Many of you have heard us refer to this in terms of V4L. Here is my attempt at explaining this in a manner some of the newer members and buyers might be able to better understand.
Steve and company started small, his entire reasoning for this was to get people to quit smoking and offer the best customer service he could, no matter the cost.
Many of us older members have gotten used to this, realize they make mistakes and more than make up for it when they do.
We have become almost rabid in our defense of this company because the way we have been treated by them throughout this time. For that, I'd like to apologize, we don't mean to be rude, but we know the outcome will more than make up for the hassle.
Back to the basis of this thread now.
Starting small, Steve was able to keep an eye on things first hand and make sure everything was taken care of.There were two problems with his plan.
1)He developed the rabid fanbase that we have become.
2)He has grown to fast to be able to keep the close eye on things as he likes and the key people he had are busy dealing with phone calls, PM's and dealing with the forums.
I've dealt with problem one somewhat.
Problem two is much worse though. We now have a company growing rapidly with a customer base the staff is unable to take care of. So he had to "throw people at the problem". Meaning he's hired a lot of new people, tried to train them while dealing with being overwhelmed and understaffed. Now in this situation, people don't always get the best training, regardless of the intent.
Then it gets even busier, and he now is forced to get more people, with less training to make sure orders get out.
This creates a "catch 22" problem for all involved. Slow down the orders out the door and deal with the flack, or decrease training, hope the orders are right and deal with the flack.
Knowing the way Steve thinks, neither of these is acceptable, but for the moment, he's got both problems.
I'm not complaining about the personal mind you, this is just the way it works as a company grows. As you gain more key people, and retain them, these problems get sorted out. But I certainly don't think Steve and company thought things would get this busy this fast, so they are having to play a lot of catch up right now to meet OUR growing demands.
I'm certain Steve, Mark and crew will chime in with things I've missed to help explain this better, but this is, I hope, a way many of you can now understand what is going on with this company right now.
Steve and company started small, his entire reasoning for this was to get people to quit smoking and offer the best customer service he could, no matter the cost.
Many of us older members have gotten used to this, realize they make mistakes and more than make up for it when they do.
We have become almost rabid in our defense of this company because the way we have been treated by them throughout this time. For that, I'd like to apologize, we don't mean to be rude, but we know the outcome will more than make up for the hassle.
Back to the basis of this thread now.
Starting small, Steve was able to keep an eye on things first hand and make sure everything was taken care of.There were two problems with his plan.
1)He developed the rabid fanbase that we have become.
2)He has grown to fast to be able to keep the close eye on things as he likes and the key people he had are busy dealing with phone calls, PM's and dealing with the forums.
I've dealt with problem one somewhat.
Problem two is much worse though. We now have a company growing rapidly with a customer base the staff is unable to take care of. So he had to "throw people at the problem". Meaning he's hired a lot of new people, tried to train them while dealing with being overwhelmed and understaffed. Now in this situation, people don't always get the best training, regardless of the intent.
Then it gets even busier, and he now is forced to get more people, with less training to make sure orders get out.
This creates a "catch 22" problem for all involved. Slow down the orders out the door and deal with the flack, or decrease training, hope the orders are right and deal with the flack.
Knowing the way Steve thinks, neither of these is acceptable, but for the moment, he's got both problems.
I'm not complaining about the personal mind you, this is just the way it works as a company grows. As you gain more key people, and retain them, these problems get sorted out. But I certainly don't think Steve and company thought things would get this busy this fast, so they are having to play a lot of catch up right now to meet OUR growing demands.
I'm certain Steve, Mark and crew will chime in with things I've missed to help explain this better, but this is, I hope, a way many of you can now understand what is going on with this company right now.
)
