know emails sometimes end up in space, so at least that way they know there's one coming if they prefer to use business email.
 

leukolenos

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Ariadne_Theia|1467219767|4049710 said:
BeekeeperBetty, I think I am dealing with one of the same vendors as you. And my reply time frame is almost the same as yours, haven't heard from them since very early Monday morning. Tbh, I felt so much better when I saw you were waiting for a response as well. I am hoping something came up and they are going to email soon.

Just wanted to assure you that it's not just you. I am in the same boat.

I wonder if it is the same vendors!!! Count me in as well- At least I know I'm not the only one!
 

BeekeeperBetty

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Good to know I'm not crazy here. In all actuality, I'm really easy going and try to be easy to deal with. People are busy, and they're human and forget things, and so on. I'm pretty forgiving. I've been told that I come across as brash and harsh online, but that's not how I am in person. I'm just always so rushed since there's a lot going on here that I'm blunt.

Here's the long story, so skip ahead if you aren't interested in me tale of woe (little Lego movie humor, I have a 3 year old who is obsessed with that movie!). Lucky me, I'm getting a diamond ring for my anniversary (which passed) and Christmas. Originally, I've been working with DBL for the anniversary present, who is amazing, by the way, but I decided to put that ring off until Christmas so I can save more and get something really spectacular. :Up_to_something: So that leaves me without an anniversary present and my husband has been nicely hounding me about it, since he feels bad I didn't get anything. I found a ring that I really love. Well, the stone, the setting, not so much. So I contacted the vendor asking if I could just buy the stone, and to put it on hold for me while I talk to another vendor about a reset, and then just some other general questions. I definitely want the stone, and if I need to buy the whole ring to get it, that's fine. This is the vendor that I asked about some rings for sale a few months ago, and the vendor replied to one e-mail, didn't answer all of my questions, so I sent the vendor a second and never heard anything. I moved on and decided not to buy because of the lack of customer service. Looks like it's going this way again for this vendor. And going forward in the future, this vendor has lost my business in the long term as well. Too bad, there are gorgeous things for sale there!

I sent a second e-mail to the reset vendor and got a very nice and detailed reply back. But since I am not buying from the other vendor, I will not need these services. However, I have plans for the future, so I will definitely be contacting him in the future when I get moving on those.

I've been kind of bummed out here. Now what? Well, I appreciate good customer service, so I have decided to contact David at DBL this morning about a couple of pieces I am trying to decide upon, and it looks like I'll get something lovely after all, even though I was hoping to branch out a bit, but hey, he answers my e-mails so I guess he gets my husband's money. :lol:
 
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