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On a personal note, I once attempted to order "in stock items" from WG. Waited two weeks as my "payment was accepted". Finally, contacted your customer support. Waited another 3 business days for a response that you were having trouble re ordering the items. Asked to cancel my order and waited another 5 business days for that.



Slightly off topic but I showed this to one of our PR/Social media managers at my office. Granted she has no idea what Warhammer is .She saved this thread for new hires, on"how not to interact with clients"

 Azreal13 wrote:
I appreciate you're trying to be light hearted and friendly, but the problem with that is people who are pissed off with your service are unlikely to take a very positive view of your jocularity.

I think that's a fair point. On reflection I have let my frustration get the better of me a couple of times. I'll will have to try harder to ignore the personal comments and baseless accusations about the company and the people who work for me and instead keep focussing on the customer issues that get raised.

I genuinely do believe that as a business we are better today than we were yesterday and will be better tomorrow but I appreciate that is slim comfort for the guys who had order problems. But rather than how awesome Wayland Games is as a business, a couple of comments have been about me personally and that is not where this conversation needs to be. So let's redress that starting now.

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:
I'll will have to try harder to ignore the personal comments and baseless accusations about the company and the people who work for me and instead keep focussing on the customer issues that get raised.

I genuinely do believe that as a business we are better today than we were yesterday and will be better tomorrow but I appreciate that is slim comfort for the guys who had order problems. But rather than how awesome Wayland Games is as a business, a couple of comments have been about me personally and that is not where this conversation needs to be. So let's redress that starting now.

Please Show me the personal comments?
The only one is Mine when i told you that im gonna Beat up Ur....and thats Realy the only one.
Every complaint in his topic was about orders gone wrong etc...
This are obviously not baseless accusations?
Obviously many People experience such Problems.
No One, Realy no One is interested if Your Business will be better or whatever.
Answer the concrete d Problems , why is wayland games so often told to be Slow to dispatch or to be concrete.

Why Had i to wait for 1 month for a few lousy space marines?
Just answer me this question

 winterwind85 wrote:

Why Had i to wait for 1 month for a few lousy space marines?
Just answer me this question

With apologies, there was a delay in stock for your order being received and then being despatched. As I understand it all orders you have with us have now either been shipped or refunded. If you believe that you still have an order that has not been shipped or refunded please let me know as a PM or a message on our helpdesk and I'll get it looked into for you.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Stuart-Wayland wrote:

On the plus side it's mostly just the same old stuff from the same old posters. The important bit is to keen an eye out for genuine customers with genuine concerns. Those are the ones that make checking these threads important - they are the ones who need actual help.

Just thought I'd transplant this from the other thread about Wayland's poor service as it might get missed now that it's been locked.

I hadn't participated in either thread, as I'd no particular axe to grind, Wayland seem unable to match the speed of dispatch and general support of other retailers, so I simply don't use them, but I've never felt particularly aggrieved on any time I have used them in the past.

This comment, however, I'm not prepared to let pass without comment. It seems to betray an attitude of Workshopian dimensions and frankly Stuart, if I caught one of my staff communicating this way with customers in private, let alone in the largest public forum on the planet dedicated to the market my business catered to, I'd hand down a bollocking so hard I'd render your descendants sterile.

Here's a tip - it isn't in the least bit important whether you consider the "same old posters" to have genuine complaints or not, if someone complains, fething deal with it. Promptly, efficiently and in a professional manner. You don't get to decide if a complaint is worth dealing with or not.

No wonder these threads keep occurring every month or two, Wayland never changes and it appears that at least one staff member doesn't seem to think that it's a problem.

I am going to reply to a few posts for a while as I have an hour to comment. Not just replying to the post quoted but a few others and don't want it turning into a horrific nest of Quotes. We do listen to complaints, we don't like being criticized but we do listen and act as we want to keep everyone happy. I have often called people into the office to discuss issues and discover what on earth happened when something doesn't make sense to me.

We are larger than any other Independent in the UK at the moment. That isn't some grandiose claim of my ego its a fact and with it comes all sorts of issues. First if we are the largest, by definition we have the most customers and the most opportunity to upset customers. But we also send the most product out in a timely manner. It doesn't help those that have issues but it does prevent us from giving up when we read threads like this. Until everything arrives in a customers hands the next day we will be working to improve.

When I see posters on here claim that we have ignored them, I look at our helpdesk system and can see no such evidence, and lets make this clear I am not calling the poster a liar, but it is more than likely that the replies to their 3 attempts to contact us are caught in a spam type filter somewhere. If we become aware of such issues we can work at ensuring delivery rates from helpdesk emails are improved. We have dedicated support staff and they work hard helping customers. They are available 7 days a week. There is no point for us in lying and not helping customers. A customer with an issue that is resolved is actually far more likely to return to us knowing there is always help available. There is no point at all in us ignoring customers whatsoever. We do not hide from customer issues, it is in our interest to respond and solve issues as soon as possible. We want to talk to customers, we need customers to tell us what they like or dislike and what annoys them. We recently spent a significant sum on a customer survey and we are acting on all significant issues our customers raised.

We also carry the largest range of products, that in itself causes issues as it is simply impossible to keep everything in stock all the time. There is neither the money or supply chain to support it. By money it means that it would be insane for us to carry an item that we sell 1 off a year in any number if at all, and sometimes we will take a range, spend lots of money on it and only a fraction of the SKU's sell any at all. Also on the counter to this we tended to maintain low inventory of fast moving items that were very quickly available. We have over a million pounds of stock in our warehouse at trade prices as I type this and even that isn't enough to ensure everything is in stock all the time. We implemented a core range change a few months ago to ensure that the ranges that 80% of sales come from will be fully stocked come the late summer. It relies also on a Back-end system change that happens on or around June 2nd that should speed order turnaround up for those customers. This is an issue for us though but should improve soon.

What is also frustrating is seeing posters claim that we lie about stock levels, to be clear we do not lie about stock levels. Our sites for years have shown available stock as in stock on hand that is not linked to existing customer orders. There will be times where 1 or 2% of Sku's will have incorrect stock levels. This is due to mis picks, human error, shrinkage - taking stock to Salute etc (highest after Salute, lowest before). There is a constant process for rolling stock checks in our warehouse to catch and correct these. With the majority of the errors are related to non barcoded products.

There are obviously things we can and will do better, which we have significant plans to do. But it isn't all doom and gloom, our issues tend to be issues of growth and managing it. Our sales in this financial year are nearly double what they were for the same period last year. So I think some of the issues we have are difficult, but all our efforts are focussed on improvement. Please if you have an issue with us, step back a moment and try to imagine that we are not some monstrous entity trying to steal your money and ignore you. We actually do care, listen and fix issues.

 winterwind85 wrote:

The only one is Mine when i told you that im gonna Beat up Ur....and thats Realy the only one.

If you -- and indeed all posters/forum members could in fact not do this ever, it would be greatly appreciated.

Similarly repeatedly swearing at the person/persons you're dealing with is also not going to really help matters in any sensible way.

One appreciates that there's a grievance here that various posters do not think is being settled in an appropriate manner but that still does not excuse some of the language being used and it especially does not give one permission to make threats towards the well being of another forum member.

Take a deep breath, count to 10, grind those meditation balls, do what you have to do to stay calm.

Let's keep the war aspect purely in the gaming arena please.

Thank you.

[MOD EDIT - Please repost once you've removed any and all personal information from the e-mails - Alpharius]

You might want to '****'-out a lot of that post. It would have been better as a PM, but I expect that's already been sent.

As for the DPD 'signature', I had the same thing once. The package was with a neighbour, but we didn't know which one. The sig was my name, and there was no way I was there to sign for it. The neighbour brought it round later that week.
So, if the delivery driver dumped the package, or left it but mis-recorded it, there's little you can do. The only thing is to get the supplier to stop using that delivery company.
Not good, but It happened to me, too.

I'm not a Wayland Games customer due to a variety of issues I've had in the past. What makes me sad is I would like to be a customer, but then I see threads like this and it reminds me of what I could possibly be looking forward to with my order. Even the apologies read as disingenuous when coupled with the previous customer representative. I know tone in text is difficult to infer, and I don't doubt the sincerity, it justice comes across as bad from a PR standpoint.

What makes me truly sad is how many people are warned away from Wayland Games. For example in my small corner/social circle I am lucky that the majority of my friends are gamers or happy to give our nerdy world a try. And our gaming groups are slowly growing, at glacier pace admittedly, but still growing. We recently all decided to start a Warmachine slow grow league. The sad part was that everyone was warned away from Wayland due to many of us having bad experiences. Money went to other online stores and LGS. We didn't rant on the internet, just a quiet discussion amongst friends. I don't wish any ill on Wayland, they're just a company who try to do well by their customers and make a profit like any business. I just don't think they're aware of how badly they've alienated some customers, and at the end of the day more competition is good for everyone.

It's not going to be a quick fix, but nor is it insurmountable. Responses to threads like this don't help. Genuinely engage with your customers, go the extra mile where appropriate. Maybe a full time community manager if viable. You're only human, you'll have bad days and frak ups like every other person, and we'll get angry and call you out. However if you're seen to genuinely be trying, you might start just winning some lost customers back.

Sounds suspicious that the signed for name is the same as the neighbors. The driver would have been unlikely to know that and I'm sure Wayland would not have.

I don't always use wayland, GW stuff has some great suppliers as does mantic. For general orders Wayland has never disapointed me. My man dollies are in no way time sensitive so a short delay in delivery is nothing to me and the range is fantastic.

suspicious?
the name from the neighbours was given to the courier and the neighbours didnt got the package.
the name was given from the courier company to wayland so no idea whats susicious to you

 Skinnereal wrote:
You might want to '****'-out a lot of that post. It would have been better as a PM, but I expect that's already been sent.

Yes, please.

I've edited your post - please repost once ALL personal info is removed.

Also, please keep in mind RULE #1 at all times.

Thanks!

If I've been 'personal' it's because of the following.

You have been dismissive and unhelpful in the past. I've ordered with yourselves, as has many of the people I play with. Over 50% have had issues. You may have cleaned up your act. I have a FLGS now, and I enjoy supporting that. The FLGS across the country are the only real source of hobby in some towns.

Except that is now under threat. Because you are planning on opening stores that will eventually start eroding communities because they can't compete with the level of discount.

Like I said earlier, I hope you come nowhere near Lincoln. Or Colchester for that matter.

The main thing I dislike is the smug passive aggressive tone displayed on here.

It seems there are 2 key issues here that are being lost in a sea of vitriolic nerd-rage and passive-aggressive, holier-than-thou attitudes from Wayland staff:

1. The availability/stock indicators on the Wayland ARE misleading. I don't care whether you agree if they are or not, the sheer cacophonous volume and intensity of complaints from customers who have been stung by them (myself being one of them) should be evidence enough of this. Accepting payment from customers on the basis of certain availability and delivery times without being able to fulfill that commitment is at best unethical and at worst illegal. My own example was paying around £6 extra for next day delivery for an item that was advertised as "In Stock", to then find it wasn't and I would have to wait 2-3 weeks for the item to arrive. I understand that you have issues with your supply chain, that your new inventory system is still finding it's feet, that you communicate these issues as frequently and as loudly as you can, but the operative word in all of those explanations for poor service is "your". Those issues are for you to resolve, not for your customers to tolerate or even sympathise with. If you have issues with your supply chain, you should not expect your customers to have patience as you resolve them.

2. Your conduct on these forums is very poor. Rich seems to think that extensive essays explaining why Wayland's service is so bad will placate its angry customers and Stuart seems to think that making light of their customers valid complaints with sanctimonious sarcasm and thinly veiled self-congratulatory back-patting will let them off the hook (reading comments like "being the biggest and most successful independent wargaming retailer in the UK comes with challenges" makes me throw up in my mouth a little). If you weren't so defensive you might notice the growing "anti-Wayland" trend spreading within the community and stop to think why this occurring. I have so far never seen these kinds of complaints levelled against Firestorm, Element, Gifts for Geeks etc, and the fact you seem to be alone in what you called a "witch hunt" at one point, and the fact it doesn't seem to have died down after several years, should be cause for alarm, not petulance.

What doesn't help, however, is the conduct of some of the aggrieved users being even worse! I'm sorry, but no matter how valid your complaint is, vile language and physical threats of violence are utterly intolerable. I agree that Wayland could take a leaf out of GW's customer service book, but members of the community who use intimidation and bullying to try and win an argument about what are essentially plastic toys, should be hounded out of it like the bottom-feeding scumbags they are.

Being the biggest isn't a valid excuse as to why you are not the best.

In terms of GW's product, Wayland games are not the cheapest and are not the fastest and - as evidenced here - do not have the best customer service. I've never used them for anything other than 40K, but their shoddy service overall didn't exactly give me the confidence to try again.

There are many better alternatives.

I don't order on-line so I don't have a dog in this fight, just a passing observer.

But...

Ya shoulda taken my advice on being calm and professional.

 winterwind85 wrote:
suspicious?
the name from the neighbours was given to the courier and the neighbours didnt got the package.
the name was given from the courier company to wayland so no idea whats susicious to you

Didn't the company give the name to Wayland before you revealed it however? How did they know it if they did not deliver. Have you asked your friends parents?

my friends parents?
im 30 years old and my friends are far away from living by their parents, 2 houses 25 meters from each other and no other house around in 300 meters, just some realy small shops.
so.. only choice...

LAST WARNING!

Stay ON TOPIC and STAY POLITE!

And just so it is clear, breaking any of the rules and then apologizing for breaking said rule in the same post?

Not going to be good enough...

I have also received pretty shocking customer service from Weyland Games. I placed an order on the 13/04/15 this year. After waiting for 10 days (8 working days) I decided to give them a ring and see what the issue was. After waiting for about 10 minutes listening to really annoying waiting music on the phone I decided it was best to send an email.

Weyland then responded in a rather condescending manner with something to this effect "its 3 working days from dispatch as explained ...".

Now when I actually placed the order it said "Available to Order" which, silly me, I took to mean "In Stock". Now surprisingly enough I didn't actually cancel the order because I decided to see when my order would be dispatched. It was dispatched today 05/05/15, 22 days after I made payment. I haven't even received it yet and its been 22 days.

Dear Weyland Employees - I think the reason so many people are getting angry is because of this frankly byzantine piece of wording "Available to Order" why not "Out of Stock" or perhaps "Out of stock eta x Days". Now if you went into a bricks and mortar shop and asked for, lets say some, Skittles and they said "Sure thing" you paid and then had to wait almost a month for some Skittles you would be a bit miffed too!

I had a personal Conversation with Wayland and literally we were shaking hands and everything is Ok now, from my side.
When mistakes happen apologies must also be accepted.
Nice Step from Wayland!!!!!

 Mardy-Quief wrote:

Dear Weyland Employees - I think the reason so many people are getting angry is because of this frankly byzantine piece of wording "Available to Order" why not "Out of Stock" or perhaps "Out of stock eta x Days".

Wayland have addressed this directly on Dakka before - if you list an item as 'out of stock' then people won't order it, and it gives a negative impression of a store if you repeatedly visit the website to see an item out of stock.

 Riquende wrote:

 Mardy-Quief wrote:

Dear Weyland Employees - I think the reason so many people are getting angry is because of this frankly byzantine piece of wording "Available to Order" why not "Out of Stock" or perhaps "Out of stock eta x Days".

Wayland have addressed this directly on Dakka before - if you list an item as 'out of stock' then people won't order it, and it gives a negative impression of a store if you repeatedly visit the website to see an item out of stock.

I completely understand that perspective. Really I do. But you can't expect your customers to tolerate such ambiguity and lack of transparency. I get that the balance between maximising traffic on your store and not misleading/angering your customers is a difficult one, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I think the overwhelming consensus based on the frequency, intensity and duration of these Wayland-bashing threads shows that they havent drawn that line quite right.

By the logic of that argument, you would expect firestorm or element games to be struggling. Yet they are 100% transparent about their stock levels and product availability at the point of purchase, and are going from strength to strength.

To be honest though, that is an easier problem to solve. What the Wayland seniors should be more concerned by is the appalling attitude of their staff on forums like these. As another poster already argued, if I ran a retailer and I caught any of my staff talking to agrieved customers like that, they would be out of the door in the blink of an eye.

 Riquende wrote:

 Mardy-Quief wrote:

Dear Weyland Employees - I think the reason so many people are getting angry is because of this frankly byzantine piece of wording "Available to Order" why not "Out of Stock" or perhaps "Out of stock eta x Days".

Wayland have addressed this directly on Dakka before - if you list an item as 'out of stock' then people won't order it, and it gives a negative impression of a store if you repeatedly visit the website to see an item out of stock.

1. Then actually stock the items.
2. Showing in stock and then finding out after arm twisting that the item wasn't in stock is EVEN WORSE than showing it as zero stock. Now you've taken someones money fraudulently.

This issue has happened to me exactly 1 time. I ordered from The Warstore. One or two of the paints I ordered were in stock when I added to my cart, but another order went thru just before mine that got the in stock items. I called them up after getting my email from them that explained the issue, and swapped out one of the paints for another, and the other one they said they'd ship to me free of charge when they got it in. First package took all of 2 days to leave their warehouse, and the final paint showed up a week later, again having shipped within 48 hours of them getting it.

THAT is how you deal with inventory issues on orders. TheWarstore shows plenty of items as out of stock, and often gives expected times for restock, and even an option to get an email when the item is restocked on the website.

Quit showing that you have things for sale that you really don't. If you have trouble getting new stock, find a better distributor. If you can't be bothered to pay someone the hours to keep your website properly maintained, then you shouldn't be doing business on a website.

Hell even Bitz.co.uk kept their inventory updated, and they parted out every single GW plastic piece in production.

Seeing reports of this kind of issue pop up constantly over the last few months/years is getting tiresome. Either fix your company or close it if you can't figure out how to run it properly. Tom Kirby could probably do a better job managing the place at this point.

I had negative experience with WG aswell. I registered on their we cite, I entered my whole adress. They allowed me to make order on some GW stuff, and after I made payment showed message, that they can not in fact sand me this good because I leave in Kazakhstan (and I showed this in my adress beforehand didn't I?). I waited for refund for two weeks.

GW web store remains the cheapiest an safest sores of GW minis for me still.

 Riquende wrote:

 Mardy-Quief wrote:

Dear Weyland Employees - I think the reason so many people are getting angry is because of this frankly byzantine piece of wording "Available to Order" why not "Out of Stock" or perhaps "Out of stock eta x Days".

Wayland have addressed this directly on Dakka before - if you list an item as 'out of stock' then people won't order it, and it gives a negative impression of a store if you repeatedly visit the website to see an item out of stock.

Then I don't honestly think you guys have a leg to stand on. In many of the post of the employees from Wayland, you wax lyrical about always wanting to provide better service and how these are teething problems of an overhauled stock management system etc. but the issue everyone is having, as myself and a couple of others have very clearly stated, is that your ordering system is about as transparent as a black hole. Customers find it incredibly frustrating to learn that they are not going to get the items they have purchased, for, in my personal case 23 days (I received it today), precisely because they are not warned first. I can only see this becoming more of an issue in the future unless you address this underlying issue.

For now perhaps its more cost effective to come to threads like this and attempt to perform damage control but at some point your reputation is going to be so poor that your short sightedness now will cost you many potential new customers in the future. Speaking personally I know I will never use Wayland games again and I will vehemently dissuade anyone who asks me from using them also.

I'm out!

I order from Wayland quite a lot. I have had some problems with them, they sometimes take ages to ship, but their customer service is great.

 Reinokarite wrote:
I had negative experience with WG aswell. I registered on their we cite, I entered my whole adress. They allowed me to make order on some GW stuff, and after I made payment showed message, that they can not in fact sand me this good because I leave in Kazakhstan (and I showed this in my adress beforehand didn't I?). I waited for refund for two weeks.

GW web store remains the cheapiest an safest sores of GW minis for me still.

Yes, unfortenately GW doesn't allow any other web stores to sell their products outside of the EU
They show this on the product page, but on their new site it is kinda hidden.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I order from Wayland quite a lot. I have had some problems with them, they sometimes take ages to ship, but their customer service is great.

 Reinokarite wrote:
I had negative experience with WG aswell. I registered on their we cite, I entered my whole adress. They allowed me to make order on some GW stuff, and after I made payment showed message, that they can not in fact sand me this good because I leave in Kazakhstan (and I showed this in my adress beforehand didn't I?). I waited for refund for two weeks.

GW web store remains the cheapiest an safest sores of GW minis for me still.

Yes, unfortenately GW doesn't allow any other web stores to sell their products outside of the EU
They show this on the product page, but on their new site it is kinda hidden.

I mean, to be fair, their banners really aren't what I'd call hidden.

Further to the point about being unable to buy GW items from outside of the EU, the new website now specifically ensures you will be unable to buy the products in the first place. So it is much clearer for customers and the unfortunate incident mentioned earlier simply cannot happen again.

We are far from perfect, but we are making steps to improve. I understand that to a particular group that frequents these threads that nothing I say will induce you to shop with us again. That is your perogative.

As I've said before, we are always looking to improve. Many of the issues raised are months if not years old. It is difficult for us to demonstrate the improvements we are making to people with statements like 'never using your site again" but that is how it goes.If you haven't bought something from us in the last month or so then you won't have seen the huge strides made to improve our service.

I just placed an order with Element Games - it told me what items were in stock and when they expected the items that were not to be available for delivery. I know when they expect the dispatch my stuff and when it will roughly arrive. From experience I know if stuff is delayed I know they will contact me.

From my experience with you guys I would have no clue about any of that and it could be weeks or more before anything turns up...