Hi all,
Just thought I would mention a couple of things here to hopefully clear up any misconceptions or misunderstandings.
First off, I apologize to Chris for the delay in the order. It was due to a missing item that we were awaiting a restock of. The rest of the order should have been shipped in the meantime. This has been discussed here at JE and there are some new checking procedures being put in place.
Chris, since the Apex takeover of JE (back in November 2013) you have placed around 20 orders with us. I checked our emails and as far as I can see this is the first order that there has been an issue with. While we are not happy that there was an issue with any order, it seems a little harsh to issue a "Warning to others" based on one order out of 20.
Along those same lines, I noticed someone else who said something like "It's never been the same since Apex took it over". Please do expand on this, as I worked for the old JE as well. I seem to see that comment occasionally and I think it comes from people ordering through Apex and then assuming it is the JE side. The JE despatch times are the same and the stock level is higher than the old JE. The emails are generally dealt with very quickly. The only bit where we are a bit tardy right now is with answering the phones. We do seem to be a bit short-handed when it comes to that, but email usually gets the better and more detailed response anyway.
The JE side takes priority on posting and packing. This is to maintain the delivery schedules that you were used to from the old JE. At the moment I estimate we are hitting around 90% on the "Orders before 3pm being shipped the same day". This isn't as good as we would like, although it is where the old JE used to float around.
We have just employed a new packer and are making other changes to our picking as well (larger storage space being setup now = quicker picking) as we are aiming to get this percentage up to 99%. I will definitely post something to let you know when we are getting close to that level.
I also notice that some people complain about our dispatch when the dispatch is on time, but they choose the cheaper 2nd class post and the item gets delayed in the post. If you are in a rush, pay for the 1st class upgrade. It's not much more and it does make a big difference. 2nd class is estimated at 2 to 5 working days delivery.
And although Chris's order was delayed mainly due to a missing item, this all leads to a possibility of why this order had a slight issue and the other 20 didn't.
JE takes priority. It offers same working day dispatch whenever possible. Apex doesn't If JE is busy then the Apex side is pushed back. Hence the reason the Apex side offers a 3 working day dispatch. We don't make a secret of this. Chris's order was an Apex order, so wouldn't have been likely to have been picked until the Tuesday or Wednesday, at which point the missing item was found (well not found - we found out it was missing). So it was an Apex order, we had misplaced an item, and it was 2nd class as well.
So basically to summarize...
The issue with Chris's order was not acceptable, but it was also one out of 20 orders. The rest, as far as I can see from the lack of emails from Chris on previous orders, were all ok.
JE takes priority over Apex. This will continue for the foreseeable future. If you are after faster despatch then order through JE. If you aren't then order through Apex.
If you are in a rush, pay for 1st class as well. It's not much more and second class is poor. We offer 2nd class so that you can get the lowest price possible.
And if you are going to say "JE has gone downhill since the takeover" then please email me and give me some details. If we know what problems you are experiencing then we can look in to it and try to make sure it doesn't happen again. Whereas if you post it on a forum we may never see it. I actually only saw this because I logged on to Oople and it was on the left hand recent activity block.
Thanks to those who jumped to our defense. We appreciate that some customers actually like us
When all is said and done, do you think that we want a customer to ever have a bad experience? Of course not. Do we understand that there will always be someone who is unhappy or posts something negative on forums? Yes of course. Every company gets this from time to time. Do we like it when someone is negative about us? No - both because it is a bad reflection of our company and because believe it or not everyone here works their asses off to try and get your items to you as soon as we can. We do all sorts to achieve this for you, including from time to time working weekends to answering emails when not open to pulling an overnight shift if we get backlogged and also trying to resolve issues for everyone with the minimum hassle.
Has anyone come on here recently and said how we replaced some flight batteries for them despite the fault resting with their charger? Or how we replaced a shell that had already been sprayed as the customer noticed a dent afterwards, or how we made a mistake and sent a wrong colour paint, so let the customer keep it and rushed the correct one out to him so that he wouldn't have the hassle of returning it or how a customer ordered the wrong wishbones for his Tamco so we just sent him the correct ones as a goodwill gesture and let him keep the other ones.
No? Didn't think so
(That last little bit was may own rant and so does not reflect the opinion of JE Models, Apex Models or it's employees
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