Vanson sucks.

[aldend123]

If you need to get the owner involved in a multi-employee company to get the job done, the business sucks. Period.

Invalidating smutty when he's half your age because he doesn't have the experience you do is like laughing at a child for not being able to drive a car.

[BostonSVkid]

This is common sense in business. I work for a GC that has a few levels of management/people. If you own a very small company where its your employees and you then I get it, but in general csmutty is right. You start with the employees first, and if you don't get what you want/need then you go to the next level. Its how I deal in my everyday business. I deal with project managers for the subcontractors I work with. Some of these guys ARE the owners and the only front line. Others are huge national companies that have levels that I work through.

This is found no where in a book but just GOOD business. If I called the owner of each company I dealt with WHENEVER I had an issue, instead of trying to work it out with my everyday contact, guess who would look like an asshole? That's right you guessed it ME! Just like if they have an issue with me, they deal with me first and then move up the ladder.

And you read this where...a book in school, this is what is wrong today...the real world isn't always found between the pages of a text book.

[NeverlosT]

Well, this thread god bananas.

haha you know what, Vanson jackets, if you can get one, are really nice. But their customer service does suck. Hell, im tall and lanky, and didnt fit in ANY stock sizes. I had a custom jacket made, my own design, colors, etc. Took 6 months for them to finish, then delays, then delays, then delays, I litterally called every three days or so for weeks. It was finally done. I have worn it and loved it for years. The velcro on the waist closure is worn out, I called and they said it would take weeks to fix. I said fuckit and I just live with the worn out velcro.

YOu know the only thing that really bugged me about the whole thing? After I designed my custom jacket with my own color scheme and stuff, and paid out the ASS for it, I now see dudes riding around with the design on a regular basis. nuts.

[9secondsflat]

Correct, in an ideal world all staff is trained correctly and has the ability to do their job correct every time, every day...The fact is we don't live in an ideal world. When I would get a call from a pissed off customer, bet your ass something needed to get fixed ASAP. The fact that managers and staff down stream could not resolve the issue.....is an issue, a problem that reflects directly on me...the owner.

This is why at times it is needed to get involved and stay involved, correct the problem at hand, deal with your staff and if needed replace the problem....the employee who no longer gives a shit...either learns to solve problems going forward according to the policies and procedures set forth by the company or they will find themselves with a lot of free times on their hands from 9-5 every day.

This is common sense in business. I work for a GC that has a few levels of management/people. If you own a very small company where its your employees and you then I get it, but in general csmutty is right. You start with the employees first, and if you don't get what you want/need then you go to the next level. Its how I deal in my everyday business. I deal with project managers for the subcontractors I work with. Some of these guys ARE the owners and the only front line. Others are huge national companies that have levels that I work through.

This is found no where in a book but just GOOD business. If I called the owner of each company I dealt with WHENEVER I had an issue, instead of trying to work it out with my everyday contact, guess who would look like an asshole? That's right you guessed it ME! Just like if they have an issue with me, they deal with me first and then move up the ladder.

[jasnmar]

And you read this where...a book in school, this is what is wrong today...the real world isn't always found between the pages of a text book. Small businesses need to have an owner operator around all the time.

When an owner does nothing but delegate and elect to run from afar as opposed to get their hands dirty, problems which could have been corrected early on (if they were hands on, involved in the day to day operations in all aspects) tend to cost much more to fix (time and money) by the time they get notified of the problem upstream.

I have witnessed first hand how regulators have shut down small business in the industry I was involved with because all they (the lazy owner) wanted to do was sit back, point their finger and expect results.

What you are describing is a "Heroic Leader", which is certainly one method for running a business, but it isn't the only method.

Most initially successful small businesses do depend on a heroic leader to get up and running, but in most cases the idea of a heroic leader doesn't scale well (which if you want to remain a small business, that's fine), but the bigger problem is that a disturbance for a heroic leader is just as effectively a disturbance for the entire business.

Believe it or not there are other models that work as well. In fact in some cases by giving the employees a stake in the outcome of the business, and empowering people to do the right thing for the business (rather than the thing that is easiest to make my $8.00 / hr), businesses can be very successful, but this is usually impossible as long as there is a heroic leader in place knocking people out of the way as they do the right thing.

[The Snowman]

I had no issues whatsoever with the timeline of my custom suit. I ordered it during the open house in October and it was finished before Christmas, ahead of the timeline they had set.

[R7]

The point is the op was not aware of the proper steps to get resolution to his problem. "

I was laughing at your posts in this thread..until I saw this

If your are (harhar) here to represent/defend vanson for their shitty customer service (over a month of calls from the OP is about as bad as it gets IMO), then they are truely fucked

[rolker]

I had no issues whatsoever with the timeline of my custom suit. I ordered it during the open house in October and it was finished before Christmas, ahead of the timeline they had set.

It's good to know that Vanson's customer service doesn't always suck, but the question is what are the chances that a new customer will have a positive experience?

[Paul_E_D]

We were talking about leathers...

You want to hear about my next gen fleshlight idea in a leathers thread?

I want to see smutty's next gen fleshlight! wait, wut???

[SteveM]

I don't know what makes this thread funnier:

The actual problem (Vanson's staff is not good, spend an hour there and you can see that may have great products, but it's not a professionally run operation.)
The "businessman" lecturing others on "the real world"
The youngsters spouting useless B-school jargon
The personal insults


It's all here, and yet the OP just wants a jacket that fits him better.

[PhilB]

Here is an idea, come up with an idea, put up your own money, draft up a business plan, incorporate, hire employees, manage payroll, manage marketing, manage the growth, manage problems, provide a health care plan, a retirement plan, deal with compliance, state regulators, tax filings, advertising, inventory if its a product company, logistics- fulfillment, returns.....I am certain you will do very well as your an expert behind the keyboard, one who has spent their life in the shadows of someone else who does the above.

thats all you have ever been-no balls

You missed a couple critical steps there -- (1) hire and train competent employees that can do their jobs, and won't drive customers away from the business you have put so much into, and (2) if you or your employees are getting complaints, or dissatisfied customers are spreading bad word-of-mouth, if your reputation is suffering (clearly a problem for Vanson here), look into it, don't blow it off.

It seems that quite a number of customers are, and have for a while been, having customer service problems with Vanson. Part of the job of a good company is to be able to handle problems when they come up, and it is the company's responsibility to have mechanisms for doing that; it is not the customer's responsibility to have to figure out for them who they should go to to get a response. And you blaming and insulting those customers for the crime of not being satisfied with getting poor service helps no one, and is just dumb.

The BEST thing you can do as a business is to resolve customer problems well -- people talk about that stuff. Studies have shown that customers that have had a problem, but were happy with how it was resolved are even MORE loyal than customers who never had a problem at all.

(And yes, I have run my own successful and profitable business for the last 13 years, and have a very good reputation in my industry, and my wife has had two successful businesses of her own, with good reputations in the respective industries as well.)

PhilB

[PhilB]

And you read this where...a book in school, this is what is wrong today...the real world isn't always found between the pages of a text book. Small businesses need to have an owner operator around all the time.

When an owner does nothing but delegate and elect to run from afar as opposed to get their hands dirty, problems which could have been corrected early on (if they were hands on, involved in the day to day operations in all aspects) tend to cost much more to fix (time and money) by the time they get notified of the problem upstream.

I have witnessed first hand how regulators have shut down small business in the industry I was involved with because all they (the lazy owner) wanted to do was sit back, point their finger and expect results.

If your small business has more than 5 people in it, and needs to have the owner-operator around all the time, you have failed to structure a good running business. The owner-operator certainly needs to be closely involved, to manage, direct, and perform as needed. But if nothing can get done without him, if he can't take a vacation, or be sick, without shutting the place down because no one else is competent to handle things, his business model sucks.

When an owner does nothing but micro-manage and put out fires and elect to run from the front lines as opposed to actually managing the business, is unable to delegate, or to empower others to solve problems, he places severe limits on the business's ability to grow and succeed, and he will have a stunted business at best.

PhilB

[TheIglu]

I'm gunna open a business minting out DRZ400's and being an asshole.

[obsolete]

I'm curious what businesses 9seconds has started.

[TheIglu]

A REASONABLE person has a REASONABLE expectation to not have to talk to the owner of a business directly when doing normal day to day transactions unless that owner can be REASONABLY expected to interact with customers on a regular basis.

Great. Another "Oh, I know so and so personally, he'll take care of you now". Way to name drop. Boys club all the way. If you are in, you get the service every paying customer should expect. If you don't have any special contacts, you deserve to be fucked.


My business had more employees and made more money than 9second ejaculate.

[Stoneman]

Unless the OP posts to tell us that said owner HESELF contacted him AND sees the issue through TO THE END, I'm gonna hafta sit here and continue to think you're full of shit...

[TheIglu]

I'm curious what businesses 9seconds has started.

Mortgage fuckhead. Got out of it before the whole house of cards collapsed.

- - - Updated - - -

Unless the OP posts to tell us that said owner HESELF contacted him AND sees the issue through TO THE END, I'm gonna hafta sit here and continue to think you're full of shit...

I see him as full of shit either way.

I've never known Hessogunnasayitlikeitis to do anything but. This guy on the other hand.....

[obsolete]

Mortgage fuckhead. Got out of it before the whole house of cards collapsed.

- - - Updated - - -



I see him as full of shit either way.

I've never known Hessogunnasayitlikeitis to be anything but. This guy on the other hand.....

I knew he did a mortgage company but I was wondering what else he had done.

[rolker]

I don't know what makes this thread funnier:

The actual problem (Vanson's staff is not good, spend an hour there and you can see that may have great products, but it's not a professionally run operation.)
The "businessman" lecturing others on "the real world"
The youngsters spouting useless B-school jargon
The personal insults


It's all here, and yet the OP just wants a jacket that fits him better.

We're all doing our part to keep the OP entertained as he waits for his jacket.

[Stoneman]

I see him as full of shit either way.

I've never known Hessogunnasayitlikeitis to do anything but. This guy on the other hand.....

I'm totally referring to 2.3secondsflathead...

[The Snowman]

It's good to know that Vanson's customer service doesn't always suck, but the question is what are the chances that a new customer will have a positive experience?

To date, their customer service has been great!

Emails and calls are responded to in a timely manner, not that there needed to be many. Just about the suit color, as one of the colors I requested was not marked down on the original order. They sent me a half dozen leather swatches within two days and that did not delay the suit at all.

IMO, great service to this point. Now that I have the same suit in for repair, we'll see the turnaround time. I was told a little over a week. That's not unreasonable, given that I was expecting at least 2.

There, now we're back on topic.

[csmutty]

And you read this where...a book in school, this is what is wrong today...the real world isn't always found between the pages of a text book. Small businesses need to have an owner operator around all the time.

When an owner does nothing but delegate and elect to run from afar as opposed to get their hands dirty, problems which could have been corrected early on (if they were hands on, involved in the day to day operations in all aspects) tend to cost much more to fix (time and money) by the time they get notified of the problem upstream.

I have witnessed first hand how regulators have shut down small business in the industry I was involved with because all they (the lazy owner) wanted to do was sit back, point their finger and expect results.

So what you are insinuating is that the owner of Vanson doesn't like to get his hands dirty since Jay's problem has gotten this far...

[butcher bergs]

Great. Another "Oh, I know so and so personally, he'll take care of you now". Way to name drop. Boys club all the way. If you are in, you get the service every paying customer should expect. If you don't have any special contacts, you deserve to be fucked.

Based on recent history, Vanson does indeed go with the boys club business model.

Support the local guys (so long as you know the right people)

[Stoneman]

There, now we're back on topic.

You've got some nerve! No stories to relate how you eradicated rabies or anything. Weak, man. Weak...

[csmutty]

You've got some nerve! No stories to relate how you eradicated rabies or anything. Weak, man. Weak...

Rabies? That's all you got Stoner?