SkyGeek makes unhappy customer happy

Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Henning said:
Quick question for the owner of Sky Geek, do you give commissions or bonuses on 'upsells' and/or period defined bottom lines? I often find they are at the root of these issues.
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Thanks for your concern and no our CSR(s) do not work on commission unfortunately to offer the Aviation world spare parts there is little Gross Margin and we have to strive acquiring your business through other avenues like Repeat Customers, Great Customer Service and "Fair" Prices. Unfortunately in Mr. Spencers case it appears we failed miserably. All we can do at this juncture is make it as right as possible under the circumstances and make sure Mr. Spencer, This forum and the WWW understands SkyGeek cares and it is not the norm.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

cavmedic said:
I wonder if the whole thing was a misunderstanding between the two parties.

It started with having problems with the website.
I've never had any problems with the website. I'm curious as to what those problems were.


With any luck , "the call may have been recorded for quality assurance " and then the truth will be known.
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With any web related service we have a ton of plates spinning on the back side to convey a professional experience on the front side for you our customer... Mr. Spencer could have easily hit one of those Snafus that happens.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Sky Geek really stepped up to the plate and did the right thing here. What's it take for a mod to change the title of this thread? At this point it is very misleading and inaccurate..
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I want to say publicly that Mr. Styles' handling of this issue was classy beyond all expectations. I should have tried to contact him first. But from some of the posts, he may end up with more business -- one of those rare cases when things actually work out right.

JS
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I just became a SkyGeek customer.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

N5922S said:
I want to say publicly that Mr. Styles' handling of this issue was classy beyond all expectations. I should have tried to contact him first. But from some of the posts, he may end up with more business -- one of those rare cases when things actually work out right.

JS
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I think you are correct. Positive, testimonials should certainly help Skygeek. I have bought from them in the past with good experience.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Never heard of the place, but will keep them in mind. The owner is a smart cookie.

I get to relate the story of my turn and bank indicator, which failed after 300 hours of service at Oshkosh. An A&P and I removed it, and I walked it to the manufacturer's booth, which was Mid Continent avionics. I was hoping for a repair or a pro-rated new unit, but the owner of Mid Continent immediately offered a new unit free of charge, and an upgrade at that. Big shout out for those guys. I tell the story to give them some more good press.

Fortunately, I've only seen poor customer service in one aviation company (XM). Usually, folks are really good.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I have traded with SkyGeek, with excellent results.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Lance F said:
Sky Geek really stepped up to the plate and did the right thing here. What's it take for a mod to change the title of this thread? At this point it is very misleading and inaccurate..
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I think it could be done by the mods, but would think that Jim would need to request it as the OP. I agree that it would be appropriate.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I didn't even know skygeek.com was an aviation website. I checked it out but don't need anything at this time. Looks like a nice site!
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Letting companies become aware that you are computer literate along with the ability to air your grievances on-line can sometimes go a long way toward becoming a satisfied customer.

Never threaten or put them in the position of having to accept an "or else" scenario, simply make your contact with them via a nice e-mail explaining the difficulty you had with one of their employees understanding your specific instructions.

Remember, the person receiving your e-mail is just another person much like yourself. Good manners can go a long way toward making them want to keep you as a customer.

Contacting them beats the heck out of walking away without giving them a chance to correct a customers problem.

Should you then continue to remain unsatisfied, you can tell them publicly to shove it with the knowledge that you did the right thing, the right way.

You never know when you might need that company again or that being on good terms with them might prove to be to your advantage.

-John
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Not to imply this about Sky Geek, but y'all act as perfect dupes for the oldest scam in retail. Order the employees to do not so above the board stuff and then when caught, apologize profusely and blame the employee.
 
steingar said:
Never heard of the place, but will keep them in mind. The owner is a smart cookie.

I get to relate the story of my turn and bank indicator, which failed after 300 hours of service at Oshkosh. An A&P and I removed it, and I walked it to the manufacturer's booth, which was Mid Continent avionics. I was hoping for a repair or a pro-rated new unit, but the owner of Mid Continent immediately offered a new unit free of charge, and an upgrade at that. Big shout out for those guys. I tell the story to give them some more good press.

Fortunately, I've only seen poor customer service in one aviation company (XM). Usually, folks are really good.
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If you mean XM as in the weather... i ve had terrible experiences with them on the radio side but awesome on the weather side... at least when i called, i got someone who i could understand and had no reason to doubt their name wasn't peggy.
Now for the radio side, 2 hours on hold before a simple resolution of stopping service on a unit is inacceptable.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

cavmedic said:
If you mean XM as in the weather... i ve had terrible experiences with them on the radio side but awesome on the weather side... at least when i called, i got someone who i could understand and had no reason to doubt their name wasn't peggy.
Now for the radio side, 2 hours on hold before a simple resolution of stopping service on a unit is inacceptable.
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They unceremoniously dumped my service, and when called denied I ever had service and had never heard of my antenna number. No effort at any kind of resolution.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I'm glad SkyGeek came on and did the right thing. Awesome. I hadn't heard of them before but when I need something I will keep them in mind. Good service.

I totally understand OP being upset, but agree with all that the first route should be to contact the company before complaining publicly. I'm glad he's happy now, though, and I'm glad he came on and said so publicly as well.

Henning said:
Not to imply this about Sky Geek, but y'all act as perfect dupes for the oldest scam in retail. Order the employees to do not so above the board stuff and then when caught, apologize profusely and blame the employee.
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If the choice is to be duped by good customer service or be burdened with your cynicism, I'll be duped. I get the feeling that I would enjoy sitting on my back deck more than you would enjoy flying an F-22. That's a shame.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

steingar said:
They unceremoniously dumped my service, and when called denied I ever had service and had never heard of my antenna number. No effort at any kind of resolution.
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I had an experience with XM, like that, also. By the time I e-mailed several times and finally talked to someone with a brain, they cleared it up... eventually.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Does SkyGeek employ their own CSR(s) or do they outsource it to a large call center that represents many companies? That is generally where I see the problems occurring.

I would also suggest to SkyGeek that they improve their ordering system if they cannot determine the name of the CSR that took the order.
 
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Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

hopmedic said:
If the choice is to be duped by good customer service or be burdened with your cynicism, I'll be duped. I get the feeling that I would enjoy sitting on my back deck more than you would enjoy flying an F-22. That's a shame.
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It's actually the opposite, my well developed cynicism actually allows me to enjoy life a lot more. I have no great expectations therefore I find no great disappointments when reality proves to be fecal matter.

For example, I consider 80% of humanity stupid, therefore when I run into stupidity, rather than being upset, I'm neutral because I expected it and I just go about solving the problem someone else's stupidity caused me. OTOH, when I encounter plain competency I get to be pleased. Beats the heck out of being neutral 20% of the time and annoyed 80%.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

Henning said:
It's actually the opposite, my well developed cynicism actually allows me to enjoy life a lot more. I have no great expectations therefore I find no great disappointments when reality proves to be fecal matter.

For example, I consider 80% of humanity stupid, therefore when I run into stupidity, rather than being upset, I'm neutral because I expected it and I just go about solving the problem someone else's stupidity caused me. OTOH, when I encounter plain competency I get to be pleased. Beats the heck out of being neutral 20% of the time and annoyed 80%.
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This you've made very clear.
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

gprellwitz said:
I think it could be done by the mods, but would think that Jim would need to request it as the OP. I agree that it would be appropriate.
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Correct
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

My run-in with Skygeek, ironically, was over a headset, too. However, the story was opposite in some ways, and typical for online retail. The item was listed in stock, I ordered it (via the site), and it turned out that it was not actually in stock. I admit that I was a little peeved when Yahoo sent me a form to rate the retailer. My mistake was to link it to the impeding checkride.

In the end my checkride was postponed for a couple of weeks, and the set arrived just in time, so I had no chance to test it beforehand. I took the risk of it being DoA, and a discontinuation, but it worked fine. I passed the checkride, too. I still have it and everyone is happy.

When Steven received my Yahoo evaluation, he refunded me a somewhat random amount of $10.46, which seemed a little odd. The contention here was that the website lied about the availability, and not the charged amount. See, unlike the OP I did actually select expedited shipment. And it's not like ten bucks would make the headset magically appear at a warehouse. I would rather prefer that he addressed the underlying problem in the accounting of the inventory.

It must be noted that I hit this sort of thing before, with Sporty's. I forgot what the item was. The amusing part is that Sporty's soulless machine bombarded me with postponement notices - on paper! - and each of the notices was in different format. As if each layer of Sporty's back-end op independently decided to inform me. Frankly I can see why Sporty's is so overpriced. Their op is thick like all get out. I avoid them since, although some items can only be gotten through them (for example, Steven does not sell oxygen).

These cases led me to buying everything I can through Amazon (the real one), failing that through Amazon retailers (like Sarasota Avionics), and only if nothing else works, refer to Skygeek, with Sporty's taking the lowest spot. Amazon demands strict discipline from retailers, and maintains it for themselves admirably.

I buy paper charts from Skygeek in preference, however, for a couple of reasons. First, the risk of them not being there is low: it's a bulk item. Just don't buy them near the expiration period. Second, Steven installed a useful system where you can order "next" sectional when it's available. And third, WacTac uses Google Checkout. Ugh to that.

-- Pete
 
Good customer service leads to at least five or six people learning about the site and becoming potential future customers. Nice!
 
denverpilot said:
Good customer service leads to at least five or six people learning about the site and becoming potential future customers. Nice!
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That's not historically complete. It looks to me more like a bad sales transaction lead to a public complaint which lead to a public mea culpa which lead to potential future customers.
 
Jim Logajan said:
That's not historically complete. It looks to me more like a bad sales transaction lead to a public complaint which lead to a public mea culpa which lead to potential future customers.
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That level of detail is included in the supporting documentation (the thread) of the executive summary. :)
 
I've had pretty good luck with Sporty's customer service. I had some chocks which were defective (there's essentially a left chock and a right chock with a rope between them but the set I had had two lefts...). I wasn't able to get the guy to understand what I was talking about, but he just sent me two more chocks anyhow. Now about three years later I finally got a drill press in the hangar, so I walked over with the defective set, drilled the extra hole in it and now they both work.

Many years ago Jim Irwin took to berating his ASS customers complaints online. That doesn't go over too well (especially when he divulged order info that the customers didn't put in their post). However after that things got a lot better. ASS tends to still have the "disassociation between actual inventory and the computer" but they're pretty good about it. The only other problem I've had with them is they employ louts who don't believe that women fly and do other aviation stuff. My wife started asking them about HVLP guns at Oshkosh and they turned at explained stuff to me. Hey, idiot, I'm not the one whose buying this thing...
 
I just placed my first order with skygeek. New tires, oil filter and such. Great prices, I must say.

RR
 
This thread made me think about This Story that goes along similar lines.

Jeff Jarvis is a professor in journalism at City University of New York. He also blogs at buzzmachine.com. Mr. Jarvis famously wrote about crappy customer service he received from Dell Computers. His blog, was written at a perfect time where many people were dissatisfied with Dell customer service and he ended up setting off an avalanche of negative publicity for Dell.

Dell saw what they were up against...started by one lone dissatisfied customer and made a corporate policy change. They pivoted on customer service and now are ranked quite high in customer service satisfaction...and it all started from one guy on the Internet voicing a complaint about a massive corporation.
 
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I was at a meeting a few weeks ago and one speaker started off with.

"Hello, I have a very heavy Indian accent, so if you are having a hard time understanding me, just think 'Dell Customer Support'."
 
Re: I won't be doing business with SkyGeek again

I hadn't heard of SkyGeek until this thread, but I have bookmarked the URL now.
 
Is it possible the OP works for, or is affiliated with SkyGeek?
 
Captain said:
Is it possible the OP works for, or is affiliated with SkyGeek?
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Does it really matter? If he does, and they're having us on, do you think we won't hear about it from the next PoA member that uses them? If he doesn't, then all is good!
 
flyingron said:
I was at a meeting a few weeks ago and one speaker started off with.

"Hello, I have a very heavy Indian accent, so if you are having a hard time understanding me, just think 'Dell Customer Support'."
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This just shows how out of touch the speaker was. Jarvis' missive triggered Dell in-sourcing, which in turn created a massive wave of in-sourcing across the industry.
 
zaitcev said:
This just shows how out of touch the speaker was. Jarvis' missive triggered Dell in-sourcing, which in turn created a massive wave of in-sourcing across the industry.
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joke

n.
1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2. A mischievous trick; a prank.
3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.
4. Informal
a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality.
b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock.
 
Necroposting - well, I guess the post is not that old....

Just bought a DVD from SkyGeek. I saw they were one of the vendors in the US for this DVD, remembered this thread, and went there for the purchase....
 
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