What's the Acceptable Wait Time for Customer Service?

[MV Wanderlust]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

Initial Enquiry
A) 1-2 hours
B) Same day
C) 2-3 days
D) 4-5 business days
E) Next week

Purchased Product
A) within 10 minutes (i.e. I am still sitting at my computer)
B) 1-2 hours
C)24-36 hours
D) 48 +
E) 5 business days

+1 for this. However, Live Chat is outstanding service (A) in my book.

[Sandero]

another apples and oranges thread.

Each "instance" has so many variables it makes it impossible to set parameters.

I hunted for a part to a discontinued Aquasignal nav light. No one supported replacement parts. Somehow I came upon a "dealer" in Chicago I believe... www is amazing like that. Guy told me he didn't have black, but sent me at no charge for anything 2 whites when I needed only one.

Most mfgs seem quite good on support. The bigger the company the worse they are... so say Alpha Marine is better than Raymarine.

Groco seems to be in the middle for customer support... sometime great and other times not so.

www is a blessing and a curse.

[a64pilot]

I am Product Support in my company as one of my jobs.
I return an email within an hour, sometimes that means we are pulling drawings and will be back with you as soon as we get an answer, but you get something back, rarely I'm flying and it may be a little more than an hour, my phone gets the emails too of course.
My business phone rolls to my cell, used to be when I had a Blackberry I had it so that it turned off at 10 PM to 6 AM. I won't answer after 10 PM or before 6 AM. That is seven days a week. Our business is seasonal and very highly time sensitive, you cannot have one down for any length of time during the season.
Majority of our customers are international and not all think about the time difference.


I know where Rich is headed, and it's why I bought my fridge from him and why I will buy my watermaker from him.

Memorial day weekend 2016, we were leaving on our first ever three week holiday, everything was being loaded, we have a huge spillover fridge / freezer, and it was packed. To be ready I had defrosted it, and it wouldn't re-start, the dreaded three flash, over amp code. I had tried what I knew to try, no time to buy a Engel or anything, nobody is open on a three day weekend, can't even order one to be shipped so I could pick it up for a t least a week, first leg was three of four days passage, looked to be a ruined vacation. Who wants to go to the dry Tortuga's with no cold food or drinks, in Summer, to say nothing of the steaks etc that would be ruined.
Rich answered his phone on Labor day weekend, got me to try a "trick" which worked and got me going until he could send me a replacement controller. which saved the three week vacation, a once a year occurrence that could not be re-scheduled.
I buy from him for the knowledge that if I need him, he will answer the phone

[Sea Dreaming]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

I agree with these exactly.

Pet peeve is the companies that have an e-mail address, or a "contact us" form on their website, but take days and days (if not weeks and weeks) to respond. If you are not going to check your e-mail at least once a day then -- for God's sake! -- take it off of your website and just admit that you haven't yet joined the 21st century!

Recently I filled out one of those forms. I got a response in 5 minutes!

On the other had, we had to wait 3 weeks for another inquiry because the vendor was out of the country. In the end they could not help us anyway.


I have noticed that the more I perceive I have an "emergency", the faster I expect a response, whether my "emergency" is real or not. Sometimes the difference is just me having a bad day.

[Teknishn]

Working in the marine repair sector here in Egypt (currently on a restoration project. Foreign owned boat with an obscenely large budget), I deal with vendors after purchase. Egyptian companies that have websites rate as below poor in e-mail responses. Calling them on the phone is a hit-and-miss proposition as well. Dealing with European vendors? Italian companies are pretty poor at following up after an initial e-mail response with 48-hours asking for the serial number of our equipment, e-mails after that go typically go unanswered has been my experience. Phone calls to Italian companies have yielded better success rates however. E-mails to German, British, and US companies have generally been good to excellent in response times (2 hours-1/2 day).

My best responses have been from MAN Diesels in Germany requesting tech manuals for a set of engines on my last yacht (Hard copies stolen from the yard office in Alexandria, Egypt). Response time was 1 hour asking for model and serial numbers of the engines....had .PDF copies of operation, overhaul, and parts manuals within 2 hours of sending them the info.

Seakeeper (roll stabilizers). Above-and-beyond follow-on service. Stabilizer installed by the previous engineer and departed the project. I was tasked with finalizing the electrical installation and commissioning. The Stabilizer didn't work, wouldn't initialize or start. Read the tech manual and tried everything listed, still no joy. Contacted Seakeeper, and although our stabilizer was out of warranty (sat in a warehouse for 4 years after purchase), over a period of 4 days, Seakeeper sent proprietary schematics and troubleshooting procedures not shown in the tech manual, at least 3 e-mail exchanges each day, and once the fault was identified (Compact Motor Drive Box assembly...a majorly expensive component and not locally repairable), we had a replacement onboard in 48-hours at no cost to us as the stabilizer had zero-hours run time since purchase over 4-years ago. They even paid the customs and duty fees to import it into Egypt. Found that to be above-and-beyond.

[Cheechako]

For service or technical:
A) Above and Beyond -return contact within an hour
B) Excellent - return contact within a few hours
C) Good...nothing special but acceptable - return contact within a day
D) Poor - return contact within a few days
E) Unacceptable...I won't do business with a company like that. - return contact not happening or happens in a week or more.

For enquiries:
A) Above and Beyond -return contact within a few hours
B) Excellent - return contact within a day
C) Good...nothing special but acceptable - return contact within a few days
D) Poor - happens in a week or more.
E) Unacceptable...I won't do business with a company like that. - return contact not happening

[redhead]

I was trained and eventually trained others in Customer Service. Complicated subject -

If no established relationship with the company: an answer by close of business that day will usually suffice. I say that knowing that the guy who answered within 2 hours probably got the job. It has a lot to do with number of employees replying.

If there is a relationship with the company (already has your product, or detailed discussion has already happened) then there is a window of about 2-5 hours before they start getting cranky (customer feels ignored, draws on previous bad experiences with other companies).

The most important thing I ever learned - It takes twice as much time, effort and money to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing one happy.

There's lot of other things that can make the acceptable response time longer or shorter - generational, geographic and gender.

[daletournier]

My previous business was very much about customer service and if I had to describe what customer service is, "its building relationships" .People buy from people they like, venders need to make customers feel valued, this can be done by prompt replys to emails and phone calls, not replying or replying very slowly says "your not important" communication is the key.

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[sailorboy1]

And then there's ............................................. Island Time

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

And then there's ............................................. Island Time

Island time is wonderful, I cruise so I get it, but business's that run on island time get paid island money :-)

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[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by Sea Dreaming

On the other had, we had to wait 3 weeks for another inquiry because the vendor was out of the country.

See now, if you're a one-man (or woman) operation then I don't really have a problem with the fact that you might be unavailable some times. But if that's the case then SAY SO! On your website, mention that you are sometimes out and may not be able to respond promptly. On your voice-mail, tell the caller that it may take X number of hours to respond. Or even X number of days; I don't mind that if you TELL ME!

When you don't say anything, when you don't give any indication that you are a one-man operation, then I will expect a response based on the assumption that you have employees who answer the phones, or respond to e-mails, for you. Afraid that I'll be put off because you are such a small operation? No, I'm going to be way MORE put off if you don't respond in a timely manner!

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Island time is wonderful, I cruise so I get it, but business's that run on island time get paid island money :-)

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In St Martin that's between $50 - $100/hour..

[Cotemar]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Pet peeve is the companies that have an e-mail address, or a "contact us" form on their website, but take days and days (if not weeks and weeks) to respond. If you are not going to check your e-mail at least once a day then -- for God's sake! -- take it off of your website and just admit that you haven't yet joined the 21st century!

I Ageee,

Those companies I will never ever do business with, because they have already proved that they are poorly managed or Dis-Connected.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by boatman61

In St Martin that's between $50 - $100/hour..

My experience is the guys making the money on the islands aren't the locals ,they are the imported expats, that employ locals and pay local money. Phukets the classic for this.

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[Capt Robert]

Funny you should post this, Third Day. I signed a work order for AC/DC work on my Catalina at Green Cove Springs Marina May 24, 2016. I've heard every lame-brained excuse why the marine tech hasn't been able to begin this work.

I'm so frustrated that I want to put her in the water and get towed to somewhere that knows what customer service is. Argggggg!