Which Companies Are The Worst At Responding To E-Mails

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Which companies actually respond to customer e-mail and which ones don't? You might be surprised by the answer (or not if you've already e-mailed some of these places). ;)

While it might seem obvious that retailers would (or should) reply to all emails sent to them by shoppers with questions, it’s far from reality! During the holiday weekend, only 67% of emails were answered within 24 hours (compares to 73% during the baseline period of the first two weeks of November). Only four retailers responded to 100% of the emails sent to them within 24 hours (HPShopping.com; Toys ‘R’ Us; Amazon.com and Overstock.com). Five retailers responded to only 25% (or fewer!) of the emails within 24 hours.
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Dang, Newegg all the way down there huh? In my experience, Amazon is quick but it's usually a generic copy paste template of useless information.
 
I buy from Amazon and Newegg almost exclusively, if it's not a perishable or I don't need the product that day I order online. Needless to say I've had to deal with Amazon's and Newegg's customer service many, many times and while I've never actually emailed either company both of their phone based customer service support have been exceptional. Personally, other than having severe time constraints I've never understood why some one would email a company instead of just calling and getting your problem solved almost instantly... at least in my extensive experience. I've also never spent more than 30 min. on the phone with either of them.
 
grifter_66 said:
I buy from Amazon and Newegg almost exclusively, if it's not a perishable or I don't need the product that day I order online. Needless to say I've had to deal with Amazon's and Newegg's customer service many, many times and while I've never actually emailed either company both of their phone based customer service support have been exceptional. Personally, other than having severe time constraints I've never understood why some one would email a company instead of just calling and getting your problem solved almost instantly... at least in my extensive experience. I've also never spent more than 30 min. on the phone with either of them.
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This site needs an edit option.

Anyway, the above statement is assuming that said company has phone support to begin with. I personally won't deal with a company if I don't have to if their only form of reliable support is through email.
 
Newegg and Best Buy on the same level? Shame shame :p Amazon on the other hand, is a poster boy for awesome customer service.
 
Another sign of Newegg's decline, sadly. My experiences with them have gone steadily downhill over the years. The big things Newegg still has going for it is they generally have the best selection of computer parts and their search/sort functions are by far better than anybody else. They're about the only e-tailer that lets you search/sort things like video cards by the exact chipset, really.
 
This is Part 2 of a three-part report. Part 1 has to do with phone support (wait time). Part 3 is about live-chat support.

Interestingly, Overstock.com appears to do quite well...
 
You know who tends to have really great email support? Independent app developers. I'm continually and pleasantly surprised by how many developers answer questions or comment on ideas for their mobile apps within 12 hours or less. Considering their products are usually with a buck it two you'd think there'd be very little interest in that kinda support and feedback reception... I guess I'm just jaded by larger companies with lousy support.
 
I ordered a Kindle Fire yesterday from Amazon. today I got an email that the shipment had been delivered but at home there was nothing. Either it got lost or stolen. I went to the customer service chat for Amazon and explained the situation. Even though its not their fault (or mine) they're over nighting a replacement for tomorrow. never asked me for any proof or to wait a few days or any of the other blah companies fall back on.

A+++ customer service from them.
 
@hegulator: Yep, Newegg just ain't what it used to be. Remember the "Standard Return Policy" Newegg used to offer? And remember how it was offered on almost all their products? 30-days return or 1 year replacement. Now it's just 30 days, period -- and only for the rare product not restricted to "Return for replacement only" or some shit. For the last few years I've found better overall prices (and shopping experience) at Amazon. However, I often cheat and use Newegg's excellent product sorting to find what I'm looking for first! :D

Amazon has a pretty cumbersome system for combing through the millions of SKUs they offer, but it's especially lousy for computer components and peripherals. I've spent hours fruitlessly searching Amazon, using different keywords or navigating through their categories, only to find what I was looking for on a Google Product search -- with a link to Amazon! Yes, Google can often unearth an Amazon product page better than Amazon's own search tools.
 
grifter_66 said:
Personally, other than having severe time constraints I've never understood why some one would email a company instead of just calling and getting your problem solved almost instantly... at least in my extensive experience. I've also never spent more than 30 min. on the phone with either of them.
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Even though it may not be true everywhere, I think many people have come to expect that calling a company is going to result in going through a myriad of stupid automated menus to find what you want, and then sitting on hold listening to elevator music for a couple of hours.
 
poee said:
For the last few years I've found better overall prices (and shopping experience) at Amazon. However, I often cheat and use Newegg's excellent product sorting to find what I'm looking for first! :D
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Interesting.

I have had th eopposite experience. I find for most large ticket items (~$150+) Newegg is usually cheaper by like $10 - $10, ships quicker, and is all around easier to deal with.

The only benefit I have found from Amazon is that they have everything and its usually in stock.
 
If anyone is looking for a dedicated headphone amp or DAC, Schiit Audio are fantastic to deal with.

Within 15 minutes of emailing on multiple occasions I was communicating with one of the designers of the product who made sure to take time out of his (probably) extremely busy schedule to talk to me.

I was very impressed by this (and by the build and sound quality of the amp I bought), and plan on going back them whenever I'm buying something they have.
 
I would also like to add that Newegg is slipping downhill quickly. I have placed 3 large ticket orders in the past 30 days. In the past, they have been extremely quick in regards to shipping. I'm in CA and the greatest thing about shopping at the Egg has always been the fact that if I got my order out before 2pm with my Preferred accounts "Rush Shipping" I was always ALMOST guaranteed that the product would be at my door the next day since they had a large wherehouse in So Cal.

The last 3 items, totalling over $2,900.00 have all been shipped from back east and have totalled 25 days of shipping when there should of been 9 days total. Sure they get a shipping number out to you the same day you order it, but when it sits in their wherehouse for a day and a half before being picked up and UPS doesn't start the 3 day ticker for a day after that...really? Is that the new 3 day shipping policy. Furthermore, the last product which came from New Jersey was packaged horribly... one of things that Newegg seemed to really take pride in doing.

Like mentioned earlier, I'll use Newegg's site for reviews but in the future I'll be shopping at Amazon.
 
ASUS is by far the worst in my experiences. Yeah I know they aren't a retailer, but they still suck.
 
Personally I'm still satisfied with NE but my options while living in PR are generally more limited. Still tho, I've bought two or thee products this year that dropped in price soon after the purchase, and every time they credited me the difference even when I called a few days later. My P67 RMA was also very smooth and hassle free, took about a week...

The SSD I ordered the Monday before Thanksgiving arrived on Wednesday. I honestly can't complain, the Shellshockers usually suck now and even Black Friday deals blew a fat one but their prices are usually reasonable and they have the occasional promo discount or combo deal that's well worthwhile (lots of game bundles and whatnot).
 
grifter_66 said:
I buy from Amazon and Newegg almost exclusively, if it's not a perishable or I don't need the product that day I order online. Needless to say I've had to deal with Amazon's and Newegg's customer service many, many times and while I've never actually emailed either company both of their phone based customer service support have been exceptional. Personally, other than having severe time constraints I've never understood why some one would email a company instead of just calling and getting your problem solved almost instantly... at least in my extensive experience. I've also never spent more than 30 min. on the phone with either of them.
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Like you I have never used Newegg's e-mail system but, have found their phone support to be a hit and miss thing. It runs the whole gamut of very good to totally awful. One contact though had me scratching my head and wondering WHAT? I had contacted Newegg about a graphic tablet they were selling. The question was about the difference in two similar tablets (they were identical except for the color) and their support person's response was they didn't do tech support. In no way was my question even remotely a tech support question. I chucked it up to some newbie that really didn't know what they were doing and just went ahead and bought the tablet with the information I had.
 
Impulse said:
The SSD I ordered the Monday before Thanksgiving arrived on Wednesday. I honestly can't complain, the Shellshockers usually suck now and even Black Friday deals blew a fat one but their prices are usually reasonable and they have the occasional promo discount or combo deal that's well worthwhile (lots of game bundles and whatnot).
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I wish I could say the same. I ordered a $550 video card the Friday before Thanksgiving and it arrived 10 days later with Newegg's 3 day shipping.
 
G_Sup said:
I wish I could say the same. I ordered a $550 video card the Friday before Thanksgiving and it arrived 10 days later with Newegg's 3 day shipping.
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I agree. Newegg needs to do a better job of getting the products packed up and in the hands of the shipper than they do. I should have to pay $2.99 for "rush service" just to get them to ship it when they should have shipped it all along.

Stuff should go out the door same day, no exceptions.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038090989 said:
Stuff should go out the door same day, no exceptions.
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At least as long as I order ~30 min to an hour before the last UPS pickup.
 
Totally agreed. Ordered a Dell U3011 on Tuesday of this week... UPS just got the billing info submitted as of today (Thursday). That was with the supposed Newegg RUSH service. I could of got that same monitor for $100 less via Amazon, but with my history dealing Newegg I thought I would have it at my door on Wednesday (the day after I placed the order.)
 
I wouldn't consider emailing support during black friday weekend. I'm more worried about shipping & inventory being updated. I ordered from four different sites on Cyber Monday that I've never used before. Two websites shipped within 12 hours. I'm still waiting for the 3rd site to finish processing my order, and it took 15 minutes longer to checkout because their shopping cart said "a field was left blank" when choosing the paypal method.

4th site cancelled one item because it went out of stock, 28 hours after I placed my order. The website wasn't updated to show the item was out of stock until 36 hours after I placed my order. I'm still waiting on the rest of that order to process (it's now the end of Thursday)...while a 2nd order that was placed through the Amazon storefront already shipped from the retailer. I had to order one sweatshirt through Amazon because I couldn't find it on their main website. I looked for more than an hour, their site was going slow, and another t-shirt in my cart went out of stock before I could place my order. I finally found the item the next day listed under "online exclusives" 14 links below the categories section. That item doesn't have a main category set like all of the other items, nor does it show up in the search results.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038090528 said:
Interesting.

I have had the opposite experience. I find for most large ticket items (~$150+) Newegg is usually cheaper by like $10 - $10, ships quicker, and is all around easier to deal with.

The only benefit I have found from Amazon is that they have everything and its usually in stock.
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It wasn't that long ago that Newegg was also the best for my (tech) shopping needs, largely for the reasons you state (and for their original return policy). And I agree, Newegg can still beat Amazon's prices by a few dollars on almost anything. But since I live in California, the sales-tax situation gives Amazon an 8.5% price advantage over Newegg right off the bat. No fault of Newegg's, but still, that can add up quick. Add in the fact that shipping is free for all items sold by Amazon (assuming an order total of $25) and that's another hit to the wallet from Newegg on many items. So even if the quality of their service hadn't diminished over the years (imho), it would be difficult for Newegg to beat Amazon's total cost to me.
 
Yahoo support sucks ass.

I recently changed my Yahoo email password, then promptly forgot it (my bad) because I don't use it all that often. I go to use the forget password tool, and what's the first security question that pops up?

"What city was your father born in?"

I would never, ever, EVER have chosen that question as a security question. Why? Because I don't fucking know my father, never met the guy!

That was about a week and a half ago. Emailed Yahoo customer support right then and there...have not heard a thing back.

24 hour response time my ass.
 
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