BRAVO MIKE; (bravo Wade)
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Mike Dishop
via TenTec
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2017 12:21 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Cc: Mike Dishop
Subject: [TenTec] Ten Tec Service / How I am mishandling customer relations and
a specicial thank you to K5TN
A couple of days ago I made a post about being part of the solution rather
than part of the problem and how anyone could step up and make a difference.
Out of the 400+ thousand hams, one person took me seriously and sent me a check
to help support Ten Tec. That gentleman's call is K5TN and to you sir, THANK
YOU from the top and bottom of my heart. I'm not cashing your check and will
send it back, but of everyone in the world who reads these forums, YOU put your
money where your mouth is. It is nice to know that our company has one
absolutely true friend and supporter. It is nice to know that ONE person really
wants to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Thank you sir.
OK, lets talk CUSTOMER SERVICE
When I was quite a bit younger, I worked for a huge conglomerate that shut down
the R&D department that with 5 people had driven more innovative features that
made the company products sell than any other branch of the operation, and they
shut it down. I questioned the wisdom of eliminating this department and the
talented team that really delivered. My boss explained to me that what good
was all the future development in the world if the company had to shut down and
go out of business today? I learned a lesson here that I want to share with
you. What good is all the customer relations in the world if the company has
to close?
I've explained more than one time what I'm doing and why again and again.
Despite this I am repeatedly forced to spend my valuable time on this. Why?
I've explained why you can't talk to service. I've posted photos of our new
PCB assembly facility and we are still servicing every radio we have made if we
can get the parts. It costs me a lot of money to keep Ten Tec open each month.
The only way I can do that is to take care of the commercial customers FIRST.
They are the reason the company is open. Fortunately, that cash flow is
allowing me to reintroduce the other products one at a time. The Eagle is
next. Right or wrong, expensive or not expensive, there are people who want to
buy Ten Tecs and that is a good radio. It isn't about what you can buy from
Japan, China or elsewhere. It is about buying what you want. Ford trucks are
generally cheaper than Chevy trucks. So why do people buy Chevrolet trucks?
The truck is easier to work on for one. The drivetrain is more robust. At the
same time some say the Ford has a stronger frame. If you don't buy a car based
on the decision of price only, why should you buy a r
adio? You guys keep your radios longer than you keep your cars usually, and
you spend as much time or more using your radio than you do driving, so
shouldn't you buy WHAT YOU WANT and not worry so much about if the Eagle is
1600-1700 as compared to an Icom 7300 at 1300? My goodness if you pimp out a
K2 and make it do everything an Eagle does you spend 2300 dollars! And the K2
is far below the Eagle on the Sherwood chart! Should they quit offering the K2
or lower their price? Doesn't the better performing Eagle deserve to sell for
at least as much? After all they are both designed and made in America.
Should all the K2 owners dump them and buy Eagles because the Eagle is less
expensive?
Someone said our customer service was "sub par". Robert went into full
retirement end of last month. I'm sure he appreciated that comment. It
probably will be worse than it was now that he is gone until I do something
else.
Ten Tec is wholly owned by me sinve January 1 2016. To have sub par customer
service I would have had to have sold you a radio. To whom have I sold a
radio? What do I owe you? Fact: I am repairing the radios that the other
people sold you. I don't owe you anything. I have no obligation to you to
answer your email you or sell you my parts. I'm supporting you because we are
working on a new transceiver so that all the infrastructure will be there to
continue on when it is ready. Maybe at that time we will have the cash flow
supported by new sales to support the expensive and free customer service you
want.
The company isn't going to close as long as our expenses do not exceed our
revenue. Think about that. this is the coldest and hardest fact of business
that has to supersede EVERYTHING else and all discussions of if I am doing a
good job or if customer service is good or not good. Anyone who thinks anything
other than this most basic tenant of business is a fool. I'm not going to
spend money I don't have. So if you KEEP sending in your radios for repair
(PLEASE EVERY BIT HELPS) and keep buying parts from us (PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH
THE EMAIL) and keep ordering the products that we do have (PLEASE WE DO WANT
YOUR BUSINESS) then we can get this thing back on track. Look people I'm doing
this all by myself. I need time. We have moved in 12 calendar months from
having stacks of unrepaired radios from RKR and no parts to build radios and no
machinery to build them with to now having maybe a back log of 10-20 radios at
any given time and usually nothing over thirty days, having m
oved into a cost effective and efficient facility in TN, setting up the new
surface mount building in OH where we built THOUSANDS of boards in house last
year for TEN TEC, and delivered HUNDREDS of new radios to customers, in
addition to R&D on a new transceiver, all in one year. ONE YEAR. What did YOU
do in your last year?
How can I improve customer service now? The next thing I am working on short
term is our TEN TEC web store. I'm learning a little bit about how to do this
myself. I even was able to post two news articles over on the Alpha RF Systems
site. If you go there and click on the NEWS tab you can see my two articles,
the first about the amps we are building in Colorado and the next about the SMD
assembly facility in Ohio. I asked Boyd to take photos about the final
assembly, repair and alignment center in Tennessee and when he gets those to me
I will make a similar article for you to see on the TT website.
So what I am going to do next is make it so we can send repair invoices as a
email to you where you can log in to your web cart, buy the repair and pay for
it by checking out securely with your credit card. We have been testing this
on the Alpha site for 4 months and it is working great! I'm also going to put
what products we have like microphone cords, microphones, speech processors,
etc and it will show real time inventory of units in stock! Next I will try to
put dial string and PTO kits and batteries and little common items like that in
the store and I hope this will stop the personal emails for dial strings.
Now of course the month I'm going to spend doing this is going to delay the
launch of every other product by one month but who cares about that? We will
have better customer service! Before I get this done I have to work on the
corporate tax return due this month.
A special thank you to those of you who are patient, understanding, and support
my efforts in this herculean task. Rick, Bob, Ron, and the rest of you who are
regular contributors and who try to help people understand what we are doing -
I really appreciate it.
To those of you who are being critical you are not criticizing Ten Tec. You are
criticizing me and I take it personally. I didn't make this mess or gut the
company. I'm the guy keeping it alive and putting it back on track. What right
at all do you have to criticize me? Do I come in to your house and criticize
how you live your life, how you raise your kids, or judge you for why your wife
left you? If I did that you would say to me "What in the heck do you know
about me or my life or my house?" You'd tell me "There are perfectly valid
reasons for the choices I made". So why do I deserve to be treated
differently?
If you don't like what I'm doing, if you can't say something nice, then why not
just keep your mouth shut? What business is it of yours? If you bought a
transceiver from RKR or RFC you didn't buy it from me. If you have a beef, have
your beef with them, not me. Are you upset that I bought the assets of what
was left? I'm sick and tired of reading this drivel over and over again in
our forum. I am now going to formally appeal to the moderators and owners that
whenever this negative stuff is posted in the future that you just delete it
and don't even send it out. I believe I speak for us ALL that it is counter
productive and that we are ALL tired of hearing that the sky is falling! I
started this journey a year ago October and TEN TEC is still here, radios are
being repaired in a timely manner and radios are going out the door. When I
respond to this stuff I am wasting my time and it is just another lost hour
that a new radio isn't designed. You may not have anything
better to do but I do.
I need those of you who support TEN TEC to step up and start ripping to shreds
these jerks on eham and QRZ who raise this crap every three months? People who
spread lies and negativity damage the company and jeopardize people's jobs.
When somebody starts grinding their axe it is just like a little duck farting
under water, but when I respond and defend myself I get criticized and told I
should handle things this way or that way. It doesn't matter what I say, there
is criticism. So I generally just don't say anything at all, and then I'm
criticized for being non responsive. I loose no matter what I do. I
unloaded on somebody who was spreading out and out libel and then was told that
customers are going to question if I have the sanity to run a company and don't
want to buy from me!
I know my own course. I know what I have to do. I know what I can do with what
I have to work with. I'm going to do what I have to do and that is the way it
is until something changes. It is going to take as long as it takes me. All
the criticism in the world isn't going to change things. The only thing that is
going to change things is money. Time is money. It takes time to make money. As
I make money I do what I can do to bring TEN TEC back into the amateur market
one step at a time.
Just remember that every disparaging and negative remark delays the
introduction of a new product by a day. If you get ripped to shreds on Monday,
how good are you at YOUR job the rest of the day? You know what my problem is?
I can't walk off the job. I have people with families who depend on me. Good
people who are hams just like you. Those are the people you hurt when you
spout your hate, negativity, jealousy or just stupid opinion for whatever
reason or motivation you have. I don't want to hear it any more. No one here
on the forum wants to hear it. This needs to stop and it needs to stop
immediately.
73 DE N8WFF
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