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Hello,
I've been pondering over returning, after many years, to WHFB. I've decided to buy that Uniforms and Heraldry of the Empire book to have a mootch and ponder, it's especially interesting to me since some folks on a forum I dwell on tell me it has Marienburg uniforms.
So, 2 weeks ago, I took a look on the website to discover, surprisingly given the release of 8th ed, that you had discontinued it.
Therefore I telephoned my local GW store who told me they didn't have one in stock but a meeting was due to take place of the regional managers in a few days and that he would put out the call to locate one, it should be no problem to do so since they would have some somewhere certainly.
2 weeks past with no contact, so today I ventured into my local GW, to be told by the guy there (different guy) that he had no idea and had not heard of any such request. He attempted to use the internet to see if there might be any in other stores but the internet wouldn't work and his search yielded no results.
I thanked him for his effort and returned home, phoning the main ordering service. I waited in a queue for 25 minutes to finally speak to someone (your music is distorted so much it has become static). The guy that finally answered called me 'mate', 'a'rite mate, what can I do you for'...

I explained the situation, politely, and then asked him, saying 'I know the site says it's no longer available, but I'm sure there are some out there, in a store or warehouse, it's only just gone out of print'.

"Naw mate, it ain't here on the site, it's sayin out of stock"
"yes, but can't you put out a request or something"
"Naw, we ain't got that"

long pause

"ok then, thank you"
"yeah, cheers mate"

So, firstly I am not your fething 'mate', secondly your customer service blows colossal chunks, thirdly a pox on your house, your customer services director should be flogged through the streets for allowing a call centre like that to exist.

There is no central database of the exact stock holding of each store. It's not a customer service issue.

Why didn't you just phone the stores near you?

The US online store still has it.

U.S. webstore still has it for sale http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod2120005

Scott-S6 wrote:There is no central database of the exact stock holding of each store. It's not a customer service issue.

Why didn't you just phone the stores near you?

The latest annual report says they have implemented an automated stock system through their stores and warehouse. So there should be a database of exactly what is where. Whether the guy who can answer the phone can get to it is another question. I mean really GW just got to the mid 90s with the automated stock replenishment thing, we can't expect them to be up to Y2K levels of integration yet; maybe by 2015.

The local manager shouldn't have had to do anything at a meeting. He should be able to go to the point of sale terminal, say I need one of these, and the system should know where there is a spare collecting dust and have it shipped; either across town or from across the country. Bookstores have been doing this for 15 years. Heck my local liquor store can find me bottles of Scotch in this manner.

caddock wrote:

The latest annual report says they have implemented an automated stock system through their stores and warehouse. So there should be a database of exactly what is where. Whether the guy who can answer the phone can get to it is another question. I mean really GW just got to the mid 90s with the automated stock replenishment thing, we can't expect them to be up to Y2K levels of integration yet; maybe by 2015.

The local manager shouldn't have had to do anything at a meeting. He should be able to go to the point of sale terminal, say I need one of these, and the system should know where there is a spare collecting dust and have it shipped; either across town or from across the country. Bookstores have been doing this for 15 years. Heck my local liquor store can find me bottles of Scotch in this manner.

QFT

Amen, brother, take it on up to the mountain.

Tris ive got Marienburg sold down the river sat hear .
pm me your address and i ll pop it in the post.

When I worked GW customer service, I would have done an inital search for the book in our system. Then I would have walked into the adjacent store. If I still could not have found a copy for you, I would have gotten your information, then asked my manager to call the warehouses and see what was up with the book.

It seems to me the guy you got didn't care. Call and ask for a manager or supervisor, because GW prides itself on customer service, and it sounds like you did not get someone who even tried to help you.

We used to have a big board with limited product on it, and the stock levels. These would almost always be off by a small number, because of people selling them and not scanning them in etc. It's just the nature of business, people forget or don't know.

Our old system used to have stock quantities, but right before my department was shut down, they switched to a new one, and I don't recall being able to see what we had in the warehouse.

Black Library products were never correct...something to do with how they were scanned in. Guess they have not fixed that.

Again, call or write GW and say you were unhappy with the level of service you got.

Sorry MGS, but the last part of the letter isn't going to get you any attention. So it was kind of pointless sending them that.

Unless your just getting it off your chest, in which case fair dos.

Dear Customer,

We appreciate your interest in our Hobby. Our hobby centers and internet/phone ordering services provide you with the most exciting fantasy and science fiction gaming. Whether it's one of our tabletop wargames; modeling supplies; novels depicting our exciting settings; a subscription to our house catalog or an entire boxed army, we are excited to provide our customers with the best products available. Again, thank you for your interest in our products and good gaming!

Signed,

J. M. Formletter
Vice President, Marketing and Retail Sales

Seriously, I suggest you ring every shop you can easily get to, and they may have one in stock somewhere. I did it a few weeks ago and managed to get the last Mega Paint Set in London. But I agree with you, their customer service blows.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

"Naw mate, it ain't here on the site, it's sayin out of stock"
"yes, but can't you put out a request or something"
"Naw, we ain't got that"

long pause

"ok then, thank you"
"yeah, cheers mate"

So, firstly I am not your fething 'mate', secondly your customer service blows colossal chunks, thirdly a pox on your house, your customer services director should be flogged through the streets for allowing a call centre like that to exist.

He sounds like a Australian bogan! Tell him he cooks bad sausages and he'll cry! And that his face looks like a wombats arse.

We are Bogans in Australia, but not MASSIVE ones

LOL

a moderator wrote:Please do not post images which include foul language.

We have a copy at my local games-workshop.

If you really need it, i can pick it up and mail it. A'll I want is the money for the book and S&H

Hey there MeanGreenStompa,
I'm sorry that happened to you. It hurts coming from GW, because they matter to us. Everyone has stories about bad, even atrocious customer service sometime, someplace. Usually after a bit of calling upon the gods to curse them, we can shrug, vow never to do business with them again, and in time maybe even make a funny story out of it. But when GW messes up, it really hurts, 'cause we want to believe the best out of them, and our expectations makes the disappointment real.

One Christmas I ordered slotta bases from GW USA. Instead of getting my 10 packs of slotta bases, I received 10 individually bagged slotta bases. I was stunned, but then I reasoned 'It's Christmas, they probably have temp help that don't know any better'. So then I called GW USA and the representative was very...negative, assuring me that they did not do this because it's not the way they sell them. She came as close to saying I was lying as she could without using the actual words.

Well, it was Christmas, I was under a lot of stress, the bases were part of presents I was supposed to give, I almost cried to be honest. After that I didn't buy GW for years. I bought Ral Partha, Heartbreaker, anything but GW... it took a long time for me to forgive them.

So, my sympathies Meangreenstompa, I hope the disappointment and frustration will ease and pass away. Warhammer Fantasy is great, and I once played the Empire, it's a joy to paint all the different units. May the hobby bring you joy as it was meant to, be well and be blessed!

---- Frankie

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Hello,
I've been pondering over returning, after many years, to WHFB. I've decided to buy that Uniforms and Heraldry of the Empire book to have a mootch and ponder, it's especially interesting to me since some folks on a forum I dwell on tell me it has Marienburg uniforms.
So, 2 weeks ago, I took a look on the website to discover, surprisingly given the release of 8th ed, that you had discontinued it.
Therefore I telephoned my local GW store who told me they didn't have one in stock but a meeting was due to take place of the regional managers in a few days and that he would put out the call to locate one, it should be no problem to do so since they would have some somewhere certainly.
2 weeks past with no contact, so today I ventured into my local GW, to be told by the guy there (different guy) that he had no idea and had not heard of any such request. He attempted to use the internet to see if there might be any in other stores but the internet wouldn't work and his search yielded no results.
I thanked him for his effort and returned home, phoning the main ordering service. I waited in a queue for 25 minutes to finally speak to someone (your music is distorted so much it has become static). The guy that finally answered called me 'mate', 'a'rite mate, what can I do you for'...

I explained the situation, politely, and then asked him, saying 'I know the site says it's no longer available, but I'm sure there are some out there, in a store or warehouse, it's only just gone out of print'.

"Naw mate, it ain't here on the site, it's sayin out of stock"
"yes, but can't you put out a request or something"
"Naw, we ain't got that"

long pause

"ok then, thank you"
"yeah, cheers mate"

So, firstly I am not your fething 'mate', secondly your customer service blows colossal chunks, thirdly a pox on your house, your customer services director should be flogged through the streets for allowing a call centre like that to exist.

Cheer up MGS, sounds like you were dealing with an Aussie.

And we call everyone 'mate', even those we hate.

Well, I bought one off amazon, for a couple of quid over the RRP.

Thanks to folks who offered to send one here and via PM, and a massive DOH! for me for not figuring out I could have looked on the US and other GW sites... Although perhaps the tame chimp I spoke to on the phone could have had that to mind.

Given that GW makes a big song and dance out of 'yes we're expensive but that's cos we're the best', I found it a frustrating and time consuming exercise, think I will compose a fairly comprehensive letter of complaint and send it in.

It's always worth complaining to GW, I had 3-4 issues of WD not turn up, I got free issues from the shop eventually but complaining to Mail order got me a free Landspeeder.

So deff send letter/email, it might be worthwhile calling actually as that's harder for them to ignore.

So didn't Zack sort it all out for you in a flash?

So it's out of print. That happens, you know - it's not unique to GW.

And 'mate' isn't unique to Australians either.

Tailgunner wrote:So it's out of print. That happens, you know - it's not unique to GW.

And 'mate' isn't unique to Australians either.

It went 'out of stock' about 5 days prior to my initial request. There would have been some in stores. A little digging would have yielded results but this was not done. Instead my initial request was taken and immediately ignored, I could have sourced the book myself in a couple of days and instead weeks were wasted. My dealings with the guy over the phone were poor customer service regardless of the overly familiar terms, calling me 'mate' was reflective of wider lack of effort or interest in my custom. The guy was slack.
This was about individual customer experience, that experience was poor.

The company claims justification for prices and stance due to 'the best model soldiers in the world' and 'customer service bar none'. This was not my experience.

caddock wrote:
The latest annual report says they have implemented an automated stock system through their stores and warehouse. So there should be a database of exactly what is where.

IIRC that automated stock system is just an in-store order point for customers to order items. It's not an inventory management system.

I hate hearing that you had such a bad experience with their rep on the phone. The US reps have always been very polite and helpful with me. (Touch wood.)

There is nothing worse than wanting to give a company money, when they don't have an effective system to get you their product in return!

Arschbombe wrote:

caddock wrote:
The latest annual report says they have implemented an automated stock system through their stores and warehouse. So there should be a database of exactly what is where.

IIRC that automated stock system is just an in-store order point for customers to order items. It's not an inventory management system.

Could be I suppose, that would put them back into the 1980's. However the page 5 of the report says " through the implementation of automatic stock
replenishment and a streamlined range in our Hobby centres. The latter has been made possible by the introduction of our new Games Workshop Webstore
in all Hobby centres ensuring that customers can access the full range without us having to carry the slower moving lines on shelf. We now carry less stock in
each store and are more in control of warehouse stocks which will help us minimise stock write offs in future.
"

That seems to be two different things, the Hobby Center Webstore kiosk makes having a streamlined range in store possible. The automatic stock replenishment means they carry less warehouse stocks.

Further on it says " In addition to the new web terminals we have installed in our Hobby centres, we have also introduced new tills in France
and Germany to complete the rollout of automatic stock replenishment. " again it identifies them as discrete projects.

page 9"as a result of centralising our stock management, the investment in automatic
stock replenishment in our Hobby centres and optimising our warehouse stock levels"

Automatic stock replenishment and centralized stock management are good things. It means less paper work and less guesswork. It means when someone buys a marine and leaves the store with only 5 boxes, the warehouse knows either right then or at least when a batch job runs at end of day and a new bunch of marines show up on the next delivery truck. Again this was done 15 years ago at least. Every convenience store chain I have been in has done this for a long while.

So if the centralized warehouse can know how many boxes are where so they can ship new ones, it is a relatively simple feat to allow anyone in the chain access to that data so they can find something a customer wants and have it to them on the next truck too. A private webportal with a simple query by name or SKU, reachable from those same in house PCs that can get to the webstore would work wonders.

edit: for that matter this can be extended to customers, albeit in a restricted fashion. I go to my bookstores web and enter a title and ISBN and give them a city name and they can tell me which store has how many copies of the book I am looking for. I can even have alerts e-mailed to me for when the new Black Library title shows up in my nearest store.

The Webstore order point was what I was thinking about.

Automatic replenishment doesn't necessarily mean that there is a centralized database of what each store's stock level is or should be. It could be as simple as scanning the barcode on the item at the register automatically generates an order for a replacement. The warehouse doesn't have to know how many of a particular SKU the store is supposed to have only that it got an order to fill. It won't know if the order is for sold stock or if an increase in iventory.

The fact that it was discontinued should have immediately told you it would be a hassle to get it, and also to prep for some form of failure.

If I were in your shoes, the thought of E-bay would have instantly popped into my head when I was told "discontinued".

The manager you spoke to did let you down though. If he gave his word, even over the phone, he should've followed up on it, success or not. Did you take his name/give yours and tell him you'd either follow up on it, or you'd appreciate it if he called you? Be proactive, waiting two weeks is more and more opportunitues for this person to forget about you. It happens.

'I know the site says it's no longer available, but I'm sure there are some out there, in a store or warehouse, it's only just gone out of print'.

How are you "sure" there are some out there? I ask this because I have to take calls like this fairly frequently from my customers and they always say the same thing about backordered or discontinued parts for motorcycles, jet skis and jet boats. The guy on the phone is looking at a database that tells him a warehouse stock, yet people somehow seem to think there are whole warehouses full of exactly what they need. Where does that kind of thinking come from?

To me the guy on the phone was clear and concise, you just seem to be annoyed by the "mate" thing because the call didn't work out the way you wanted it to. If he had said, "Yeah, I'm sitting on a stack of them and I'll next day air one out to your doorstep!" he could have called you Susan and you wouldn't have cared. I've had people get offended at being called "Ma'am or "Sir" at my shop.

In customer service, the onus of being polite is on the business and not the customer. After all, customer service is not a privilege but rather a selling point. I would hope that businesses that handle their customers poorly would suffer because of it even if many of their customers tend toward rude when unprovoked. TBH, I am projecting my own recent experience in dealing with EA support. I have been incredibly nice and polite to the reps throughout all of my communications with them. The result: it's now been over a week and I am no nearer to a solution than I was on day one and have not heard a response to any of my inquiries for three days (not counting the weekend) espite numerous calls and e-mails. You have to be prepared for customers who have gotten this kind of treatment before and are already geared up not to take it from you. Customers ask if the rep is sure that there is no product in the warehouse because they do not trust that the rep is really even looking. In MGS's experience that's probably because the BlackShirt who told him he'd look into it never did. GW had already failed MGS recently before he ever got to the phone. The rep's casual tone just reinforced MGS's sense that he was being brushed off. But maybe the rep just thought he was being personable. In my own experiences with customer service, almost every bad mood can be killed with kindness.

It amuses me that you were very polite to all the GW people you met and talked with, but have come out here to rant in relative anonymity. Why not rant to GW directly?

Solorg wrote:It amuses me that you were very polite to all the GW people you met and talked with, but have come out here to rant in relative anonymity. Why not rant to GW directly?

I've just finished writing my letter.

It amuses me that you're amused someone makes a post here, given the utter fething uselessness of 'who would win in a fight, superman, abbadon or megatron, if they all had to fight and then only the winner got to take on the emprah' style posts (of which we seem to be drowning in) or any other number of garbage content posts, my actual experience with relevance to the hobby we're all here about and the sense of shared experience with other consumers would actually provide some interest as reading material and invite comment.

I only started getting a bit pissed off when I got off the phone after being given short thrift by the sales guy. I have remained polite in the letter, there is no point in ranting, it just makes the recipient hostile.