A Rant

[P5se Camelback]

And one more time, the voice of first-hand, inside-industry experience!

[pgandw]

I worked retail for a number of years. Some of the Model railroad manufacturers have lost site of the fact that customer service is what keeps them in business.....
Folks that get good service tell 1 person, folks that get bad service tell 10.
As for "Skin in the game" I bought in when I bought their product.
Charlie

Charlie

Since you worked retail for a number of years, you know from experience that the number of employees in retail who deliberately under-perform or deliberately provide poor service is very, very few. When problems occur on the retailer side of the cash register, it is usually because they get goaded into it by customers' attitudes, statements, and perceived "unreasonable" expectations. Some employees are easier to goad than others, especially when they are having an off day. Being able to satisfy the difficult customers without ruining the company defines a great employee.

Where I took issue with your previous post is that your expectation that Walthers provide you free gear replacements for your locomotive upon demand regardless of warranty status (or Walthers parts status for a locomotive they did not produce). I would also disagree that the purchase of a locomotive alone gives you sufficient skin in the game to dictate Walthers business practices.

I am a full believer in the Deming business model that continual cooperation between buyer and supplier yields the best results for both parties. I have seen acquaintances go to model railroad manufacturers/importers with suggestions for their next product. Those who are successful are the ones who do things like assist with prototype data packages and photos, or with prototype model testing, or with constructing a master for casting, or simply round up a group to place advance deposits. Another area of cooperation that often doesn't happen but has great potential for product improvement is after-sale problem resolution.

But there are too many model railroaders - not that you are one - who sit around and complain on-line about manufacturers not meeting their every desire without lifting a finger except to swipe the credit card at purchase time - and then only if given sufficient discount. That is not skin in the game, and that is not cooperation between buyer and supplier. And the results will never be as good as the cooperative model.

just my thoughts and experiences
Fred W

[Charlie B]

Dear Fred, Here is the post I made
IMHO many of the model railroad industry buy outs are not about making good products, it is eliminating the competition so prices will increase. I'm at the stage in my life where I could buy a few more locomotives or cars, but after replacing gears on many old Athearn and "lifetime guaranteed" P2Ks I think I will just install decoders in them and be done with it. Walther's bought Lifelike, and now that people need replacement parts, whether for "warranty" replacement or not they should make them available. I read somewhere that they haven't got the Life Like replacement parts unpacked. Geeze guys, it's been 5 years or better. Of course if I have a locomotive that needs a $2 part that I can't get, I'll rush an order in to Walther's for a new locomotive (not). I hope they don't hold their breath.

I did not mean to imply (I don't think I did)I wanted anything for free from anyone, but if replacement parts are not going to be available for me to BUY to repair my locomotives then why should I buy anything new from them? I don't think it is unreasonable to want the parts, and I'm willing to buy them. The gears set me back less then a buck each and I got them from Athearn. Now if I still had my bills of sale and the original agreement with Life-like I might have a case, but during my short life I have outlived a lifetime membership to a historical society, a video store, and my lifetime warranty on my muffler expired 2 mufflers ago.
Some manufactures in this business realize that we often buy this rolling stock to last our lifetime, thus they offered the warranty.
In my years in car dealerships I saw many items replaced free when the car was out of warranty just to promote goodwill, and many times this was not asked for nor expected by the customer. sure I saw unreasonable customers, but that was an exception.
Walthers may have thought they were being taken advantage by the number of gears they gave away, but I can tell you that I have 14 4 axle life like units and I have not found a good gear on any of them, and these units were bought and stored until 4 months ago. I knew they might be bad, that is why I bought gears last year when first I heard about it, without bothering Walthers. I've never bought direct from them anyway, I get their things through the hobby shops.
Walthers bought Lifelike and along with that they should have realized that they bought an obligation to keep these folks happy too. The biggest percentage of us are running locomotives that are 30 years old or older, and one way or another I'll keep mine running too.

[rrinker]

To be fair to Walthers, when I ordered repalcement gears from Life Like prior to the buyout, they shipped me 4 geared axles WITH the wheels. I didn't need new wheels. And there were/are people gloating on hobby message boards about how they got free nickle silve wheels to upgrade their Athearn locos. SO there were at least a few rather unscrupulous people using the known issue of cracked gears to get free upgrades to other products. I rememebr one saying how many dozen sets of wheels they got but they only owned 4 P2K locos. This kind of thing ruins it for the rest of us who have a legitimate need. But Walthers could have solved that by simply giving out JUST the gears - pretty much worthless unless you have a cracked one, there's no upgrade value there. And Athearn fixes the ones THEY made that have cracked gears, so there really is no incentive to cheat and get 10 locos worth of axle gears when you only have 4 broken locos.
I contrast the policy of disdain by Walthers for train shows and internet purchases with the attitude of Stewart (before the Bowser buyout). I purchased an AB set of F7's on ebay, seller claimed new in box. When I got them, they indeed were new - the bags around the chells were still sealed. However, there was a broken off step on the B unit shell, and it WASN'T in the sealed bag, so it didn't break off in shipping. I contacted Stewart expecting to pay for a repalcement shell, explainign exactly what I found when I opened the package. Indeed, the beginning of the email response I got mentioned the price of the repalcement shell, but then in the second paragraph they said to just supply my address, they would ship out a free replacement. Granted it's unlikely this dmaage could have occurred anywhere but between prduction and packing, but I bought this from an unknown individual on eBay, not a dealer or hobby store, I was not the original owner, and I had no real proof of purchase. Yet the folks at Stewart took care of it. A year or so later I ran into Steve Stewart at Timonium and thned him personally for the fine products and fine customer service. I've not had any issues with any of the other Stewart locos I've purchased so I have no idea if it's still the same or not. The good guys, I put mention of them on my web site, because generally all we hear about are the bad experiences.

--Randy

[Charlie B]

I bought some Branchline sleeper kits that were on a closeout sale and there was a missing roof in one box, missing windows in another, and one other little small part in another (they still were unopened). I emailed Branchline and asked what the parts would cost. they shipped them immediatly at no charge so they too make things right. I would have been happy to pay. Then I opened the 4th kit and it was missing one step. I just ordered a set of four for 2 bucks from a hobby shop. It would have been cheeky to expect them to supply the step. BLI and MRC are great too with repairs/problems.
Charlie

[pgandw]

....but if replacement parts are not going to be available for me to BUY to repair my locomotives then why should I buy anything new from them? I don't think it is unreasonable to want the parts, and I'm willing to buy them....
Some manufactures in this business realize that we often buy this rolling stock to last our lifetime, thus they offered the warranty....

The spare parts issue is an issue across Chinese production. And it was with Korean and Japanese brass before that. It is a consequence of limited, batch production which unfortunately is the only practical way to produce the wide variety of RTR locomotives we buy. If the importer and/or manufacturer order sufficient extra of key parts for the production batch, and the quality of the assembled product is good enough, we never hear about a parts problem. Guess wrong on either count, and there is a parts shortage. Most of the more reputable firms, upon finding out about a quality issue like cracked or slipping gears, will order a batch of replacement parts. This assumes they can get the parts, with the problem fixed, made and delivered within a reasonable timeframe. Life-Like did this for their cracked gears, and some of the brass importers have done this to fix drive train problems.

Unfortunately, fixing quality issues after production is a lose-lose situation - even for Bachmann. Look how long (in years) it took Bachmann to fix its gear issues across its Shays and Climaxes. During that time the lifetime warranty was essentially useless - all you could get was a replacement geared locomotive - a Shay if you had a Climax - with the same gear issue as the original.

Although Athearn/Roundhouse seems to have a better handle on spare parts than most of their competitors, that generality didn't help owners of the Athearn Mikados and Pacifics with their split gear issues. When the spares ran out, they ran out. Go see NWSL.

Given Walthers reputation in other areas, I doubt Walthers deliberately mishandled the situation. My guess (and I admit it's speculation on my part) is that they saw that the rate of issuing replacement gears was going to deplete their stock of spares rather quickly. So Walthers tried to clamp down to make sure the replacement gears were only going to those who truly needed/deserved them. Probably a bad call on their part to handle it this way. Perhaps Walthers has ordered yet another set of replacement gears. Or perhaps they didn't, figuring it was a Life-Like problem.

In my years in car dealerships I saw many items replaced free when the car was out of warranty just to promote goodwill, and many times this was not asked for nor expected by the customer. sure I saw unreasonable customers, but that was an exception.

As the owner of 10 new cars in my lifetime, sometimes I have been treated as you suggest. Other times I have been treated rather shabbily (the original equipment Ford Explorer/Firestone tires comes to mind as an example of shabby treatment). The trend in reviews on handling warranty issues does impact my car buying decisions (Toyota is now off my list for that reason, where they used to be very high), just as your experiences have affected who you will buy locomotives from.

I wish I could guarantee that your next locomotive purchase will be free of gear problems. But given how pervasive problems with plastic gears are, I'm surprised the buying public doesn't insist on spending an extra $20-$30 per locomotive for quality metal gears.

my thoughts, your choices
Fred W

[MountainMan]

Like it or not, the companies need customers; therefore, the customers' money talks and the rest is bovine by-product, as the saying goes.

As the economy deteriorates, customer service is the key to survival. Clearly, there are many companies who fail to realize that new reality. Why should we help a company like that survive?

The comment about helping a company develop a new product line is interesting, because it supposes that a customer has some sort of obligation to assist someone else in making a profit without sharing in that largess in any way. That is a false business model from the get-go. My time is as valuable to me as the manufacturer's time is to them. If I want a better automobile, I don't do a ton of R&D work for the auto manufacturer for nothing; I tell them what I expect and if they don't come up to scratch I take my money elsewhere. If they do, then I remain a loyal customer, but I don't work for free.

There is a lot wrong with the MRR world, not the least of which is the dictation by the companies of what models will be made available. Entire segments of history are ignored because they must not seem either popular and/or profitable. That is incredibly short-sighted, even for the Chinese who now dominate the market.

Do not tell the customers what they can have; find out what they want is the operating rule in the world of today, because if they don't, someone else will take over who will.

And crap will always be unacceptable.

[Ralph]

Just a note of explanation: the original author of the thread deleted his posts so I have removed them entirely. The thread started as "A Rant" about DPM products and can return to that issue or continue as it is currently depending on its participants. I went into some posts and changed the title heading at the top of the post window back to the original title: "A Rant". I did not alter any other text.

Ralph

[Puddlejumper]

I hope he wasn't angry, I found the conversation very interesting.

[Ralph]

It still can be....

Ralph

[Charlie B]

I read Randy's post about the people ripping Walthers off for wheel sets. These people are not model railroaders, they are thieves. They are what gives us a bad name.
How often have we heard about a fellow modeler having rolling stock stolen from an open house. for that reason I would never have one. My friends are welcome, but when you get too many strangers you just have to feel a bit ill at ease.
Just don't associate with these people.
Charlie

[pgandw]

Like it or not, the companies need customers; therefore, the customers' money talks and the rest is bovine by-product, as the saying goes.

As the economy deteriorates, customer service is the key to survival. Clearly, there are many companies who fail to realize that new reality. Why should we help a company like that survive?

In addition to customer service, you have to develop your supply chain. Without an efficient and organized supply chain focused on your end product, you can't get to good customer service.

The comment about helping a company develop a new product line is interesting, because it supposes that a customer has some sort of obligation to assist someone else in making a profit without sharing in that largess in any way. That is a false business model from the get-go. My time is as valuable to me as the manufacturer's time is to them. If I want a better automobile, I don't do a ton of R&D work for the auto manufacturer for nothing; I tell them what I expect and if they don't come up to scratch I take my money elsewhere. If they do, then I remain a loyal customer, but I don't work for free.

There is a lot wrong with the MRR world, not the least of which is the dictation by the companies of what models will be made available. Entire segments of history are ignored because they must not seem either popular and/or profitable. That is incredibly short-sighted, even for the Chinese who now dominate the market.

Do not tell the customers what they can have; find out what they want is the operating rule in the world of today, because if they don't, someone else will take over who will.

And crap will always be unacceptable.

I'm not sure which way you are leaning Mountain Man. If the importers/manufacturers appear to produce for markets that seem popular and/or profitable, are they not finding out what the majority of their customers want? How is that dictating what models will be produced? Why would I as an importer want to bring in a model that I foresee is not going to be either popular and/or profitable?

But let's be specific. Blackstone runs semi-annual surveys of what the HOn3 community wants. Does that mean the top choice gets produced next? No. There are many other considerations. But the most popular models are more likely to get produced in the near future. PSC/MMI surveys their customers by announcing a variety of projects, and seeing which ones get responded to with orders. BLI does the same as PSC/MMI.

The problem is that there are many of us in niches that do not appear to have sufficient numbers to sell out a production run (3,000) or so. Our niche doesn't have enough responses on a survey or enough pre-orders to justify production. Car companies do that all the time - they drop models (and even makes) that are no longer selling in sufficient volume.

I don't get the customer model of sitting around waiting for a manufacturer to read my mind as to what I want, and hope that my wants are popular enough that it will be produced when I want it. If I'm the boss, do I sit at my desk and hope my subordinate produces the report I need in the format I want? And complain to others when what I want doesn't appear? After all, I'm his customer for the report. The most effective procedure is a negotiation over the report. I say what I want. The subordinate asks a couple of questions to clarify what I'm looking for, so that he doesn't waste his effort in producing the wrong rock. And if he's sharp, he'll ask what I'm going to do with the report, and when I will be reading it. Asking what I'm going to do with the product allows him to come up with alternatives that might better satisfy me than my original requirements. The when gives it priority. But I have taken my valuable time to explain what I want and answer questions so that I get a better product or a product that better suits my needs and desires.

As a subordinate, nothing is more disheartening than the wrong rock model. "Bring me a rock." "That's not the rock I wanted. Bring me another rock....." And the cycling continues. Whereas a little involvement upfront by the person expecting a specific rock could have made life easier for both of us. The parallels to model railroad locomotive production are obvious.

BTW, I have come to love superiors who say everything is priority one. They have effectively ceded prioritization back to me, without realizing they have done so.

Back to model railroading. If I'm proactive as a customer, I'm far more likely to get what I want. If at a minimum, I don't participate in the surveys, how do I expect them to know what I want? If I want a Rogers 1880s 2-6-0 produced - not likely to be high on anybody's survey - then securing a set of plans, and perhaps a couple of photos, along with 50 orders from my friends and me, is far more likely to move the model off the "someday" list into the actually produced list. Or if I can show an importer that an existing mechanism has the right driver spacing, and all it needs is new boiler and tender castings, a run of only 1,000 begins to make financial sense. But without more than a survey response, who can blame the importer for pursuing the top ten on the survey?

I realize that the cooperative model is not popular with many on this list. As you pointed out, the cooperative model requires the customer's time. And there are way too many suppliers that can't be bothered with cooperation, either. But Deming and others in the process improvement world have proven to me the benefits of the cooperative model. I have seen how much failure to repeatedly review requirements with vendors prior to (and during) production has cost in my world of commercial construction. Expecting a vendor to comply with a set of written specs, and no further direction or negotiation, costs far more in the long run than the upfront involvement.

my thoughts, your choices
Fred W

[Charlie B]

This thread is getting like a discussion on religion or politics. No one is seeing the other fellows point, or ignoring it entirely.
I filled out surveys for 40 years and the two locomotives I wanted most were the Centipedes and the passenger Sharks. It took a relatively newcomer to produce the Centipedes where the other big players all made new F7 models. Reason being that too few railroads had Centipedes, yet the one of a kind UP locomotives were available in plastic.
If you take a survey and your number one requested item is ignored and you can't explain why, then why do you bother with the surveys. At least thank the folks and give them an explanation.

[pgandw]

This thread is getting like a discussion on religion or politics. No one is seeing the other fellows point, or ignoring it entirely.
I filled out surveys for 40 years and the two locomotives I wanted most were the Centipedes and the passenger Sharks....Reason being that too few railroads had Centipedes, yet the one of a kind UP locomotives were available in plastic.
If you take a survey and your number one requested item is ignored and you can't explain why, then why do you bother with the surveys. At least thank the folks and give them an explanation.

Charlie

How many others asked for Centipedes or Sharks on the survey? Because it was your #1 doesn't make it #1 on the survey. An 1880s Baldwin 4-4-0 is top of my list for Blackstone (or anybody else). But K-28s, K-36s, C-18s, C-16s, and even standard gauge C class had way more requests on the survey than my 4-4-0. At least your choice finally got produced. And it sold well, too. Because it sold well, importers/manufacturers are encouraged to take chances on less popular locomotives. I'm very glad for you.

Whether we like it or not, Big Boys and Challengers sell. And they sell well. Just because I don't understand and won't buy one doesn't change the fact that others (many others!) do. My guess is that the size of the Centipede had something to do with how well it sold. Smaller locomotives just don't have the eye and curb appeal that the monsters do for the impulse buyers. A small locomotive has to have "cute" written all over it to get the impulse sales.

A push was made among the On3 folks to get 150 orders for a Baldwin 4-4-0 so MMI could produce it. PSC ended up deciding to produce the model in brass instead of die-cast (with the commensurate price point increase) because they couldn't get enough orders for die-cast production.

I'm not looking to convince anybody of anything. I'm just saying there is another point of view. I've probably said more than I should for the time being.

Fred W

[MountainMan]

Where to begin, or at this point, whether or not to even bother.

Read your modeling magazines - where are the unlettered, un-numbered items that always used to be part of an offering. Everything now comes in whatever flavor the most buyers seem to like, but hardly beneficial to the market at large.

Surveys? I've never been asked to take a survey. However, since H0N3 was specifically mentioned, that's narrow gauge, a world all of it's own. Since we're on the subject, though, let's suppose that you are a circa 1900 N-scaler like me, in standard gauge? Big surprise here - many Western railroads were standard gauge at that time. Where are the passengers cars, rolling stock and other equipment from that era? I can tell you definitively that the staff at the caboose don't know, and they don't care. Mr. Sleepy, the N-scale "sales associate" at the Caboose, didn't even understand what I was talking about, until I went through it for him three times, each time more simplified that the last. The answer, BTW, is that those cars only exist in the Bachmann and Athearn starter sets, and no where else. Strange, isn't it, to offer a "starter kit" that can't be expanded or matched?

So, an entire historical ere of railroading is ignored completely because it isn't A) narrow gauge, and B) no one knows. My LHS doesn't know either, but he does understand my issues, because I have informed him that I am constructing a layout, and he's losing a great deal of money because he isn't stocking the products I want. OTH, I understand his dilemna - I'm one of a very few N-scalers in his area, so the demand is low from that perspective. However, he understood me when I asked him how much diversity he expected in his local supermarket, or if he would accept only three types of vegetables, one brand of potatoes, two or three brands of cereal, nothing but hamburger, hot dogs and pork chops in the meat department and so forth. If he doesn't carry a wide enough range of products, I'll go elsewhere.

The market is stagnating, and being driven entirely by whatever seems to be the fad of the day. As they used to say - "that ain't no way to run a railroad".