Air Ride After Purchase Service

[daslacker]

Though ya' ll might want to take a look at the email I got from Air Ride after asking them to send me the correct fittings with my kit. My reply to them is below. I guess when you want Air Ride to fix a screw up, they lovingly refer to it as " being dragged through the mud" . They will probably have some kind of defensive, sappy reply, but believe me, all I did was ask for the fittings to get to me by Thursday. Caveat Emptor, peace.

--- Tony Bicknell <tony@ridetech.com> wrote:
>
> > Please specify excatly which fittings you need
> and I will make sure
> > you get them. I hear what you are saying about the
> fittings and we
> > generally do accomodate our customers in every way
> we can. Just like when
> > we sent you 1 set of fittings on monday and at
> that time we were not told
> > to overnight them and now I will send yet another
> set of fittings, but
> > now I am going to send them overnight....... and
> to resolve the problem I
> > will send them overnight air. I do not mind
> helping out and picking up
> > where we dropped the ball, but I do not enjoy
> being dragged through the
> mud when we have tried to be very accomodating and
> have responded
> > everytime it has been asked of us within reason.
> Once again, I apologize
> > for the inconvinience and will make every effort
> to get you fixed up so
> > that you can enjoy your system.
>
> Tony Bicknell
> Air Ride Technologies
> 350 S St Charles Street
> Jasper IN, 47546
> 812-482-2932
> tony@ridetech.com
>
> " The Finest In Air Ride Suspensions "


My Reply...

I did not realize that asking you to fix your screw up would be considered " being dragged through the mud" . Let me get this straight: I paid for a kit from you folks, you messed up, and I dragged you through the mud? I called and was told that it was not Air Rides problem, since I bought the kit from one of your authorized dealers, and you were dragged through the mud? I drove all over town looking for some fittings, with your helpfull(?) suggestion that maybe a truck stop would have them, and I dragged you through the mud? You decided to send me the fittings useing the cheapest slowest carrier (5 days for shipping is pretty damn slow). Bottom line I do not know what you consider good customer service, but what you gave is not it. Gee you messed up on the fittings, I sure hope you didn' t mess up on any of the critical components. All this crap just to get $2.00 worth of fittings that I already paid for as part of kit...man oh man.

How dare you!

[rollinon22s]

Well did you buy your kit from an authorized dealer?

Rollin, he did purchase it from an authorized dealer, and that is what initially caused some of the confusion on my end. Here is a copy of my response from this morning before I had even seen this thread.

Roy;
I do think we are getting off on the wrong foot here and that is not the way I want things to be. You are correct...... Scott' s Hot Rods did order the whole kit from us and we do owe you the correct fittings shipped to you by the fastest possible means. I am not sure who you talked with when you first noticed the problem, but they should have researched a little further to find that you in fact did order the whole kit through Scott' s, instead I believe they assumed that Scott' s supplied you with all of the lines and fittings. For that, and the demeanor of my previous e-mail, I do apologize. Another thing you are 100% correct about, is that this has gone way too far over some simple fittings. This is not how we operate. I am going to overnight you another set of fittings next day with a Saturday delivery to make sure you get the correct fittings and that you don' t have any problems. I am going to send them to the address that we have on file for you so if you would like them sent to an alternate address please let me know this morning. If you have any further difficulties please phone me directly so that I can personally get you taken care of.

Tony Bicknell
Sales Manager
812-482-2932

[rollinon22s]

Well my thought is if he bought it from an authorized dealer what' s his beef with A.R.T. If I bought a water pump from a part store and the gaskets where missing I would' nt contact the company that made the water pump. I would take it up with the part store and let them take it up with the company. He is lucky you are trying to help him. He should be mad at the dealer not you.

Well....... the missing fittings were not the dealers fault either. The dealer phoned us and ordered a complete system for Roy. When the kit arrived at there facility they basicaly just turned the boxes directly to the customer. So when Ry recieved them they should have been complete...... and it wasnt. He did phone in on Monday and requested a new set of fittings which the sales rep sent them out. Is where he messed up is that they should have gone overnight but he had sent them ground. I do not know if they requested to send them out overnight or what the story was...... it really doesnt matter at this point either. Then on Wednesday morning I sent the e-mail that Roy had posted this morning. Is what it boils down to is a communication breakdown somewhere and instead of me assuming what was going on, I should have contacted the customer directly and resolve the problem which I didnt do.

[daslacker]

Thank you Tony for finally clearing this up, as I said in the e-mail to you I think we both got a little a pissy on this one. But, thank you for sending the fittings, and thank you for the shirts. The wagon is now riding on air...AirRide that is. I think this whole thing was just a big mis-communication. The end result seems to work pretty well, and the intall was completed with minimal fabrication work, which is totally acceptable. AirRide is in my good graces, and hopefully this is water under the bridge, since I will be ordering full bags for my ' 53 truck next month (MII front, leaf rear), and may need some help from ya.

To " Rollin" : you are correct; if I bought a water pump from Pep Boys I would bring it back to Pep Boys (I guess I could learn Taiwanese and call the manufacturer?), but when I buy something from a premier nationaly known, and advertised custom aftermarket parts supplier/retailer I' m bringing it to them (one example: I bought a B&M torque converter from PAW it ended up being defective...I called B&M and they took care of it pronto.) I have been hot rodding cars for a long time and this has alway been the way it is in this industry, and I hope it never changes. There is something called loyalty in the Hot Rod industry and if a company wants to maintain loyalty in this industry they take care of their customers directly, as AirRide did.

[rollinon22s]

You are correct daslacker. Thats why the great companies are still in business, because they stick by there products. I was thinking that someone was buying the kits from A.R.T and reselling them to you. Tony cleared that up for me.

I am glad everything went well with the install........ let me know if you need anything else and give me a call directly when you get ready for the other kit.

Tony....