They ignored my letter below as well.
John


7/31/2009

Ron Spath
Vice President Customer Relations
One Cabela Dr.
Sydney, NE 69160

Mr. Spath,

I am a customer of your store and have a bit of a problem. I have been patiently waiting in line for the fulfillment of an online order for various reloading components. This order was cancelled by your company and, according to your customer service department, Mr. Ken Steffens has refused to reinstate the order.

The order was placed May 7. Over the next two months I received 10 emails with identical subject lines. 8 of which were order status updates indicating no action required (specifically read June 3). The ninth changed the rules by saying action required and the tenth was a notice of cancellation. Now I don’t know how busy you are in your job, but when I get eight emails showing a status update I don’t spend a lot of time reviewing number nine. I didn’t catch this until the final email and immediately contacted customer service with less then satisfactory results.

Customer service has offered to place a new order with free postage, no hazmat fee or even a $50 discount. I don’t want your money or your discounts. What I want is to be placed back in the queue right were I was before, not moved up the line and not moved down the line. When it is my turn then I would expect the products to be shipped as ordered.

Marcella (sp) was very friendly and I believe sympathized with my position. She also said that Mr. Steffens told her directly that reinstatement in the line was technically impossible with the existing order management system. I own and IT consulting company and we do a lot of work on internal Microsoft systems, give one of my employees 30 minutes VPN access to your SQL db and I will show Mr. Steffens how possible it actually is. I think the real answer is that he simply does not want to take care of me, Mr. John. A simple customer.

This is the only letter I will write regarding this. I have spent too much time on this already. Frankly I find it amazing that your customer service representatives do not have the power to do what is fair and appropriate and that I have to waste this much time to get this taken care of.

Sincerely,

John

I feel your pain.After 4 months my brother-in-law was dropped.Don't make sense if you were willing to wait 4 months you would wait more.OH well they might have people think twice.Hope you can find what you need somewhere.Graffs called me after 5 months and asked me if I still wanted my order and I told them thats why I placed it in the first place and didn't mind waiting till they came in.Good Luck

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! Did I say NEVER, backorder anything from any of the big catalog houses. If they don't have it when you order it, you're asking for disappointment. It's not just Cabelas.

Midsouth always coms through for me as well. I had some bullets backordered for several months and when they had them, they shipped them. When I needed status, I just checked the web site.

BTW, the Cabelas database is Oracle.

Midway canceled a reamer that I ordered a couple years back. It was one of those special order deals that they don't order it from PTG until you order it from Midway. After 6 months they canceled the "backorder" without so much as a question, just an email to me saying they'd done it.

6 months later they had that same reamer listed as "in stock" on their website. I called first and they said that yes, they did have one in stock, so I ordered it and they shipped it to me.

Huh?



I guess it worked out?

I never order anything that is back ordered.
Remember you are just dealing with warehouse and shipping clerks. One order out of tens of thousands means nothing to them.

Don't have any back-order experience with Cabellas, but have back orders go OK using Grafs, Midsouth, Sportsman's Guide and Natches. Also, Huntington's has been great - They didn't accept my back-order but called me personnally when the item came in!!!

The Bottom Line is if they don't treat you right give your business to those who do.
Companies that don't provide good service don't care if they lose you as a customer. This poor attitude toward the customer is a result of the existing corporate culture. Therefore don't waste your time on complaining, it's pointless. Except to vent(sometimes that does feel good),but don't expect any positive result.

muck

Well I was looking to place an order with Cabelas later this week or early next week...

after hearing this, guess I will consider another vendor..

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:
Well I was looking to place an order with Cabelas later this week or early next week...

after hearing this, guess I will consider another vendor..

Seafire -

I have always had most excellent service from Graf & Son's. I have had items back-ordered once in a while, but as soon as Graf's got it/them into stock, they have always called me at home and asked "Do you still want the 'XXXX' you ordered?"

I am willing to wait at Graf's, because they always come through for me. I once ordered .303 Savage brass from them, even though I knew no one was making it at the time. I told them that if it would help them fire up a manufacturer, I would commit to buying 3,000 rounds of it. They wrote back and said that wasn't necessary, they'd see what they could do.

Sure enough, about 6 months later, they called and said they'd reached an agreement with Jamison...did I want any of the first batch being produced? Of couse I took a few hundred right then. Good folks to deal with/through in my experience.

Good luck,

AC

Had one backorder experience w/ Cabelas early in the year that went flawless. Just this week I received a partial order from them. Two items (bullets) were backordered and I feel certain I'll get those items as soon as they restock. I'm in no hurry for them.

Lee Products did the same to me when I tried to order one of their factory crimp dies. They said that there were new credit card laws that will not permit them to hold a charge card number longer than 30 days. This could have something to do with it. Made no since to me as they state that shipping could take 4 to 6 weeks. Go figure.

Let me get this straight...

Cabellas sent him an email which he ignored, and they carried out their stated action in the absence of a required request from him not to do so.

Then he calls, demands they fix his mistake, which they cannot, but they offer free shipping and a $50 discount on the replacement order, which he refuses.

He then offers to hack into their system to "fix" it, they refused (thank goodness), so he storms on here to vent how horribly they have treated him?

Wow.

Let's just imagine for a minute that you were one of Cabella's subsequent customers in the queue for this product, and had been waiting. And you did follow their instructions and requested that the order be filled as directed. But then they decide to bump you back in the queue so they can fix this other guy's problem that he himself caused.

Some folks just don't get it.

Andy

quote:

Originally posted by BigJakeJ1s:
Let me get this straight...

Cabellas sent him an email which he ignored, and they carried out their stated action in the absence of a required request from him not to do so.

Then he calls, demands they fix his mistake, which they cannot, but they offer free shipping and a $50 discount on the replacement order, which he refuses.

He then offers to hack into their system to "fix" it, they refused (thank goodness), so he storms on here to vent how horribly they have treated him?

Wow.

Let's just imagine for a minute that you were one of Cabella's subsequent customers in the queue for this product, and had been waiting. And you did follow their instructions and requested that the order be filled as directed. But then they decide to bump you back in the queue so they can fix this other guy's problem that he himself caused.

Some folks just don't get it.

Andy

Good point. Still sucks for the original poster though. Good luck with your new order, whomever it may be through.

quote:

Originally posted by BigJakeJ1s:
Let me get this straight...

Cabellas sent him an email which he ignored, and they carried out their stated action in the absence of a required request from him not to do so.

Then he calls, demands they fix his mistake, which they cannot, but they offer free shipping and a $50 discount on the replacement order, which he refuses.

He then offers to hack into their system to "fix" it, they refused (thank goodness), so he storms on here to vent how horribly they have treated him?

Wow.

Let's just imagine for a minute that you were one of Cabella's subsequent customers in the queue for this product, and had been waiting. And you did follow their instructions and requested that the order be filled as directed. But then they decide to bump you back in the queue so they can fix this other guy's problem that he himself caused.

Some folks just don't get it.

Andy

Wow, okay and I thought it was just poor user interface design that conditions a user to ignore emails.
And it isn't "hacking" (something illegal) if they grant you vpn access. Rather that was an offer to show them something that they may not about there own systems. They would not be the first bdm's that were shined over by there IT vendor or staff. And yes they could have fixed this and yes I am qualified.
John