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frozenwastes wrote:

Delephont wrote:I'm in the same position....and this is my first foray into PP territory.

Recently Corvus Belli had their Infinity week, and I also took advantage of that, they had GREAT communication and even though they got swamped, I got my stuff is reasonable time.

I've heard nothing from PP, however, my product has apparently shipped. Ok, it's shipping from the States to the UK, so I'll wait before I fling dirt their way....but just to give you guys some perspective, at the same time as ordering from PP, I also ordered from Razorsedge in the US, and it arrived in just over week......hmm

PP's communication and customer service for direct orders sucks. They've always been about retail stores selling their products and aren't wonderful at getting things out the door in a timely fashion. And that was before they put up an anniversary sale right in the middle of a GW ****storm and got swamped with orders.

In short, they dropped the ball by opening themselves up to massive amounts of orders when they already have trouble getting out a small amount of orders.

Everyone who's having delays and problems should use every avenue available to keep on Privateer to make sure everything goes well and in a timely fashion.

They don't have a call centre type set up with people ready to take your calls or emails and fix things. They have a small volume online store that is mostly for bits/parts and some t-shirts. Knowing that doesn't help you now, but it's the reality of the situation.

You're exactly right that it doesn't help us now. It would have been nice if someone had posted that before they, you know, announced a sale in their online shop.

fullheadofhair wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Yeah, because I should have to post on their forum after calling their customer service line, leaving them a direct message on Twitter(where they've been following me for quite awhile now), and an email?

Nah. The balls in their court right now, and any post on their forums can get swept away. Here--it can't.

(Pssst. This is a joke. I'm going to be posting it there soon-ish).

LOL! I was half expecting exactly that kind of reply. It's funny when people choose an option that doesn't work in order to stand on principle rather than doing something that probably will work because they "shouldn't have to."

That has to be the dumbest comment I have read this year. He contacts CS three different ways and he is standing on principle??? - dang, the length people go to avoid blaming PP is more extreme than people defend GW.

I, like many people I am sure, do not mind delays. That happens and I can be very accommodating. Sucky communication in any form is unforgivable in this daya nd age.

Look at what I'm actually saying:

"I've tried XYZ and no answer."
"Have you tried A"?
"I shouldn't have to!"

I have to wonder just how much of my post you actually read. You know that part in parentheses?

Yeah...there's a reason I registered and posted on their site today(under this very same screenname).
One PPS_Alex put out a message for me to contact him, and it's been done.

Irrelevant of "Have you tried A"--three methods of communication with no answer isn't really acceptable. If someone had said this was GW not responding to them in 3 different mediums of communication, there would be calls for blood.

That response does nothing to help things if you're having problems.

If you've reached the point of "I shouldn't have to" then call your credit card company and reverse the charges.
So either keep on them or cancel your order.

Why? I'm not interested in starting a big whole mess with my CC company. The only reason I ordered from Privateer Press for this deal is it's a good time, and I figured a good deal like this is the perfect time to start.

PP's communication and customer service sucks because they're not primarily a direct seller.

Then maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't have done a deal where direct sales were involved?

But hey. I'm not a bizwiz.

I guess I'm just a realist.

I'll have to use this line next time someone says that Forge World is taking awhile to answer their emails.

Guys, fighting amongst ourselves isn't going to solve this. We know the situation, it is what it is.

We each have a way to reclaim our funds should things not work out....in my case, for all I know the package could turn up tomorrow.

@ Kanluwen

You're right, if this had been GW there most likely would have been some serious bloodletting....there's probably a lesson in here for some of us to consider in the future.

As I said in my post, this is my first time ordering from them, and considering how much I have "forgiven" GW in the past, the least I can do with PP is give them a couple more weeks.

If anyone finds out what's going on, facts, then maybe they can post on here.

Delephont wrote:
@ Kanluwen

You're right, if this had been GW there most likely would have been some serious bloodletting....there's probably a lesson in here for some of us to consider in the future.

As I said in my post, this is my first time ordering from them, and considering how much I have "forgiven" GW in the past, the least I can do with PP is give them a couple more weeks.

If anyone finds out what's going on, facts, then maybe they can post on here.

Honestly, if it were a case of I had gotten a shipping email and it took awhile to get here--that's forgivable.

But this is a case of, I know the payment was made. It was made not long after the order was made in fact. There was the order confirmation, then the order got put 'On Hold' the day after the payment was made.

Then absolute radio silence from them...until I registered and aired it out on their forums.

That is what irked me to the point of complaining here.

I don't think this is really a case of Privateer Press dropping the ball so much as being crushed underneath the ball.

But I find it strange that all of this trouble is outrageous enough to complain about it repeatedly online, but not enough to cancel the order/contact your credit card company and get the charge reversed.

What is the standard for outrage these days?

solkan wrote:I don't think this is really a case of Privateer Press dropping the ball so much as being crushed underneath the ball.

But I find it strange that all of this trouble is outrageous enough to complain about it repeatedly online, but not enough to cancel the order/contact your credit card company and get the charge reversed.

Again: I'm not 'outraged'. I'm irked by the lack of communication, from a company that according to many individuals is supposed to be 'great at communication'.

See my issue here? I want to like Privateer Press. The only reason I'm complaining about it here is because, frankly, many people are going to be taking advantage of this sale.

I consider it a kind of heads up. If FW were to be doing the same thing, I'd be posting a notice here. If Corvus Belli were or FFG were--same thing.

I'm going to have to agree with the complainers here. I have an infinite amount of patience so long as I know something is getting done. What bothers me to no end is total silence.

I have personally experienced communication silence from PP in the recent past. Once I had their attention customer service was fantastic but prior to that I was getting extremely frustrated. In this internet age, having customer's emails discarded/left unanswered for any reason (the reason being given to me was an overzealous spam filter) is pretty unacceptable. It's not like I was expecting instantenous replies but I politely waited a week before firing off a second round of emails, before waiting another week only to find out that my emails were not even getting through their system. That is not cool, especially since the email in question was the one I used to make purchases on their online store. Furthermore, the contact form on their main site also seems to lead to nowhere.

Things turned up for me when I posted on their forums. A second instance was resolved when I phoned in and spoke directly to their customer service guy.

This coupled with their web shop shipping calculator problems, suggests that they really need to overhaul all of their website/network related infrastructure and make it compatible with the expectations of the 21st century .

I'm still willing to forgive PP because I like certain aspects of the company and their IP; however, my first experiences with them were definitely soured by my difficulties in getting in touch with them. It really makes a terrible first impression to new customers, especially those expecting an order placed directly with the company to be more straight forward than one place with an Internet reseller/FLGS.

My order arrived today. I had placed mine when the offer was still the tape measure, but I received the three PP dice instead. They included an apology letter explaining the change and a MkII card of my circle warlock initialed by David Carl and Doug Seacat. kinda neat.

Some of us waited for months to receive FW items, PP is late for like... 1-2 weeks at most so far and we are complaining about bad customer service?

If only the same courtesy or even logic can be extended to other companies....

I received an email today to say that my order has been shipped. It’ll probably be a week or two before it arrives at my doorstep but all in all, good to see that my order is progressing smoothly.

Now if only the orders I placed with other companies would do the same…

LunaHound wrote:Some of us waited for months to receive FW items, PP is late for like... 1-2 weeks at most so far and we are complaining about bad customer service?

If only the same courtesy or even logic can be extended to other companies....

Read the posts before posting, Luna.

It's not the receipt of items that's the issue.

It's the lack of communication regarding the orders that is the issue. 3 mediums of communication and no answer=unacceptable. Posting on their forums and raising a stink there should not be the only feasible way of getting a reply.

I’ll have to agree with Kan’s point, even if he has gotten a bit carried away with it. At the end of the day, if PP had responded to Kan’s initial email, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Kanluwen wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Some of us waited for months to receive FW items, PP is late for like... 1-2 weeks at most so far and we are complaining about bad customer service?

If only the same courtesy or even logic can be extended to other companies....

Read the posts before posting, Luna.

It's not the receipt of items that's the issue.

It's the lack of communication regarding the orders that is the issue. 3 mediums of communication and no answer=unacceptable. Posting on their forums and raising a stink there should not be the only feasible way of getting a reply.

Lack of communication? hmm no. come on even you cant be that naive or forgetful.
There are tons of us that dont even get a response after 1 whole month, some up to THREE months. ( yes and the Credit card is already charged as well )
And we know you stillllll love FW to death, am i right? Or is it because they are part of GW? i dunno :3

Now, before you reply with your usual same old same old , let me remind you , your personal experience of them been prompt doesnt extent to everyone.

Just have some patience for gods sake. Or else one can misinterpret you jumping on PP this month just for the chance to complain about them.

I'm curious how "joining the PP forums and raising a stink" is that horribly different from "calling internationally during English business hours" in terms of outer limits for customer service.

candy.man wrote:I’ll have to agree with Kan’s point, even if he has gotten a bit carried away with it. At the end of the day, if PP had responded to Kan’s initial email, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Yeah. Like Sfunk37 said though: now that I raised a stink on their forums in one of the most traveled sections of their forums, all of a sudden I'm getting answers.

Apparently in 9 minutes, they sold out of the $74.99 deal. -9 minutes-.

Eh. We'll see what answer they end up coming up with.

Kanluwen wrote:

candy.man wrote:I’ll have to agree with Kan’s point, even if he has gotten a bit carried away with it. At the end of the day, if PP had responded to Kan’s initial email, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Yeah. Like Sfunk37 said though: now that I raised a stink on their forums in one of the most traveled sections of their forums, all of a sudden I'm getting answers.

Apparently in 9 minutes, they sold out of the $74.99 deal. -9 minutes-.

Eh. We'll see what answer they end up coming up with.

9 mins is a short time depending how much inventory they have at hand.

Do you know how many units they have available at the time the sale starts?

Because i dont :]

Kanluwen, what can I say other than PP sucks at direct stuff? They're excellent at communicating with their fan base about their games, but about direct orders and customer service, they're less than great.

I've had to submit missing parts complaints three or four times before I got any notice that they're actually sending a missing part out.

They've revamped their online store, fixed all their overcharging for shipping issues and announced it was all good. Then they offered this sale.

And they got a response big enough that they got swamped and under that pressure, they sucked again.

No one should have to use a fourth means of communicating with a company after they've already tried three ways. You shouldn't have to.

At that point, you either have to try a fourth or call off the order. It's either "enough is enough" or "I'm going to try one more thing."

I think having private messages on an internet forum being the only reliable way to get customer service is pure ****. That's no way to do customer contact.

Their frontdesk@privateerpress.com email address gets portioned out to so many different departments that it's easy for someone to get lost in the shuffle. And then they all just blame spam filters.

My apologies for not posting about Privateers lack of past success with direct orders. I thought they got it all worked out with their new system. Turns out when enough orders come in, they don't.

However, I feel that had I responded to this thread with a warning to people to watch out for bad communication and bad customer service, I'd have just been written off as a GW fanboy or something.

I play Privateer's game more than any other miniature game, but I'm not going to say the way they handle direct orders and missing parts in their kits is okay. It's not. Might I suggest that if you end up liking the game and want more, that you buy from stores (either local or online) that confirm to have what you want in stock and ready to ship out and avoid ordering directly from Privateer again. I'm only going to do it because I have an army that needs some parts to complete and I'm willing to chance it for one order after this current swamping levels out.

.

Didn't read the whole thread:

PP's reply by email has always been terrible as far as memory serves. Unfortunately, it has been on the decline as of late. About a year ago, email response had a turnaround of 24-48 hours... these days, it can from several days to a week. If you are in a bigger hurry than that, call their line.

My latest parts order from them turned out to be a rather confused affair. Their shipping calculator was broken, so shipping to Canada was not showing the right amount. I placed the order and then asked for confirmation that I'd be shipped USPS. A few days passed, so I called, and they said it had been dispatched already at the low shipping rate. I got an email a few days later confirming the shipping rate. Shortly after, I received the package, no missing parts, and charged ~$7USD for USPS.

I think that their staff are overloaded at the moment, as a few of my friends have had similar problems in the last few months. On average, shipping took about a week longer than usual - (total 2.5 weeks to Canada). Considering that they have a huge promotion on now, I can't see things improving in the short run.

If you have concerns, I highly recommend you call them. This is the best way to get results. In the past, I've had mispacked parts orders, and they've always fixed it for me. They may not be the fastest at fixing things, but they do get fixed eventually.

Kanluwen wrote:
Then maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't have done a deal where direct sales were involved?

I actually agree. I assumed with their new webstore software and all, all the kinks were worked out. Turns out they weren't.

I also actually don't like that they offered this sale but then didn't offer their independent retailers the ability to offer the same bundle at the same price. Privateer has always been about not competing directly with their independent retailers and yet, this sale happened.

Competing with their own independent dealers? First step to GW-ification?

I guess I'm just a realist.

I'll have to use this line next time someone says that Forge World is taking awhile to answer their emails.

Feel free to do so. Also remember to include the advice to never, ever stop fighting for what your ordered or that you can always cancel your credit card transaction for non-delivery.

If a company isn't delivering when they should, not answering your calls or emails, then it's time to be merciless and ruthless. PP, GW, Forgeworld, whomever.

frozenwastes wrote:
Their frontdesk@privateerpress.com email address gets portioned out to so many different departments that it's easy for someone to get lost in the shuffle. And then they all just blame spam filters.

How do you know that it gets portioned out to lots of departments, and that it's not just spam filters? I don't claim to have knowledge of PP's inner working, but it's my understanding that it's 1 to 2 guys that handle the frontdesk stuff, Adam and Alex. It's entirely possible that the emails do get caught in strict spam filters. I'm not claiming that PP has super-stellar customer service, because things to occasionally get lost in the shuffle, but I personally have never had problems getting missing parts replaced, and I always use the customer service form on their website.
They have a phone number that you can call, and it sounds like Kanluwen left a machine message rather than talking to a person. My question is, why didn't he call a second time and attempt to reach a live person? If I have to call a company for customer service, and I get a machine, I don't expect them to call me back - I do the calling back once or twice more.

Kanluwen wrote:

Irrelevant of "Have you tried A"--three methods of communication with no answer isn't really acceptable. If someone had said this was GW not responding to them in 3 different mediums of communication, there would be calls for blood.

Indeed for such a large and professional company I'd expect 2 methods of contact to be the maximum I'd have to use.
They are no starting company and are not run by only a small team, this is a multinational company we are talking about here, this is not the customer service they should have, they remind me of Bell Canada and that is bad.

I feel fairly happy that I decided to buy something than a Hordes starter set with all the trouble you seem to be going through.

Mr. Grey wrote:
How do you know that it gets portioned out to lots of departments, and that it's not just spam filters? I don't claim to have knowledge of PP's inner working, but it's my understanding that it's 1 to 2 guys that handle the frontdesk stuff, Adam and Alex. It's entirely possible that the emails do get caught in strict spam filters. I'm not claiming that PP has super-stellar customer service, because things to occasionally get lost in the shuffle, but I personally have never had problems getting missing parts replaced, and I always use the customer service form on their website.

You're probably right. I think Adam and Alex sift through it all and send it off to who needs to see it. In a high volume email environment, things get overlooked. It could well be that they do have aggressive spam filters. I'm saying there's something more going on than spam filters. I've had emails not responded to and even using this contact form has gone without response:

http://privateerpress.com/contact

So I guess PP's spam filters are filtering out their own website contact generated emails? If so, they need to fix that problem.

When I bought Orin Midwinter, it took three separate parts requests and a total of about 5 months for me to get the missing part. Other people get theirs in days. At a local store we pre-ordered the league kit for the league before last. We got it a week after the league ended. We generally don't run their official leagues and events anymore because of these issues.

Also, if a store gets stock in and notices something is missing a part, Privateer will NOT send them one. A customer has to be disappointed first rather than fixing a problem in advance.

Privateer is going through some growing pains. The sooner they get this all sorted out, the better.

My order has arrived now, so I'm happy.

Well not completely the lack of communication (until I badgered them for info) was disappointing and the PP tape measure is a cheap piece of tat but that was a freebie so I can't really compalin about that. Bit annoyed that I missed out on the templates so I'll have to grab them locally but that just means more money for a FLGS.

frozenwastes wrote:

Privateer is going through some growing pains. The sooner they get this all sorted out, the better.

Agreed with you on this 100%. They're an awesome company, but the last two years really have seen a massive growth in their player base, and as a company they're still working to get used to that reality. I love them to death, but even as a hardcore fan I can see that there are issues they need to work through.

I checked my order status on the PP Store website and saw a tracking number. Looks like UPS has it and it will get to me by the 14th. Good thing I checked before writing them an email asking where it was!

Hi, I'm PPS_Alex. While I've been posting to Dakka purely as a private gamer, albeit one armed with professional knowledge, I do want to address what's been brought up here in my "company voice":

Those who are saying it shouldn't take three or four attempts to establish communication are absolutely right. There are some issues which we are aware of and working to correct, but I am not privy to what's going on in that regard. On reading this thread, it is apparent the effects of those are more widespread than we've been given to understand. As such, I will be bringing this up internally.

To those that have been dealing with those issues, you have my apologies and empathy. As a customer, I'd be just as frustrated myself. As a Privateer Press employee, I am frustrated at not living up the the expectations of our customers, and ourselves. Feedback is what we need to identify and correct errors. If you are showing the patience to work with us on getting your specific issues resolved, I thank you. If you have decided that dealing with them is unacceptable and taken action thusly, I fully understand, and do not fault that decision in the least.

frozenwastes wrote:
When I bought Orin Midwinter, it took three separate parts requests and a total of about 5 months for me to get the missing part. Other people get theirs in days. At a local store we pre-ordered the league kit for the league before last. We got it a week after the league ended. We generally don't run their official leagues and events anymore because of these issues.

Also, if a store gets stock in and notices something is missing a part, Privateer will NOT send them one. A customer has to be disappointed first rather than fixing a problem in advance.

Privateer is going through some growing pains. The sooner they get this all sorted out, the better.

Same frustrations I have with them. I spent 4 months getting a part for a hammerer one time, multiple emails. I made the mistake of fixing a customers problem by replacing a bad model and thinking I'd just request the part. They are a bit slow to help stores with missing parts vs. a customer. No clue why. If I have a bad part now in a model on the shelf, we have an employee ask for the replacement. Speeds things up some, but silly to have to do it that way.

League kits are always a pain to get on time to run leagues.

Currently the big problem is them being 3 months behind filling distributor orders. I go through 3 different distributors, calling in twice a week to each, to keep my store stocked with maybe 70% of their line. They just don't have the capacity to fill orders for some reason, but do things like this sale or selling direct at Gencon, which guarantee even more latelness of getting stuff out.

Hoping they get their act together soon. We're hosting more PP tournaments and leagues, have more players, and could sell more product, if we could actually get it.

Alendrel wrote:Hi, I'm PPS_Alex. While I've been posting to Dakka purely as a private gamer, albeit one armed professional knowledge, I do want to address what's been brought up here in my "company voice":

Those who are saying it shouldn't take three or four attempts to establish communication are absolutely right. There are some issues which we are aware of and working to correct, but I am not privy to what's going on in that regard. On reading this thread, it is apparent the effects of those are more widespread than we've been given to understand. As such, I will be bringing this up internally.

To those that have been dealing with those issues, you have my apologies and empathy. As a customer, I'd be just as frustrated myself. As a Privateer Press employee, I am frustrated at not living up the the expectations of our customers, and ourselves. Feedback is what we need to identify and correct errors. If you are showing the patience to work with us on getting your specific issues resolved, I thank you. If you have decided that dealing with them is unacceptable and taken action thusly, I fully understand, and do not fault that decision in the least.

Thank you for turning on your 'Company Voice' here, Alex.

This man and his company are now under the Official Kan Seal of Protection. Mess with them at your own peril. *glare*

Ohh noze.. the demand for their product is exceeding their supply. This happens all the time and it doesn't keep people from buying the product.

Does it suck? Yes, it sucks.

They are trying to gain some market share from GW and offering a sale like this should do it. Even if it is 1% that will be a significant addition to their bottom line which should hopefully translate into more market share.

GW needs a serious competitior and stuff like this is a good thing for warhammer and 40k players.

frozenwastes wrote:
I also actually don't like that they offered this sale but then didn't offer their independent retailers the ability to offer the same bundle at the same price. Privateer has always been about not competing directly with their independent retailers and yet, this sale happened.

Competing with their own independent dealers? First step to GW-ification?

They have a long way to go to get there. More likely they saw the community was kinda pissy at GW and decided to strike while the iron was hot. And threw the deal together half-donkeyed.....no way to get it going for retailers.

Alendrel wrote:Hi, I'm PPS_Alex. While I've been posting to Dakka purely as a private gamer, albeit one armed with professional knowledge, I do want to address what's been brought up here in my "company voice":

Those who are saying it shouldn't take three or four attempts to establish communication are absolutely right. There are some issues which we are aware of and working to correct, but I am not privy to what's going on in that regard. On reading this thread, it is apparent the effects of those are more widespread than we've been given to understand. As such, I will be bringing this up internally.

To those that have been dealing with those issues, you have my apologies and empathy. As a customer, I'd be just as frustrated myself. As a Privateer Press employee, I am frustrated at not living up the the expectations of our customers, and ourselves. Feedback is what we need to identify and correct errors. If you are showing the patience to work with us on getting your specific issues resolved, I thank you. If you have decided that dealing with them is unacceptable and taken action thusly, I fully understand, and do not fault that decision in the least.

This one post here by you is more than GW has ever spoken to it's customers in a decade.

Thanks.