Slipping service standards?

[Colonel Enfield]

It seems to me like the standards of customer service at gun shops are slipping, which is odd considering ammunition costs more than I can ever remember it costing so pretty much any purchase from a gun shop involves the sort of money that would be treated as a welcome sale at nearly any other small business (or large one, based on my time in retail many years ago).

I went into one gun shop the other week to enquire about some .22 ammo and the guy behind the counter answered the phone in mid-conversation without even as much as an "excuse me". Normally I would simply leave and take my business elsewhere, but there's just not a huge number of gun shops about in Australia so it's not like buying a DVD player where there's probably half a dozen places in the same mall who can sell you one.

Even more disappointingly, when he finally got off the phone, he told me they didn't have the brand I wanted, wasn't sure when they were going to get some more, and couldn't tell me anything about the nearest potential equivalent. I left, disappointed.

I went to another gun shop a few days later, and while they did have what I wanted, the price was too high and the attitude felt like was that I was a nuisance for not buying an entire case of ammo. As the opportunity cost of going somewhere else (and maybe discovering they didn't have what I wanted either) was rapidly escalating beyond the worthwhile point, I begrudgingly brought what I came in for and departed.

This got me thinking, though, that treating your customers as a nuisance or not having any knowledge of your products would be unacceptable in any other industry, yet with gun shops it seems to be an increasingly common theme.

I appreciate times are tough for businesses, and in this part of the world they effectively have no competition, but even so - a smile and some kind words costs nothing; and I know I certainly drive a bit further and pay a bit more to business with shops I know will look after me and value my custom.

And I'm not even going to get into the skyrocketing cost of ammunition or the increasingly patchy supply of "common" cartridges, either...

I don't really want this to be a rant, but I am interested to know if my experiences in this regard lately are an outlier (maybe I just ran into two shopkeepers having a bad day) or whether it's a wider phenomenon.

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[Bandit12]

Definitely not an outlier. I've been in Melbourne for the last 8 years or so, a Queenslander before that. Every year I drive up to the South Burnett to visit the family, and stop in at Kingaroy Firearms to spend up big. 1600km may seem like a long way to go for service, but seriously at my local I will barely get noticed unless I step up to the counter and say that I want a new deer rifle, or some faked up tactical looking thing. Neither of them appeals, so I don't get noticed much.....

[Colonel Enfield]

That's a long drive but I can totally understand it if you're heading that way for a visit anyway! I've often thought it's a shame the internet hasn't had the same effect on gun shop prices/service as it has on other areas of retail - although, having said that, I will say I've always been impressed by Lawrance Ordnance's service in Sydney; it doesn't matter whether I'm buying a piece of $20 repro kit or something more substatantial, they've always treated me with courtesy, been upfront about everything and delivered on exactly what they said they would.

How are the ammo prices down your way? They've gone silly up here - allegedly due to a combination of iffy Australian dollar (78c seems fine to me, though...) and high demand in the US. I'm looking forward to hearing an acceptable explanation as to why we don't make a lot of centrefire ammo in this country - and why the stuff we do make costs a fortune.

[Aussie48]

Have to agree with you Colonel on Lawrance, exceptional service every time I have placed an order with them and James always follows up with an email to make sure everything was OK. Went into my LGS yesterday to get a brick of CCI Stingers, none in stock not known when any will arrive but probably next year. Bugger me my JW25A only likes that brand and velocity so will now have to go back to trial and error to find an alternative, OSA seem to have cornered the market with cheap centrefire 223 ammo, it shoots well out of my CZ and is made from quality components by ADI of all people.

Dick

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

It is not just down under and not just gun dealers. Customer service is on life support many places.

[Colonel Enfield]

I was asking about Stingers the other day and told there's none about and no ETA on the next shipment. There's still some Winchester Max ammo (1320fps) about because it's made here but I don't know how it would compare to Stingers in a rifle - it's amazing how picky .22s can be!

[Aragorn243]

22 ammo in the US is almost non-existent and has been for years. No one can seem to really lock down a reason either. Some say it's hoarding, some say it's the government tying up the ammo manufacturing with large orders. Neither seems to quite make sense but something is going on to either keep production down or buy everything up. A case shows up at my local Walmart and it's gone within hours. I haven't seen any in there in two months and in the last two years have encountered it in there only four times. Local gun shops manage to keep very small supplies but they doubled or tripled the cost and limit you to two boxes.

A lot of other ammo has been in short supply as well, usually the lower priority stuff. Popular hunting ammo but not shot by the average Joe is hard to get. Common calibers like 223/5.56 or 308 plus the Russian calibers are about the only thing you can get easily and somewhat cheap.

Service in general is just bad. The younger generations seem to think they are entitled to things just because they exist and don't feel the need to work for it. Plus there are just some nasty people out there. I think with the gun shops, part of it could be dealing with people demanding ammo that just doesn't exist. Probably get tired of dealing with that day after day so their patience runs thin.

[browningautorifle]

22 ammo in the US is almost non-existent and has been for years. No one can seem to really lock down a reason either.

We now have the same problem here in Canada. Not completely, but the prices have jumped and I can't see it. Some brands are available, but not like it was.

[Seaspriter]

It seems to me like the standards of customer service at gun shops are slipping,

treating your customers as a nuisance or not having any knowledge of your products would be unacceptable in any other industry, yet with gun shops it seems to be an increasingly common theme.

at my local I will barely get noticed

I've always been impressed by Lawrance Ordnance's service in Sydney; it doesn't matter whether I'm buying a piece of $20 repro kit or something more substatantial, they've always treated me with courtesy, been upfront about everything and delivered on exactly what they said they would.

It is not just down under and not just gun dealers. Customer service is on life support many places.

Service in general is just bad. The younger generations seem to think they are entitled to things just because they exist and don't feel the need to work for it. Plus there are just some nasty people out there.

We now have the same problem here in Canada

Gentlemen, you have touched on a very disturbing, but harsh reality of our capitalistic world. Sadly, today, as a result of a lot of "bovine excrement" (to borrow a phrase from one of our exalted members) from Wall Street, we have created a generation of entrepreneurs who believe that the purpose of business is "to make money." When I went to business school in the Vietnam era, we were taught that the purpose of business was "to sell goods and services competitively at a profit."

This is not a subtle distinction, it's the cause of too many of the problems we see in business today. I've come to understand there are three types of capitalists in the world:
- Adversarial capitalists who are always looking to pick someone's pockets, swindle people, and take advantage of those who are unsuspecting or ignorant.
- Transactional capitalists who just see everything as a "deal," an impersonal transaction where people are not part of the equation, just money is all that counts.
- Collaborative capitalists who see the purpose of business is to create mutual value -- for the customer and for themselves. These are the folks we all yearn to have as partners. They listen to us, treat us a long-term accounts, where a $20 sale is just as important as a $200 one -- because we are likely to return when we are recognized by the person behind the counter as important.

Collaborative entrepreneurs, while rare, are not extinct. And the good news is that, competitively, our economic analysis shows they win the game more often in the long run than their adversarial or transactional rivals -- just look at Southwest Airlines in the US or WestJet in Canada as examples.

The problem is that Wall Street, aided by Alan Greenspan (who actually started the "greed is good" movement in 1966 in a book he co-authored with Ayn Rand) have promoted this bogus "make money at all costs" philosophy for too long, and too many people now believe it. Couple this with the very narcissistic "me first, everyone else be damned" generation, and we have the recipe for customer dissatisfaction. (BTW, social scientists have confirmed what you already know -- the new generation is the most narcissistic since Roman times).

What can be done about it? A lot.
-- First, "complain positively" stating what's wrong and what must be done right.
-- Second, business owners need to take the time to recruit, select, and train people to work collaboratively with people. There are many companies that do this, and they rate very high in the "Great Places to Work" index (and, not by coincidence, they are also the most profitable companies).
-- Third, post your complaints on social media -- other customers will boycott bad businesses; natural selection will put them our of our mutual misery and the good guys will eventually prevail -- vote with the dollar or pound. Tell the world who you are doing business with and why those that are caring and honourable are getting your business.
-- Fourth, tell the bosses at the good companies that you went out of the way to do business with them because they cared about customer service -- in other words, reinforce the reason you decided to buy from them so they reinforce it with their staff.
-- Fifth, if you have a choice to buy locally or buy off the internet; choose the former, all things being equal.

Goodness and righteousness will prevail if we give those that make the right choices a little help along the way.

[Colonel Enfield]

I'd heard .22 ammo was a bit thin on the ground in the US but had no idea the situation was so dire! Getting centrefire ammo here is costing ever-increasing amounts of money too. Not just the two main popular centrefire calibres of .223 and .308, but even extremely popular calibres like .303 and 6.5x55 Swedish have either become very difficult to get or cost obscene amounts. No-one really seems to know why, either.