Hey everybody, Just a little letter to blow off some steam. As many of you know I went to Gencon this year and there were three companies I wanted to desperately hit. Hasbro was my big one, Fantasy Flight, and Days of Wonder. I had even signed up for a Days of Wonder event. Fantasy flight and Hasbro were both fun to hang out at and then there was DOW.
I went downstairs to ask about the tourney that I had signed up for to begin with. no one really knew to much about it at the booth so I decided to play Heroscape instead. It was a good thing I did because the Battlelore tourney was a complete bust from what I understand...you just kind of showed up and played a game against whomever...more like a demo. Well I was a bit dissapointed but hey, things happen sometimes. So then I decided I would buy all of the Battlelore expansion stuff and a copy of Colloseum that I did not have. My total bill, around 160$. I knew I could get it much cheaper on line so I asked about a possible discount, I was told I needed a larger order. A bit disgruntled I put the games back and decided to go without at Gencon. When I returned home I went online to buy my load of stuff online, I got it for around 60% of their price from one of their sellers. I could not believe it so I thought about it for a bit and decided to write them a nice letter but also expalin how I thought they could do better at Gencon and explained the problems.
Now before anyone here says I know nothing of retail I will let you know I ran a winery for five years and arranged most everything we did at festivals, our largest is 30,00 people. What do we do there? We show people a good time, offer a few reasonable rates and ensure our company is represented and remembered as a nice group of people who go out of their way for their customers. Mind you this does not mean bending over backwards, it just means showing people respect and offering specails to lure new folks in and acknowledge our biggest fans.
So I wrote DOW a polite letter explaining my concerns, ( by the way I had to do this through the Press contact since they have no way of reaching customer service with complaints that I saw). I explained how much I enjoyed their game and I did tell them about the lack of structure at their even as well as I was surprised that there was not even a small discount. After almost two weeks I wrote again asking if my letter was going to be answered...well it was and here it is. I will omit names but I think folks should see how DOW thinks of their customers.
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Originally Posted by days of wonder
Dear Skyknight,
Any customer who was spending over $100 at our Gen Con booth was offered a 10% discount. I know this because I was the person offering it. Now 10% is not much but it is the extent of the accommodation that we make. There are other resellers in the hall that carry our games. Many of them have discounted their
prices. We do not price compete with them. They are our customers also. At every show that we attend we sell our products at MSRP and offer the 10%
discount on large sales.
You are free to make your purchases as you see best. It is not our
responsibility to give you the best deal in town.
As I was not involved in the boardgame room scheduling I am leaving the rest of your message for **** ********to respond to. He will be out of the office until Oct. 8th.
Best Regards,
***********
Days of Wonder
Come out and play!
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Well this irked me so I wrote them back as you could well guess :P
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Originally Posted by skyknight
Dear *******,
I find your tone towards constructive criticism a bit rude to be honest. I had over a hundred dollars worth of gear and I was told no on the discount. You may question my integrity all you like but in the end it is your company that loses out. As for this comment...
You wrote" You are free to make your purchases as you see best. It is not our responsibility to give you the best deal in town."
Well that is downright rude and I will be posting your comment at as many game sites as I am able. You are correct it is not your reponsibility to ensure me the best price or any sort of acknowledgement to your companies fans. What is your responsibility is ensuring that your booth is well organized and also learning to curb your tongue a bit when you are talking to customers. Trust me, I know. I own a winery and I would never dream of talking to a customer like that. I hope you are in charge or are in good with your manager because I am seriously disappointed in this response and you need to learn a bit of etiquette.
I believe you just lost a serious fan. And being in retail you should know...if a person has a good time or good service generally three people hear about it. If you have a bad time or bad service everyone hears about it. I believe the latter shall be the case. Now I will politely bow out as I originally politely wrote you, not only to talk about the lack of anything resembling professionalism( though I did not say this originally) but also to praise your company overall. Perhaps in the future you will take the term Customer Service a bit more literally. I am sorry it has come to this but your nasty reply was inexcusable.
Best Regards,
Skyknight
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Well that is the end of my rant, does this mean you should not buy from DOW? That is your call though my mind is made up. I will not deal with a company that thinks so little of its fans. Long live Heroscape and its designers!!!! Thanks for the ears guys
