I am the OP to this thread.

First, I wish Suncoast well, but as I said, our relationship is inalterably damaged - please do not call me on Monday. I too, am aware of that lower-priced dealer in the Pacific Northwest. The reason that I've always used you, was they are old school (parts requests are emailed in), but your ordering was online and seemingly (groan) more user friendly.

I suspect that most of the members here are sophisticated individuals with a strong sense of what is and isn't excellent customer service. One just has to read the avalanche of threads to see that. Although you have offered the make this right, I suspect that your motivation is more due to the forum's outcry as opposed to true customer service. For Pete's sake, you wanted people to vote on how to handle my issue? If you need to be forced into excellent customer service, you just don't get it.

My final suggestion is to empower the initial point of customer contact to make judgment calls. As soon as the customer has to escalate, you've begun to lose them. Although in this case, the "customer was wrong attitude" went all the way to the top, as witnessed by post #12.

Please note that this all went down on Friday the 13th.

 

What a terrible thread. I can't believe Suncoast asked a forum to vote to decide it's business practices. I've only had once interaction with them, and it went very well. I will definitely be shopping around now instead of going straight to them for my needs.

 

I went to the website and picked out a $16 piece of trim (ignition trim piece). I guess on the color that would most closely match my leather but it did not look good when I went and tried to install it.
They told me on the phone to ship it back and that there would be a $10 re-stock fee.
Needless to say I did not return it and I already received another trim piece from Bumper Plugs. My experience with Suncoast was very very brief.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't see an equivalency here. You guessed at the color, it didn't match, so you got charged a restocking fee when you returned it.

 

This is not a good example. The charcoal cabin filter for the Carrera S is shared by the same part number for the Boxster - any customer that owns a 996, 997, Cayman or Boxster would be receiving the correct part. It is shared by those vehicles.

 

To the OP, just to clarify, you clicked on all the parts you needed for your 997 CS, but the invoice that was printed and and invoice that was emailed to you had a Boxster part number (98711013300 )?

I just went on their website, and tried every permutation I could. If you clicked on a Carrera S air filter, the part number always spit out 99611013152. I was unable to reproduce any situation where my printed invoice (just before ordering) showed 98711013300. However, I understand your frustration and hope this gets resolved.

 

I ordered a decal for my Porsche Spyder and received a confirmed delivery date. However, shortly thereafter, I received another email that said the shipping had been cancelled and recalled by the shipper(Suncoast). When I called Suncoast it was explained to me that another customer ordered a cupholder but received my decal in error. I was told that I had to wait for the cupholder buyer to send back MY decal and Suncoast would then ship it to me. I was a little pissed that I had to wait for another customer to ship MY item, that I had already paid for, because Suncoast wouldn't ship a new decal to me. Seriously? It's a $120 decal that someone else opened, repackaged and returned, and was going to be reshipped by Suncoast! But I was assured the customer was cool and didn't alter the product. I don't care! Send me a new item that hasn't seen travel, wear, or touched by hands other than mine. Call me OCD, call me ****, call me crazy, just my .02. I cancelled the order altogether. And as far as polling the forum for customer service advice...tacky.

 

I ordered an airbag from Suncoast that didn't fit. They told me that I must be crazy and that sending an airbag back is easier said than done. Man I worked it, and they poured a ton of time into researching whether they could have sent one that did not fit. In the end I discover that I was crazy and I felt so bad I sent them some bucks for their trouble. I'm a retailer and I just felt compelled to admit that I was a dik, as I secretly wish one of my customers would admit the same to me some day. Certainly not analogous to the situation at hand but I would agree that little thought went into asking the forum (in jest or not) to vote.

 

I agree with many of the comments posted in this tread. Having a "vote" by 6speed members to determine the outcome of a $10 dollar refund is asinine. The damage done by this thread is 100X worse then refunding the $10 dollars, sending the member a free filter and committing him a "Suncoast" buyer for life would have been my first order of business.

OP, I'll give you credit, I personally would have just called AMEX and let them handle this, I wouldn't have had the patience to go back and forth. Suggest upgrading your CC?

While I understand that your (Suncoast) prices are heavily discounted, you're pleading your case to forum of 911 owners. Reputation counts for everything in this business. While $10 is insignificant in total, to anyone on this forum, it's the principal that counts. As many have mentioned, I'll start shopping around.

Side note: Amex would have just charged back the merchant after a 2 minute call to Customer service. I've experienced bad customer service in the past, I let Amex handle it. It really isn't worth the effort or "satisfaction" you'll gain battling the merchant. We're little guys, let your plastic do the talking for you, they have big guns!

 

So, what is this "other" dealer in the pacific northwest??

 

Dont think a chargeback would have gone through in this instance. The customer agreed to pay the stated amount for goods which were documented in his invoice which were shipped to him. The vendor fulfilled his part in this case and the customer would not be entitled to remove the charges after an investigation by amex.

The issue is how those parts were selected and erroneously placed in the cart at all...i dunno. It's hard being a vendor in this day and age, you want to provide good customer service but brand loyalty is low in the era of online shopping and customers run to lower prices in a flash. People who use suncoast are already self selected to be 'cheaper' because they choose a lower price over their local parts dealer who could provide them direct customer service. So they are unlikely to be the 'loyal' type of customer in the first place. It's hard to give way to every customer service complaint..you have to pick and choose sometimes because you will always get complainers.

Perhaps the guy truly made an error, was a jerk on the phone making threats about bashing them on this forum, and they decided it was not worth it to have this guy as a customer. Or perhaps their website is super clunky and they should have just fixed it and given the guy 10 bucks to shut up and avoid ths whole mess. There is no easy answer. They cant just give anyone who requests free shipping on returns that luxury. I will say based on this thread, i am less likely to use them in the future but was never all that inclined due to somewhat 'generous' shipping charges.

 

Did you read the entire thread? I don't think this is what he did.

 

Yes, can someone please share?

 

Depending on what level AMEX card you have they'll take it off. I had a store that wouldn't take back a return "Against Policy" or some non-sense. AMEX just credited my account, I don't believe they charged back the merchant. At the millions of dollars they may make in Interest/Transaction fees, they can afford to keep you happy using your card.

 

Which is why I'm asking him for a clarification. He stated:

and then in response to the question about what showed up on his invoice, he stated:

Regardless, I can understand his frustration as it appears that it was his intent to order all the products for the same vehicle.