Topic: BFL Single in the wild (BOUNTY RECEIVED!!!) - page 8. (Read 42500 times)

Hi Paul,

Not to make your customer service experience any worse...  but this is a good example of the immediate difficulty.  Email inquiries turn into ongoing conversations with several rounds of followup.  

In any case, you have my attention and I'll do my best to answer your questions.
 
- What revision (Rev1? Rev2? Rev3?) will our order be?

New orders at this point will be getting Rev3.  Rev 3 has a proprietary heat pipe thermal solution which comes out of manufacture 2 weeks from now.  Rev 3 also uses a few different parts all of which reduce heat generation or increase heat tolerance which are already on Rev 2 boards.  A bottom fan is used in Rev 1 & Rev 2...  and may or may not be used on Rev 3 depending on tests.
 
- What date can you guarantee shipping by for our order?

4-6 weeks from the date of payment.  Now that we're in production, the timelines are much tighter, so earlier may be possible, but please assume 4-6 weeks at this point. 
 
- Can we increase our order in size, now that we have our second wave of growth budget available?

You can only increase order size via new orders.  We can't retroactively increase volume on orders as it would impact others.
 
- Considering we're looking at buying 15+ units, can you do something to help us out due to the inconvenience? (a small discount, or a free Single unit, which would be less than a 7% discount which is not unreasonable I think). In this one time case due to the circumstances.

I wish I could help you there, Paul but in all likely hood we'll probably be increasing the price of the units as we get the time to focus on increasing their performance.   

- I'll leave it at that, and I hope you guys start to see the light. As I said I've been there, and know what your saying, but going forward, PLEASE look into some automation to stop this from happening again ;)

I've also been on your side and share your concern about the agony of crap response time.  I can assure you it's not an accurate refection of the way we run our company.  I trust you'll happily agree in due course.

Hello, I recently placed an order for 7 Singles. I now have funds for my second batch of 7+ Singles as well, and have yet to even hear back from you about the first order (with even a simple automated response with an order number, or anything).

I require a response immediately. As I have shareholders to answer to. Without further response, I may be forced to cancel my order and go with an alternate option.

There is much speculation in the community that you are either:
A) A scam (admittedly an intricate one)
B) Incompetent at running your business.
C) Just badly overworked, and a nice new startup that wants to do good for the community, and provide a great product.

But C is definitely loosing that race.

I've been in your shoes before, doing a massive import/fulfillment/manufacturing business on minimal staff (1-3 people at most). And having customers banging down my door with orders, and questions, and QC problems, and support questions, all while trying to fulfill orders.

But the lack of any response when there are DOZENS of simple ways you could alleviate it with minimal effort is unacceptable. You could add an auto-responder to your email. You could have your website automate order confirmations with minimal work, if you're taking in that many orders that you have been able to do nothing else but that (not even answer emails) for over a week now, then you are likely doing enough sales to justify a minimum wage student for a couple hours a day to answer emails. (unless your significantly underpricing your product, in which case we go back to B above).

Ultimately you need to do something to re-assure people. Waiting a week or more for a simple order confirmation for people looking to give you money is unacceptable. Period.

I really wanted to see you guys succeed, and hoped your products would pan out, as you have the best price/performance out there. I was excited, and looking forward to getting my Singles (and in the future hopefully a Rig or two). But I can't wait months with money tied up waiting on you guys. That same money could be put to an alternative, and could easily make up for the performance difference in the time I'm spending waiting with it idle.

Also as I said, I have shareholders to answer to, and this isn't entirely my decision.

So don't disappoint me here, please respond ASAP and let me know what's going on (and do yourself a favor and do SOMETHING to solve the black hole of customer service you have right now, to restore the communities faith in you).

Thanks.

- Paul
CEO of the Bitcoin Syndicate

Hi Paul, I appreciate your comments.  I really do.  It's a special sort of pain knowing  our customers wait and wonder.  

However, the rush of emails and contact attempts simply overwhelmed us and we had to make a difficult choice.    Production or PR.  We're schedule to dedicate some time to catching up on our email this week and it's my hope that our customers will find the means to accept our apology for the radio silence.  Certainly our original customers may as it means they get their units.

Please stand by, we'll resume normal communication within the next couple days.

Kind regards,
Sonny K
BF Labs Inc.

PS.  Feel free to share my comment with anyone else you know would be comforted by it.