Does UDC never answer their phones???

[Catboy]

I have called unicycle.com's phone number 4 days in a row now at 2 different times and they have not answered their phones. I also have emailed them and havent gotten a single reply. Are they just on vacation or something???

[uniextreme]

They dont usually answer but if you leave a message they seem to get back to you. The emails do take along time to reply. I heard they have caller id so if you kepp calling i bet they will pick up. BUt today is sunday so I dont know if they are open today?
-Brian

[TheObieOne3226]

They always answer when I call. Maybe they have caller ID.


Seriously though. Call them and if they don't answer, call back in 10 minutes. Repeat. If you're having really bad luck, email them or leave a message. But I have been really upset with their customer service recently. It has been really poor. Try Bedford.

[Catboy]

Iv'e called and left 2 messages. Both of them were polite, but the little kids voice on the answering machine is quite annoying. I wish the guy from the unicycle.com ad in Universe2 would do the answering machine so I dont have to hear: *little kid voice* Hi! You have weached de copowate officos of unercycer dot coom, pwease weave a message and weew caw you back. For those who don't understand any of it: Hi! You have reached the corporate offices of unicycle dot com. Please leave a message and we'll call you back.

[TheObieOne3226]

Did you hear about the great pissing off of Kevin by unicycle.com?

[James_Potter]

Originally posted by TheObieOne3226
Did you hear about the great pissing off of Kevin by unicycle.com?

Did you hear about the great pissing off of everyone by unicycle.com?

Anyway, no, please tell your story.

[TheObieOne3226]

Originally posted by James_Potter


Did you hear about the great pissing off of everyone by unicycle.com?

Anyway, no, please tell your story.

I'll attach the angry email I sent them, as it is much easier.


To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my displeasure about a recent "transaction" I had with unicycle.com. I ordered an item (Kinport rail adapter) online. The item was not listed as out of stock. The next day I called to ensure that the item was in stock and ask who my money order needed to be made out to. I was told it was in stock.

I received a call earlier today informing me that the item was, in fact, out of stock indefinately. I was offered no substitute. My only option was to have my money sent back to me. I am not satisfied by this.

Because of your mistake (the incorrect information I was given) I am without my money for 2 weeks. I will have my item, from a competitor, almost 3 weeks after I needed it. I have to go through the trouble and expense of cashing your check and purchasing a new money order. Pehaps most importantly to you, you have lost a valuable customer.

"We take great pride in the high level of customer service we provide. We'll be happy to help you!"

Prove it. I was offered no sort of reparation. Your website still has the item listed as out of stock. I learned, from one of your employees, that it has been out of stock for over a month. Your customer service, which used to be commendable, has become quite poor. I am certain a number of your customers have gone to your competition for this reason.

I have been a loyal customer for over 2 years. I do not want to start buying things from Darren Bedford, but incidents like this tempt me. Improve your service or I will have to take my business to your competitors.

Kevin O'Brien

[James_Potter]

daaaang, that sucks. Someone I know ordered a Coker from unicycledotcom, and they recieved a 16 inch unicycle and a 20 inch unicycle. HAH

And when I ordered a Coker, it came tacoed.
I've had several other mishaps with unicycledotcom, but for some reason I keep ordering from them. Stupid store.

[TheObieOne3226]

Yeah I saw that on your page. Mine isn't nearly as bad, but it pissed me off because they told me it was in stock. I even went out of my way to make sure it was. And they told me it was. Which means they suck. And now I have to lose money filling another money order. So basically because of them I get something they advertised as having like 2 weeks later for an extra couple bucks. Bastards.


Their sucking isn't always a bad thing. A friend of mine recently got $120 worth of stuff possibly free from them. He ordered some stuff from them COD. But when the UPS guy delivered he didn't get the money order. So either it's free or they'll send him a bill. They might not be able to for legal reasons. I'm not sure. But it just goes to show how screwed up they are.

[Catboy]

I too am very tempted to order some of my things through bedford. If they had a neato site like UDC does I would definetely order from them. But somehow just the fact that all I get to see of my product before it comes is a title in all caps and a canadian price, somehow, keeps me at UDC...

[TheObieOne3226]

Oh man....


Don't even bother browsing Darren's website. It's so out of date. He has so much more stuff than that. And at different prices too. A lot of his stuff is cheaper than UDC, and the shipping is the same. The service is a lot better. If you know what you want, ordering it from Darren is the way to go. If you don't know, emailing him with your question is. He's really helpful and usually gets back to you within a day. Trust me, try him. But yeah, he could definately make sooooo much more money if he had a website like UDC and kept it up to date (unlike UDC)

[TheObieOne3226]

Heh. My thomson post just arrived, but I won't be able to use it for another week and a half. Thanks unicycle.com!



Also, where the hell is my money? What if I was poor and sent you all of my money? It doesn't take this long to send mail from GA to PA, losers.

[Goatman!]

kind of offtopic but
why the hell doesnt uni.com check their KH hubs for defects before they send them out to customers? my hub was janky, so i had to send it back to them so they could fix it! so i dont have a uni right now.:mad:

[UNIquelyCanadian]

Bedford is the way to go!

[johnfoss]

Originally posted by James_Potter
Someone I know ordered a Coker from unicycledotcom, and they recieved a 16 inch unicycle and a 20 inch unicycle. Doesn't that add up to 36"? What's the problem? :D
And when I ordered a Coker, it came tacoed.Okay. The 20"/16" thing is a definite order screw-up. Which I'm sure they rectified, at a great cost (to them) in shipping and additional labor.

Do you think Uni.com sent you a tacoed Coker? Really? Though it's possible, I highly doubt it. This is why UPS or other shipping companies insure what they ship. The larger the object, the greater chance that things can bash into it on its way from Marietta to you. For UPS (and airlines) the most common location for package damage is in their automated conveyor systems.

Obie. I'm still trying to figure out what it was you wanted Uni.com to do. Other than not making the mistake of course. You were told a part was in stock when in fact it wasn't. This is very common for companies selling merchandise from warehouses. Their packing system is manual, so there is always going to be a gap between product getting shipped and inventories getting updated. It is possible that the last rail adapter went out the door after you ordered yours.

Or maybe the inventory numbers were just out of date. It happens surprisingly a lot with companies that sell things online or through the mail. I see it all the time as a bait-and-switch technique used by discount online sellers of camera and electronics equipment. Buyer beware.

No, Uni.com is not trying to scam you out of your $23.00 plus shipping. What do you want from them? It was a mistake. At the kind of margins the cycling industry runs at, you can't afford to make financial reparations if you make mistakes on $23 items. Hopefully your big-picture reputation will carry you through when these small mishaps happen.

Unicycle.com is known for having periods of many shipping errors, especially around the holidays (and) when they have to hire new/inexperienced staff. But their overall customer service is so many times better than most mail order companies, I do not find it such a big problem.

Get over yourself. Sure it's annoying. But if being out $23 (plus shipping) keeps you from eating, or otherwise makes it impossible to order a replacement until you get the check back, most of the problem is on your end. If you had a credit card it would be much easier.

Don't get me wrong, Being poor is not a crime. I used to be poor too. Lucky for me, back then there were very few parts you could order. The ones you could get had to be ordered by phone, with a long distance phone call that *you* would have to pay for. if they were in stock.

[rogeratunicycledotcom]

It is not good when you see from the outside bad service. I will make sure that John and Amy know about your comments. I know how much these comments will be hurting them, they really do care about customer service.

Although it is not an excuse, it is prossibly worth you realising that Unicycle.com in the US recently lost 2 of its long term employees and have had to replace and train their replacements. This of course takes time and will slow things up. This has happened at the same time as they are rebuilding every KH hub that they have in their warehouse and it is worth pointing out that they have more in their warehouse than everyone else in the whole world put together!

Roger

[UniBrier]

I had the pleasure of visiting UDC a month ago. John and Amy took the time to show me around, even though they were busy. Prior to stopping by I had tried to call several times before leaving a message, they did call back. It was just the two of them up front and one of their guys building a refurbished Coker in the back and another guy going through all the new KH boxes to be sure all the parts were there. At one point John D. retrieved a load of phone messages. It takes time to call people back.

I had an experience with Bedford where it seemed to take forever to get back to me. Turns out he was in the states for a bit. Didn't stop me from ordering my 29er frame from him.

I've bought from UDC and Bedford, both with good service. They may not always answer their phones and sometimes e-mail doesn't reply as quickly as you like but I think they are both quality vendors.

[chissakid]

I don't normally respond to criticisms on this newsgroup because I've always wanted to know what others are really thinking. If I were to continually post on the newsgroup, some might not feel as free to 'speak' their mind. When someone offers constructive criticism, we do listen. "They suck" is not constructive.

The voices on our voicemail message belong to our children. Look at our logo. We cater to children, and we're not planning to change that. Get over it.

We receive more than 100 email messages per day at our Help Desk. That's a full-time job in itself, but the margins and the volumes don't support hiring another full-timer. So we answer as quickly as we can. We've created an FAQ section, hoping people will refer to it, but we can tell from the questions we receive that the FAQ has been ignored. So we answer the questions anyway.

We have two full-timers (Amy and me), and four part-timers on staff. Three are college students. At any given time, four of us are available to answer the phone. If we're all on the phone, or waiting on a customer in our showroom, we will not answer another call until we finish helping the person we're speaking to. Many of you have visited our showroom in Atlanta. It's like a unicyclist's playground, so it's not uncommon to spend a couple of hours with a customer. We're not going to shoo them away so we can answer calls more quickly. Leave a message and we'll call back as quickly as possible.

Kevin, you posted your letter to us, but you didn't post my reply to you. As I wrote to you, customers often select 'pay by check or money order' but they never send the check. If we were to pull each of those items off the shelf and wait for the check, we'd need a separate warehouse for those items. The item you ordered was in stock at the time you ordered it, but was sold out before your check arrived. We reordered that item from our supplier several weeks ago, but the order has not yet arrived. We cannot force our supplier's hand. We offered to return the check to you, or keep it and send the item when it was back in stock. Those are the only options available to us. What sort of reparations are you expecting?

The newest batch of Kris Holm unicycles was supposed to have corrected hubs. We spot-checked a few and they were fine, so we began shipping. About 6 have now been returned to us, and we have temporarily stopped shipments on all KH cycles until we can take every hub apart and apply the corrective steps, then test them. We're shipping cycles again, as they're ready.

Our store hours are 10:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. We're here until 6:00 p.m., but we reserve the last two hours of each day as "all hands" join us at the loading dock and finish preparing orders for shipment. Our UPS driver arrives between 5:00 and 6:00; if we have temporarily stopped answering the phone, it's because we're working on getting your orders out. Our driver won't wait.

Lastly, please know that we are sincerely grateful for all suggestions. We have made some embarassing mistakes. We will do our best not to repeat them. Many of your constructive suggestions have led to better products and process improvements. Unicycle.com isn't some big, insensitive corporation. It's Amy, Robbie, Moe, Ryan, Scott and me. We all understand the need to vent, and this is a great forum for that. If you want results, though, please direct your constructive criticism and suggestions to us.

We are grateful to John Foss and Roger Davies for answering your concerns on our behalf, and for making us aware of this public thrashing.

Best regards,
John Drummond
www.Unicycle.com
1-800-Unicycle

[TheObieOne3226]

Originally posted by johnfoss

Obie. I'm still trying to figure out what it was you wanted Uni.com to do. Other than not making the mistake of course. You were told a part was in stock when in fact it wasn't. This is very common for companies selling merchandise from warehouses. Their packing system is manual, so there is always going to be a gap between product getting shipped and inventories getting updated. It is possible that the last rail adapter went out the door after you ordered yours.

Or maybe the inventory numbers were just out of date. It happens surprisingly a lot with companies that sell things online or through the mail. I see it all the time as a bait-and-switch technique used by discount online sellers of camera and electronics equipment. Buyer beware.

No, Uni.com is not trying to scam you out of your $23.00 plus shipping. What do you want from them? It was a mistake. At the kind of margins the cycling industry runs at, you can't afford to make financial reparations if you make mistakes on $23 items. Hopefully your big-picture reputation will carry you through when these small mishaps happen.

Unicycle.com is known for having periods of many shipping errors, especially around the holidays (and) when they have to hire new/inexperienced staff. But their overall customer service is so many times better than most mail order companies, I do not find it such a big problem.

Get over yourself. Sure it's annoying. But if being out $23 (plus shipping) keeps you from eating, or otherwise makes it impossible to order a replacement until you get the check back, most of the problem is on your end. If you had a credit card it would be much easier.

Don't get me wrong, Being poor is not a crime. I used to be poor too. Lucky for me, back then there were very few parts you could order. The ones you could get had to be ordered by phone, with a long distance phone call that *you* would have to pay for. if they were in stock.



Yeah. I know what you are saying. I guess I kindof went off because I have this sexy thomson seatpost just sitting here. Here comes the part where I justify myself though.

Obie. I'm still trying to figure out what it was you wanted Uni.com to do. Other than not making the mistake of course.

My feeling on this is that it was a mistake that could have been very easily corrected. When Amy called me to tell me that it was out of stock (she was very nice BTW), she told me that it had been out of stock for over a month, and that they weren't sure when they would be getting it in. Now it is obvious that they knew they were out of stock. So I just feel that they should have updated the site.

No, Uni.com is not trying to scam you out of your $23.00 plus shipping. What do you want from them? It was a mistake. At the kind of margins the cycling industry runs at, you can't afford to make financial reparations if you make mistakes on $23 items. Hopefully your big-picture reputation will carry you through when these small mishaps happen.

I know they are not trying to scam me. Unfortunately I don't know what could have been done in this instance. The only comparable product they sell costs 3 times as much, and I don't think they would consider offering that as a substitute. So the only thing they can do, I suppose is what they did. It just seems unfair in some situations, which I will get to below.

Get over yourself. Sure it's annoying. But if being out $23 (plus shipping) keeps you from eating, or otherwise makes it impossible to order a replacement until you get the check back, most of the problem is on your end. If you had a credit card it would be much easier.

No, it's not keeping me from ordering the part elsewhere, but if it was how could you hold me accountable? If someone advertises that they have something and they don't, they are at fault. The buyer cannot anticipate this and may at times not have the money to pay for a product twice. I suppose it would be easier if I had a credit card in this instance, but it is a choice I have made. They accept money orders, so they should find a better way to deal with them in the case of an error.


Don't get me wrong, Being poor is not a crime. I used to be poor too. Lucky for me, back then there were very few parts you could order. The ones you could get had to be ordered by phone, with a long distance phone call that *you* would have to pay for. if they were in stock.


This is the part where my ego and pride step in and say "I'm not poor" :D

[TheObieOne3226]

Originally posted by chissakid

Kevin, you posted your letter to us, but you didn't post my reply to you.


Actually, that is not purposeful. When did you reply? I never got a return email from you. Check to make sure you typed my name out correctly.


theobieone3226@aol.com

[chissakid]

Kevin,

I will re-send the note to your personal email address from our Help Desk (helpdesk@unicycle.com).

-John

[Catboy]

I am sorry to inform you at unicycle.com that I will be switching my first choice of unicycle distributors to a competitor. I now realise the tough situation you are in but I also realise that maybe me switching isn't the worst thing in the world, it is obvious that you already have plenty of customers, and I would prefer a company that I can be more personal with, and get responses on my time instead of having to wait, while being frustrated. I still see uniycle.com as the ultimate unicycle store, but it really isn't for me. I will still come to you as a second resort for parts/unicycles, and do not see you as any less of a store than I did a few weeks ago. I would e-mail this to you but I realise the difficulty of how many emails and phonecalls you recieve.

Still your customer(sorta)
Eric Pearson

[TheObieOne3226]

Originally posted by chissakid

We all understand the need to vent, and this is a great forum for that. If you want results, though, please direct your constructive criticism and suggestions to us.


I just want to clarify for everyone. I did send an email expressing my frustrations directly to everyone at unicycle.com. I would normally not consider posting such private business in such a public place, but I recieved no response, which I felt was unprofessional and insulting.

It turns out John did send me an email only 3 hours after my complaint, but for some reason I did not receive it.

I am not trying to insult you as people or a business or drive away customers. I was merely trying to share with others my experience, which is something I would not have done had I known about John's reply (to which I have now replied). Sorry to make this so public. It was basically a misunderstanding.

[chissakid]

Kevin,

Thanks for your kind note. I'm sorry that we were unable to meet your needs. I've been at this for more than five years, and it still bothers me deeply when someone has little choice but to complain about our service. I hope you'll give us another chance in the future.

We must always be able to speak our minds openly, candidly, and demand accountability from those in whom our funds are invested. That goes for government as well as business people. The words may hurt sometimes, but I will always support freedom of speech and forums like these.

Please visit us whenever you're in the Atlanta area.

All the best,
John

[TheObieOne3226]

Haha...hey John, I just thought of something that may make this sortof workout after all. I'm gonna send my super duper idea to your email (john, not helpdesk) in a minute. So if you happen to read this, check your mail.

[Checkernuts]

Originally posted by chissakid
The words may hurt sometimes, but I will always support freedom of speech and forums like these.



I'm sorry but WHAT? what does the world hurting have to do with any of this? Way to plug free speech though :confused:


On a more serious note, John and Unicycle.com have always been very helpful to me I bought my first unicycle through them and couldnt be happier with their service. Over the short time that they have been around they have been a major factor in the advancment of equipment and distrobution in the united states and all over the world.

And on lurking through the forums, feel free to cheer in whenever you want, Its always glad to see that the comunity extends past the riders and to the people selling our equipment. Its nice to know that you (unicycle.com) care just as much as we do about our sport, and arnt just another faceless conglomerate thats only goal is to have several multi million dollar subsidiaries.

One thing I would like to see is Unicycle.com to sponsor and help host more events for the unicycle community. Concidering a majority of people attending unicycle events have at one time or another purchased parts from one of your distributors world wide, helping thoes very same riders get together would be greatly benoficial to the comunity as a whole. Just an idea,

Mike

[chissakid]

Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. Our support has been mostly for the Unicycling Society of America events. We've also donated a lot of products over the past five years to the California MUni weekends, the New Jersey Invitational, Moab and TCUC banquets as door prizes.

We've also helped to underwrite projects like Universe I and II, and we sponsor expert riders who generate a lot of publicity (like Dustin Kelm and Kris Holm), and to friends like Bruce Crevier (Dustin too) who use unicycling to reach our nation's youth with a positive Christian values.

We've donated dozens of unicycles for raffles to help new clubs get rolling. Sometimes a club can raise hundreds of dollars for a single unicycle. We eventually had to set a monthly limit because we were getting too many requests, and we had to tighten requirements for church or school sponsorships.

We once attempted to sponsor a race here in Georgia, and even suggested a prize of $500 for the winner. We posted a message on this forum and got only three positive responses. The problem, it seems, is that we're all so far apart. We keep threatening to host an East Coast MUni weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to pull that together at one of the North Carolina ski resorts, soon after the snow melts.

Is that the kind of event you have in mind?

By the way, my message said the "words may hurt" when we get criticized. I wasn't referring to the world! :)

-John

[Checkernuts]

Haha clearly I can not read.


I was aware with your envolvement with prizes, the production of Universe and support of riders like Kris and Dustin,

While these do help events get rolling I was refering to more of an event like what you were refering to at a NC ski resort. Raffle donations do help raise profits for clubs and sometimes generate interest, a big limiting factor to putting on events is a finacial burdon placed upon event orginizers. Typically while prizes are nice; they are not the reason top riders, as well as enthusiest like myself come to events. We come to ride and have a good time.

For events like California's and other Muni weekend helping suppor the finacial burdon for crutial materials needed for a trials course or lowering the cost of tickets fees to get into resorts i find is the biggest thing that can be done to attract more riders to events, and thusly our sport.

This is one reason I think that Moab's weekend is so popular with virtually no barrier to entery besides travel expences anyone can come and have a good time. Unfortunatlly for the majority of us in the rest of America we are not as lucky to have such great riding with free trail access.

Another possible outlet for aiding the advancment of the sport would be to sponsor North American Trials Series events who are kind enough to include unicycling classes into their competitions, but find it more and more difficult to have events nation wide with each year.

Mike

[TheObieOne3226]

I just want to let everyone know that me and John worked something out, and I am receiving a replacement product. I'm satisfied by this, and it shows that unicycle.com is willing to work with customers. Sorry I went off on you guys, good job!

[john_childs]

Originally posted by rogeratunicycledotcom
This has happened at the same time as they are rebuilding every KH hub that they have in their warehouse and it is worth pointing out that they have more in their warehouse than everyone else in the whole world put together!

Roger

What is the official UDC fix for the KH hubs? Do you do fix them with epoxy? Pound out the axle, spread on epoxy, pound the axle back in.

[johnfoss]

Originally posted by chissakid
Our support has been mostly for the Unicycling Society of America events. We've also donated a lot of products over the past five years to the California MUni weekends, the New Jersey Invitational, Moab and TCUC banquets as door prizes.This type of sponsorship is probably the most effective way for Unicycle.com to help people out. It requires minimal time on their part, and makes lots of riders happy! Time is the limiting factor. The MUni Weekends I put on involve a ton of preparation, planning, phone calls and emails, web site creation (at least that part of my site gets updated), and more. And I still don't do as much as I'd like. The limiting factor is time.

We once attempted to sponsor a race here in Georgia, and even suggested a prize of $500 for the winner. We posted a message on this forum and got only three positive responses. Hopefully one of them was me. I probably said something about how much I'd love to go to something like that, but it's too small an event to fly cross-country for. Yes we are too spread out. Grassroots local events are great, but bringing people in is really hard because to get a significant group of top riders they have to come from pretty far away.
We keep threatening to host an East Coast MUni weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to pull that together at one of the North Carolina ski resorts, soon after the snow melts.That would be awesome. But of course, if John and the people at Unicycle.com put this together, it will take time away from answering emails, phone calls, product development, inventory updates, etc. There's the rub. The ultimate solution is to find someone else who wants to host and use the Unicycle.com name.

Maybe we'll do that in the future in CA. The "Unicycle.com California Mountain Unicycle Weekend." I'm not the host for next year, so I'd have to discuss it with the guys in Santa Barbara.

Anyway, that's why Unicycle.com doesn't do more in the promotional department. Though the company is big enough to have employees, it's still pioneering the industry and taking up lots of everyone's time. Doing business with hobbiests can be very time-consuming. We're very demanding.

If you do a MUni Weekend in the South next spring/summer, I'd like to try to make it to that!

[rogeratunicycledotcom]

Originally posted by john_childs


What is the official UDC fix for the KH hubs? Do you do fix them with epoxy? Pound out the axle, spread on epoxy, pound the axle back in.

The spindle is being pressed out, all parts chemically cleaned then Locktite 660 and activator applied then re-assembled into the hub body. Left for 48 hours then re-assembled fully.

Roger