Hello Greg,
I just read your post on the FOG and I’d like to apologize for some of the frustration you have had with the recon program. But let me offer not excuses, but some type of explanation. I have been a participating the in Festool recon program every single time Festool has offered it. Most dealers chose not to participate in the recon program for a variety of reasons – one of which is that it generally requires the dealers to have immediate access to a computer to check availability, take your info and place that order. This must be done within the 30 minutes Festool gives us to “hold” your order. The dealer does not call Festool and place the order, this is a manual entry ordering system. * I think CPO may have an automatic online order system for the Recon Tools? If so, kudos to them. This can be at times a very frustrating way of operating a program for customers as well as dealers.
I am pretty much a one man band when it comes to RECON TOOL order taking, there is no other person to answer the phone and take your order. So many times I am on the road, at a meeting, doing a demo, or simply doing something as basic as food shopping, or as what happened yesterday morning - out of good phone connectivity for about an hour or so. I called you as soon as I was able to yesterday and was pretty straight forward with you – I would not be able to get to an area to place your order in a timely enough manner to ensure that your order would be locked in, the same thing happened regarding a customer wanting the KAPEX saw yesterday morning; I simply had to ask you both to call another participating dealer – which is a painful thing for a dealer to do, but the only honest thing I could do. No dealer wants to forfeit a sale to another dealer, but again, as soon as I was able to respond, I did. Later in the day, I would and did have full access for taking calls and ordering. It’s a question of timing.
Having said that, I have literally emailed and taken Recon Tool orders at 1 am and 6 am. My cell phone is my business phone and I take calls 7 days a week, sometimes after 11pm EST and way before 9 AM, which is not to suggest that an email or phone message does not (rarely) get lost or even not answered; perfection is still an elusive but worthy goal. Not too other many dealers have such availability.
As regards not having your card charged right away, well again, I am a one man band. Here’s what happens – I take the order over the phone, I enter the order with Festool, I print up the order and fax or call it over to my fulfillment company later that day or the next day – as time allows, so my customers may not see a charge that day or even day 2. I just don’t have that manpower to immediately charge the card on these orders as do most dealers. I would rather have the order placed and worry about getting the card charged later, then wait until I can be in that position to charge immediately and thus risk losing that item to the clicking 30 minute clock.
So, I’m sorry this did not go as smoothly as both of us would have liked and I will put om my thinking cap and see how response time and notifications can be improved.
Bob
