He didn't apologize and said it would take a couple days before he could work up a quote so you're disappointed any may look elsewhere?So I decided to call. Got through right away, great! I offered that my email might have got caught in their spam filter, but he said he had received it, but really didn't apologize for not replying. In fact, he said it would be another couple of days before he could return my email with a price quote.
I run a software company with 42,000+ users. I'm pretty sure I'd have to close my business if I had the same customer service.
I'm not going to name the builder, but after reading so much praise for their ukes, I am now very disappointed and may look for someone else.
No offense, but you sound like you could have the potential to be one of those "customers from hell" who expects to be waited on hand and foot.
I'm not saying you are that customer from hell, just recalling a recent thread here where someone slammed a luthier for dumping them after their demands became rather unreasonable.If expecting a reply to my email--someone that's interested in spending money--makes me the customer from hell, then I suspect you don't understand much about business. Even if a builder is not able or interested in my business, not replying is bad form, no matter what your industry. If a business puts their email address on their web site, they should reply to it. Otherwise take it off.
Stuff happens. Sometimes real life takes precedence over replying to an email. Ever had your internet connection go out? Heck, we had a "wind event" a few months ago that knocked our power out for two days, others were without power for over a week. And those are just technical things. There are many reasons why someone may not be able to respond as promptly as you'd have liked. And many of those reasons might be very personal and not something the luthier would disclose to a stranger/potential customer.
Could be life intervened, people have emergencies and such sometimes.
I always feel bad about not being able to respond quickly. It almost never happens. Sometimes it's unavoidable.