Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (03/21/89)
Every once in a while I run into a company that restores all of
my faith in mail order, especially Atari mail order. Allow me to share
my experience of last week with you.
I use my ST mainly from productivity and business, I run a
small mail order company and the vast majority of my customers are
accessed through telecommunications networks. I'm also a Gamemaster
for a Diplomacy game on the GEnie information network. I use my
modem a LOT and a lot of people depend on me.
In a typical day I take orders for wargames as well downloading
customer and Diplomacy player's letters. At night I answer my mail,
verify wargame sales or trades, and post move results.
Over the past few weeks I noticed that my connections were
starting to get a bit flaky. At random I would be logged off for no
apparent reason. What started off as a mere annoyance quickly turned
into a severe problem.
Last week the problem got so bad that my average connect time was
about two minutes before I was kicked off. The modem was all but
unuseable. Already I had a huge backlog and was facing a weekend of
unanswered letters and wargame orders, and the weekend is when most
of my business is done! I needed a new modem and I needed it FAST.
I decided on the Supramodem 2400 and was ready to break out the VISA
and order.
Trouble was that it was already 4:30pm. Worse still, it was
Friday! If I was going to have a modem to work with it would have to
be sent Federal Express overnight.
I flipped through the latest issues of Current Notes, START,
ST-LOG, ST Informer, and ST World and started calling. I explained
my situation to each store making it clear that I needed a modem
overnight. I told each store I called that I would gladly pay the
additional charge to have the modem sent via Federal Express AND that
I would even make all the arrangements if they didn't have a FedEx
account. All the store had to do was put the modem in a box, slap on
a label and wait for the smiling FedEx man to show up at the door.
I called everyone from the big boys in California to the smallest
mom-and-pop store in Hicksville, ** ONLY ONE STORE ** was willing to
listen to my problem and ship the modem to me FedEx. That store was
MicroTyme in Kettering Ohio.
What makes this even more amazing is that Federal Express told me
that they needed someone to be at the store until at least 6:20pm for
the package to be picked up for morning delivery. It was already
close to 5:30 and MicroTyme was closing at 6:00pm! I frantically
called MicroTyme back and told them the details. Jeff, the fine
salesperson I spoke to, reluctantly told me that would be ok and took
my order.
Mind you that this LATE FRIDAY NIGHT near closing time! I'm sure
Jeff wanted nothing more than to close shop and head home, but he was
willing to stay and wait for the FedEx man to show up and take my
package! This is the kind of service that every customer dreams of
and every store wishes it could provide. My hats off to you Jeff and
MicroTyme!
To end this story, I received my new modem and was back in
business the next morning. MicroTyme was not only *THE ONLY* store
that was willing to listen to my problem and ship the modem overnight
via Federal Express, but it also had the lowest price of any of the
other stores I called!!
For the record let me state that I am in no way affiliated with
MicroTyme and was not in anyway paid to write this post. This is
entirely in my gratitude for the fantastic service which MicroTyme
provided me. They have earned my mail order business for a long time
to come and I would hope that the people reading my open letter would
call MicroTyme for their ST mail order needs and save themselves a lot
of wasted time and money trying to find a reputible mail order dealer!
And to the 15 or so other stores I called last Friday that
refused to help me, all I have to say is that this letter could have
been about you!
:-]
Peter Szymonik MicroTyme
P.O. Box 369
Kettering, Ohio 45409
Tel. 1-800-255-5835
ron@gsbmva.uchicago.edu (Ronald J. Rangel) (03/23/89)
I only use MicroTyme for all of my mail order bus. I used to like Computability in Wisc. but they have gone down hill over the last four years. They have people who don't 1. know whats going on (what version of TDI Modula2 do you guys have?") 2. know what is in stock (Nothing like ordering by phone and waiting three weeks - argghhh memories of Computer Mail Order-CMO). MicroTyme has pretty good prices and they have alot of stuff. I bought some MIDI software that was pretty hard to find except at music specialty stores for 30% less at MicroTyme. They even helped me track a shipment that was lost - actually microtyme called me and told me that my landlord signed for it!!!!!!! I'd go with them first! (I hope that they don't raise their prices after all of this good publicity.) Ron