Customer Service Response Time

[zimmal]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently contacted a few different manufacturers/sellers of leather jackets and noticed some pretty divergent response times, with some having not responded over a week later and other responding within the hour(!). There's nothing wrong with taking longer to respond, especially given that some businesses may have dedicated customer support staff, and others may be very small teams with a few people wearing many hats. But the variation is interesting.

This got me wondering, as someone new to this hobby, what do you all think are normal/reasonable response times? What is the longest you have waited for a response? When has a response come very quickly, to a degree that surprised you? Have you ever spammed messages to get some reply, or otherwise done something atypical?

Curious to hear people's stories!

 

[Canuck Panda]

communication is usually a two way street.

 

[TartuWolf]

I see it as a supply-demand thing. If your demand is high enough - you'll reach them by either going in person (most extreme) or at least by calling (less extreme). If not - you'll give minimal effort and just drop an email. If the supply is high and demand is low on their side - they will be much more motivated to answer you via any channel (email, whatsapp, instagram, etc..). But if the supply is low and the demand is high on their side (can't keep up with the orders, enough business as is) then the chance that you'll get an answer via the more lazy channels (email, instagram, etc..) is much lower.
On the other hand some really small makers (like Thedi) might take a longer vacation and you won't hear from them, pure luck.
When I was looking for my first real leather jacket I contacted a lot of makers and got various customer service. For example Simmons Bilt customer service was fantastic.

 

[AeroFan_07]

Use the phone. Should result in much better responses.

I found this to be true with Langlitz, Johnson Leathers and Lost Worlds.

Or just do an online order (Vanson & Schott)

Simply put - while email can be handy & convenient, there's a lot of spam these days, and frankly not one has time to try and answer back everyone. Most of these are small operations with limited staff - who are focused upon making the jackets.

An exception - Carrie at Thurston Brothers does great at communicating via email. But I also have built a working relationship with her over ~ 10 years and many orders.

 

[JMax]

I’ve never had issues calling the makers- LW, Vanson, JL.

The absolute quickest email reply was LW. Minutes after I sent an email and it was a Sunday afternoon. Never had an issue emailing them. Vanson has been good with a day or so lag, sometimes quicker. Bates and Langlitz were good too but I’ve only reached out once or twice each. Other makers a bit more hit or miss. Cal for instance was cool one time and ghosted me the other.

TB does have excellent comms. Great experience. I also thought the gents at IH provided exceptional support via email.

Comms are important for me. Ghost me or take too long and it sours the experience. I’m reachable 24/7/365. If I can do that the least a maker/business owner can do is somehow reply during business hours within a few days.

 

[Tom71]

I’ve never had issues calling the makers- LW, Vanson, JL.

The absolute quickest email reply was LW. Minutes after I sent an email and it was a Sunday afternoon. Never had an issue emailing them. Vanson has been good with a day or so lag, sometimes quicker. Bates and Langlitz were good too but I’ve only reached out once or twice each. Other makers a bit more hit or miss. Cal for instance was cool one time and ghosted me the other.

TB does have excellent comms. Great experience. I also thought the gents at IH provided exceptional support via email.

Comms are important for me. Ghost me or take too long and it sours the experience. I’m reachable 24/7/365. If I can do that the least a maker/business owner can do is somehow reply during business hours within a few days.

Same here. Mostly good experience but little tolerance for poor communication.

I don’t know expect 24/7, but I do expect people to get back to me.

I do a lot of the easy comms on airports, waiting times at the coffee shop, the hairdresser, whatever.
It seems so simple to send a quick „message received, here’s the next step/will get back on xxx“, yet some people just don’t.

 

[AeroFan_07]

Same here. Mostly good experience but little tolerance for poor communication.

I don’t know expect 24/7, but I do expect people to get back to me.

I do a lot of the easy comms on airports, waiting times at the coffee shop, the hairdresser, whatever.
It seems so simple to send a quick „message received, here’s the next step/will get back on xxx“, yet some people just don’t.

This right here:

It seems so simple to send a quick „message received, here’s the next step/will get back on xxx“, yet some people just don’t....

I have long wondered why this is. From a professional perspective, it's the simple expectation that if you are away on vacation, or even taking some time out of a day, you leave an "out of office" message in your Outlook so anyone who does email you gets the response. Plus I make it a priority to get those emails responded to first when I return. Just simple courtesy it seems to me. But then I am not that young these days, so what do I really know anyway...

 

[El Marro]

The absolute quickest email reply was LW. Minutes after I sent an email and it was a Sunday afternoon. Never had an issue emailing them.

This was my experience as well. Stu replied to my emails within minutes, usually with a one or two word response. Prompt and right to the point.

 

[AHP91]

I’ve never had issues calling the makers- LW, Vanson, JL.

The absolute quickest email reply was LW. Minutes after I sent an email and it was a Sunday afternoon. Never had an issue emailing them. Vanson has been good with a day or so lag, sometimes quicker. Bates and Langlitz were good too but I’ve only reached out once or twice each. Other makers a bit more hit or miss. Cal for instance was cool one time and ghosted me the other.

TB does have excellent comms. Great experience. I also thought the gents at IH provided exceptional support via email.

Comms are important for me. Ghost me or take too long and it sours the experience. I’m reachable 24/7/365. If I can do that the least a maker/business owner can do is somehow reply during business hours within a few days.

Response time inversely proportional to weather in the state. It’s like sunny out and nice, brah, what are you doing trying to spend money and make business contacts, brah? It’s Cali, brah?

-a troll, *mostly

 

[JMax]

Response time inversely proportional to weather in the state. It’s like sunny out and nice, brah, what are you doing trying to spend money and make business contacts, brah? It’s Cali, brah?

-a troll, *mostly

Cali is something for sure. I’m all for Arizona Bay and learning to swim. Haha.

-another troll, *mostly

 

[Edward]

Depends on the company, really. I wouldn't expect speed of communications from a one-man company where communications are dealt with between breaks from actually sewing jackets. OTOH, while some companies are generally pretty quick because they have dedicated staff, there are also those who might be quite quick to respond because they've not got much on. I don't think there's any one, uniform standard I'd apply across the board.