Internet equivalent to a bar? no way. In a bar you actually interact with a person, see and feel emotion and have civil conversation. Take Charlie P’s advise relax, have a home brew.
On the subject of engineers, how do you know an engineer designed the human body? Only an engineer would run a waste pipe thru a recreational area
LOL. Good one!
I just snarfed my tea.
I’m not necessarily surprised that a thread like this would go 3 pages but still.
My take on it is that what you do with your money is the best barometer. If you patronize a merchant that appears to not care or appears to not be able to juggle all of its responsibilities, take your money elsewhere. I have done this in the past with suppliers who appeared to be putting in less-than-necessary effort. That doesn’t mean that I would never go back to that merchant but I would explore my options. I was looking for an online brewing supplier and managed to find one that had a great selection, great prices, fast and accurate order fulfillment and very fresh ingredients. Now that vendor has my business because they appear to do everything right on every order I place with them. For those of you who interpret this as a dig against NB, don’t. I’m not necessarily suggesting anyone take their business away from NB unless they think it’s warranted. I was never a big NB customer but I do buy from them and my experience with them has been positive.
My experience has been positive as well. The basic syphon that came with their deluxe NB brewing kit broke after only 2 brew days and they walked me through a temporary fix and sent me the larger better syphon gratis…I have no complaints.
To the OP - you do realize that they only have your word to go on that the order was shorted? The fact that they’ll send you replacement items plus $20 solely on your saying that the items were missing demonstrates, to me, the highest level of (reasonable) customer service.
Mistakes happen. I had a bottle of LME explode during shipping. They sent me a free one.
Yep. I once ordered about 40 lbs of grain from a place and when it arrived, the bags had blown open from heat (the grains were crushed and it was explained to me that gases had built up and blown open the bags in the 100° temps). The problem was that the grains were for some recipes and now a bunch of grain was laying on the floor of the box, all mixed up. I contacted them and sent them a pic. When they asked what I wanted, I said, “I can still use this but maybe send me half of this order so I can brew my recipes” and they said “No way… we need to make it right” and they sent all 40 lbs for free leaving me with 80 lbs of grain. I thought that was pretty good.
I don’t really see the need to argue about this. If the OP thought that letting people know about this so they could factor the information into choosing a supplier, I get it. A review of a supplier is a reasonable thing to place on the board. That said, I probably wouldn’t have gone at it at the angle the OP did… with frustration. I would have simply stated the facts and let others decide for themselves. I would have also chosen to look elsewhere for supplies if I thought it was necessary. For those here who like NB for their supplies, I doubt the OP’s complaints would sway your opinion about NB.
Well, I have to say that this is probably the longest thread that I have ever started, but just so you all know, I am over it. I had my day or so of aggravation and frustration but I forgive and forget.
Shadetree, they did not go on my word. Believe me, they know when they did not ship things by looking at the shipping data. The cust service rep knew immediately that they did not ship it all and I suspect that it was because of the weight of the shipment. The stuff that was not shipped weighed 21 pounds. So he likely looked at the shipping weight and realized right away that the order was not properly filled.
Anyway, we all have opinions. We all have our individual ways of dealing with disappointment. I will brew next Saturday.
On a good note, I tried out my new Dark Star burner today and that thing is a beast! I can’t wait to use it for a brew day.
[quote=“in_the_basement”]Shadetree, they did not go on my word. Believe me, they know when they did not ship things by looking at the shipping data. The cust service rep knew immediately that they did not ship it all and I suspect that it was because of the weight of the shipment. The stuff that was not shipped weighed 21 pounds. So he likely looked at the shipping weight and realized right away that the order was not properly filled.[/quote] That’s possible, but if on the other hand some of the extract had arrived broken open or there was some other problem, NB would have immediately sent out replacements with no proof - they’re just like that (as you can see from all the positive posts about their customer service). So I hope you’ll give our sponsor at least one more chance and that you thoroughly enjoy your belated brew day. :cheers:
At the risk of sounding mean, it seems like the harshest people are the kinds of people who don’t cut anyone slack yet are the first to ask for a break. Am a right? :blah:
So they’re the ones who expect things from others but don’t hold themselves to that same standard? I know some people like that. Not sure if it applies here but I could see someone who holds themselves to a very high standard and also expecting that from everyone else. Sometimes it doesn’t happen.
s2y: You really can’t entertain that point of view because you don’t know me at all. So you have no basis really as far as I am concerned. I have higher expectations of myself than I do of anyone. If I make a mistake I go FAR out of my way to correct it and will go over and above to do so. And yes, I have the same expectations of others. But as I said in a previous post I have moved past this. And yes I will give NB another opportunity because although I have high expectations of those around me I also am very quick to forgive and forget.
I use what I call the desert island philosophy. Stranded on a desert island, if a mistake is made in the attempt to survive and find safety the response should be swift and excessive on the side of fixing the mistake. After the crisis is over though, as long as all worked out then it’s all good. Should we be comparing my NB order to life and death? The people who own NB should say yes to that. If you own a business and don’t treat the operation of the business as though it’s the most important thing ever, then your business is doomed to fail. I work for a barcode scanner company. If I make a mistake is it critical? Well I always think of it as though my work will be used by a hospital for dispensing medication and that if I make a mistake it could cost a life. Is it likely? No. But if I have expectations of my work to that level then it means I will be very likely to do the best I can. And I expect all others will take the same approach.
That brings us back to the lesson from my math teacher about the word “just”. Did the person who made switches think “It’s just a switch”? Then that switch ends up in the cryo tank on Apollo 13 and boom, the switch fails and 3 men have their lives in jeopardy. So yes s2y, I expect much of everyone. And it’s not a matter of cutting people slack.
I skimmed past most of the back-and-forth…
The situation totally sucks/sucked. I’ve abandoned 2 brew days recently due to family obligations; even getting those 2 days on the schedule was no mean feat. If I had had one of my days scratched due to a negligent shipping error would have me hopping mad.
Not to open old wounds, but can I ask: Did you use any promotional offers to make your purchase? If not, then the $20 they gave you was likely equal to (or less than) the 10% discount most homebrewers get for in-store purchases.
I did not use any promotional offers. No coupons. As I stated earlier in the thread, this was my first ever purchase from NB. So I had no frequent buyer discounts or coupons or anything.
I only 1/2 scanned all the posts as well. But I think to you I will say hopefully NB will do better for you in the future.
Maybe I am just lucky, but I have placed maybe 30-40 orders with them over the last 4-5 years and have not had an issues. Some of my orders are pretty straight forward, but most have some strange thing added onto the order outside of the actual kit. Some spoon, themometor, irish moss, caps, air locks. Plus I usually combine my order with 1-2 guys I work with who need whatever. I don’t think I have ever had an issue I can remember.
It does seem NB has gotten about a day or so slower, but maybe it is just in my mind.
