Making Tindie even better for Customers

As we continue to grow, we get more and more sellers which means more people with a wide range of experience selling physical products. Many are learning on the fly as Tindie brings them more sales than they had previously received (a good thing!). However with that growth can come growing pains which can lead to a poor buying experience for customers.

Specifically:

• Long ship times
• Confusing documentation
• Lack of communication with a seller (Q&A and Issues)

Next month we will be making changes around the buying experience and the expectations for sellers. Somethings will be:

• Shortening the time necessary to ship an order
• Making sure sellers respond to questions & issues in a timely manner

If a seller isn’t providing a good customer experience, it hurts everyone so it is time to think of ways to raise that bar across the board. Any and all ideas are welcome - just wanted to get this out there as we will be thinking of different solutions to ensure an even better experience for Tindie customers.

One thing that does not help is when Sellers like BBTech refuse to admit they made a mistake and instead act like the customer is making it up. I received 3 CC3000 V1 parts, and using instructions from BBTech, proved that the parts had an issue with the regulator circuitry. Despite this, BBTech continues to repeat that all parts are tested. On and on and on. Refusing to see the reality they themselves helped to prove.
I saw one review from another customer of BBTech saying they won’t buy from tindie again. I am pretty close to that as well since I dropped a C-note on parts that don’t work and have no recourse but to listen to “we test”.

Customer service isn’t tough unless you make it that way…

We’ve got a faily complex kit with a bunch of parts. Over the years I can count the number of folks who have had trouble with our kits on one hand. Simple! I extend the offer to have them mail the kit to us, we troubleshoot and take care of any issue and mail it back. If you’ve done the proper test runs and part sourcing, most problems like this are very easy to resolve.

Jeff

Jeff, that’s the type of customer service that wins customer loyalty in droves. Kudos to you! Just on that basis I’ll take a look at your product(s) and recommend people check you out.
A key in your statement is “most problems”. You can’t keep issues like defects from slipping through.
I don’t expect issues from indie’s to be 100% clear sailing any more than a product from a mid-to-large company.
I have purchased HUNDREDS of electronics parts in the last year for projects and have had a few issues (less than dozen I would think) related to quality or other seller-related issues (packaging, etc. - I won’t include documentation because apparently nobody can get that right now or ever?
I do expect the seller to work with me quickly (my time is $ too) towards a solution that justifies the $ I spent.
Of the handful of issues I’ve had, all but two were resolved by the seller in a quick, friendly and solution-oriented way. I still buy from those sellers.
The other two are just like this BBTech “experience”. The part is clearly defective (in one case the unopened package clearly was missing parts, in another the unopened package contained a part where pins were mashed flat during packing or shipping). I don’t buy from those sellers anymore.
Right now, I have $100 in parts that are useless to me and a seller that won’t recognize they made a mistake. I recognize my mistake and won’t buy from BBTech anymore and certainly won’t recommend them to anyone else.

Tindie probably needs a buyer resolution mechanism even if it’s just to report problems getting satisfaction from a seller. Or a way to boot sellers that have poor customer service.

There is no way one company (who btw undersells all of us…) should be allowed to blow off a customer and get away with it, meanwhile hurting Tindie and all the rest of us makers who have awesome customer service.

It sucks that any one company can tarnish ALL our reputations. It shouldn’t be that way.

Not when most of us will do whatever required to make sure the customer is satisfied. I’ve had a couple sellers forget to add parts. They were happy to fix it promptly. I’m the same. I happily replaced a Propeller board. I test every pin, sure, but who cares? If it doesn’t work for the customer, it doesn’t work, period. I’d rather them be successful and happy.

Agree on all points - however with this seller (and any other seller that has a bad case arise), we have to look at the totality of the activity on the site. If you look at his reviews, the VAST majority are good. Two bad reviews, again the exception. As we see a pattern emerging is when we will take action (and why we changed the ToS earlier this summer). One very bad apple, can ruin the community and we recognize that.

Emile, I want to make sure my reason for posting is not lost.
I don’t have any motivation for BBTech to get “booted” - as you point out that’d be a focus of a the business process you recently implemented with the “totality of the activity”. If I was a seller that’s what I’d want and expect. I’ve posted my experience for others to use in making their purchasing decision. So the Review feature works for me.

My issue is more along the lines of what bot_thoughts suggests - a buyer resolution mechanism.
If I am having an issue with the seller I want the tindie “umbrella” to advocate for a resolution on a case by case basis. It could be something like eBay,Amazon etc. where the customer is expected to work directly with the seller for a few days and then they have the VERY CLEAR ability to escalate to tindie to mediate with both parties.
I used the message process to contact the seller, state my issue, request assistance and finally to report a defect.
At this point if the seller does not offer to resolve I need a way to escalate. But where?
I used this post and an email to the general contact email to escalate.
Not really what I think tindie wants?

Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest a one-offense-booting – that’s way too crazy. And I think we already have something along those lines in place.

I agree with bluefirepony – buyers and even sellers need a mechanism to escalate a problem. Probably from the order page.