Closets by Design

Normally I wouldn’t post things personal communications with companies, but this caught be my surprise.
This is after a week delay in getting back to me with no contact in-​between, a phone call that became way to personal for comfort and a complete lack of unprofessional-​ism.
My feedback to Ken and his company: keep your e-​mails brief, follow up with customers if you know there is going to be a delay, be it a brief e-​mail or phone call, and apologize, but don’t over apologize.
[EDIT] — To follow up to this, I have had contact with the owner and several others at Closets by Design. While I won’t be doing business with them, they certainly understand this is NOT the way to attract customers.
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Thanks for the update, Paul, and for the direct communication.
In truth, however, it was not a lack of follow up that caused you to go with a different company. That’s merely what you’re telling yourself so you can feel good about choosing the 2^nd best company, and perhaps to feel justified in using my design with the other provider (if that occurred).
I know it wasn’t a lack of follow up, because I followed up with you 6 times myself, including 4 emails and 2 phone calls, which I doubt a reasonable person would consider to be a lack of follow up.
What you did experience was disappointment –based on your expectation regarding how long you felt it should reasonably take to receive an initial set of plans and price quote after our first meeting. And while I won’t call your expectation unreasonable, it certainly wasn’t communicated to me either.
Unfortunately, you then mischaracterized that frustration as being the same as what you’ve experienced previously with contractors who did not keep their agreements with you, and who probably made continual excuses about their ongoing violation of your trust and their repeatedly breaking of agreements. None of which has occurred in this case.
Since my experience with you was so completely outside of the ordinary, for both myself and my company, I probed for answers, and carefully analyzed what happened, so as to help prevent any similar occurrence in the future.
Our company policy is to leave a completed drawing and price quote on our first call with every prospective customer, whenever feasible, and to otherwise NEVER leave without agreeing to a specific follow up appointment to deliver the drawings and price quote. Of course, you were actually back at work when I left which threw me off a bit, but that’s no excuse.
Bottom line: I failed to create an agreement with you, before leaving your house, which would have in turn established a mutually understood and agreed upon expectation. Had I done so, you would not have been disappointed nor lost trust, and you would likely be moving forward with us — the highest value provider in this market, in terms of both product & customer experience. Instead, you’ll probably be getting something less elsewhere, and I feel badly for my part in putting you in that position.
Jana also failed to immediately forward all of your communications with her to me, which would have prompted my immediate attention, and perhaps we might have narrowly averted at least the major part of the problem. I’ve instructed her accordingly regarding all email communications from any client or prospect henceforth.
And of course, had it per chance not been such an overwhelming couple of weeks personally, the initial follow up would have been more expeditious to begin with, but that’s really neither here nor there.
You have my apology for not getting you on to my schedule prior to leaving your house, and for not communicating the delay in processing your drawing/​quote. I also apologize in behalf of Jana for not getting your messages to me in a timely enough manner.
You remain, of course, welcome to reconsider and place your order with us, or call on us to bid future projects. But in any case, I hope I’ve sufficiently established the fact that we did not lack for follow up (quite the opposite, in fact), nor did we break any agreements with you. And I respectfully ask, therefore, that you not misrepresent us to others as a company of poor follow up, should the topic come up in conversation.
Best of luck to you both in your forthcoming marriage.
Sincerely,
Ken Jepson
Closets By Design