Since I am both one of the site's newer posters and one who has had negative things to say about Smith & Wesson's service, permit me to explain my rationale.
I spent 38 years in the automotive industry, most of them as a service manager. I learned pretty quickly that there are more bad places to have your car serviced than good ones and committed myself to offering good service. I succeeded, as my shop was consistently ranked among the best on the auto manufacturers' customer satisfaction surveys. I applied my lips to the public's backside on a daily basis because that's what you must do in today's age of consumerism.
Communication is the heart of every relationship from marriage to business. When a company cannot communicate well with its client base, that client base looses confidence in the company and seeks similar products elsewhere. An auto shop without a good communicator with some technical knowledge on the desk can employ the best technicians in the country but will never realize its full potential. That's just human nature and it's my criticism of S&W.
They aren't alone, either. Most businesses have downsized their employee ranks and have fewer employees each doing more, which often waters down their ability to execute each of those tasks as well as they did their former fewer responsibilities. But just because everyone is doing it, that doesn't make it right - it only makes it tolerable.
A lot of successful companies are riding the coattails of their past success and popularity. Smith and Wesson is one of those companies and as long as their customers keep the demand for their products high, they'll see no reason to change.
Once upon a time, Comcast was THE cable television vendor in this area. Their customer service sucked but we had little other options. Then Verizon launched its FIOS service and central Pennsylvanians flocked by the droves to it, not so much to get a better product but to get away from Comcast. I was one of those customers. But Comcast has seen the error of its ways and now offers a 30-day money-back guarantee of satisfaction with their company in its entirety - products, service, personnel, everything. We recently moved to an area Verizon does not yet serve and had to return to Comcast for TV and Internet. I was truly impressed by the installer and the support people I've had to call to get minor kinks ironed out!
By telling a business what it does not like about it, a customer is doing that business a favor. The business can't fix what it doesn't know is broken and a dissatisfied customer who, like most, just quietly goes elsewhere is not helping to correct a deficiency.
I always liked the old saying, "If you are happy with our service, please tell others. If you are not, please tell us." I haven't posted a thing on here that I haven't told S&W. I'm a fan of their products and want to see the company prosper for many years to come.
Ed
In March, think of the women
