Penn State Industries Experience ???

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I have only done a few orders with PSI, I usually by kits from Woodenwhimies, but the tools i go to PSI. I ordered from the web Sunday night to beat the free shipping deadline. I just ordered the collect chuck and free shipping and a a $10 off code, and the package was at my door Thursday. Maybe because I was not in a rush it came that fast :biggrin:
 
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wdcav1952 said:
There is a old saying that could well apply here:

"Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency to me."

It simply does not make sense to order items for a last minute rush order and expect them to instantly appear at your doorstep. Plan ahead with your ordering and keep a decent inventory on hand at your shop. If you sell your work, having an inventory is a necessity.

I have rarely if ever been treated poorly on the phone by customer service. Perhaps it is because I don't start out by berating the person on the other end of the phone. People need to remember that the person answering the phone has likely spent the day talking to a**holes who treat him/her worse than they would treat a pet. Should the person get testy with jerk customers? Of course not, but even customer service reps are human, and can get curt with rude people.

Practice the Golden Rule when you talk to strangers on the phone, and you are likely to get far better results.
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The 3 times I called I got put on hold for about 8 min then hung up because I was at work and someone needed my attention and the other 2 times no one picked up may of even gotten a machine I am not sure. I'm sure bing christmass they are swamped. They use to be good this is just in the past year the slower shipping and not answering calles.

I do try to keep inventory but have been unable to, they sell faster than I can make them I have about a 2 month waiting list right now. Besides I really perfer people come over and pick the chunck of wood they want and the style pen makes it that much nicer for them especally since I use alot of spalted wood and it varies so much.
 
I to have had slow response from PSI in getting orders. I do not need orders rushed, but do like for them to be processed within a resonable amount of time. My last 3 orders have not be processed for up to 4 days. A little bit long for an order to sit somewhere. I have even gotten a double shipment from them on a large order. Had to call them on that one, or they would have never known. I also order from W&W, fast service, and AS speed is their middle name. I like all of these companies, but it does seem PSI has gotten a little slow in their processing, especially if you order on line. I have to order from them as I have customers who like some of their pens that I can't find somewhere else. I have even send a message to their customer service and gotten NO response! Too busy? Don't care? Who knows? With the economy running like it is it would seem that a company would really care about getting shipping, processing etc. done quickly to keep thier customers happy and coming back for more so they won't go somewhere else for obtaining the products they want.

I just placed and order with PSI yesterday and have received a response that order was received, but nothing else yet. Don't expect to hear anything until Tuesday of next week and order was placed on Thursday.
 
I still don't remember any delays at PSI on my orders... I order on line and get a response immediately that they have received my order... then within a short time get a confirmation that the order is processed... can't remember any that have taken more than 5 or 6 days from order to receipt.
Same is true for Woodturners Catalog or any of the resellers.... I've order from a couple of the resellers and had the order in 3 days... great service, but I don't really worry about an order taking a week to get to me..It's not a factor for me... I always quote my customers that on custom work, they have to allow 10 to 14 days... and often tell them it takes 5 to 7 days to order special parts.
 
wdcav1952 said:
There is a old saying that could well apply here:

"Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency to me."

It simply does not make sense to order items for a last minute rush order and expect them to instantly appear at your doorstep. Plan ahead with your ordering and keep a decent inventory on hand at your shop. If you sell your work, having an inventory is a necessity.

I have rarely if ever been treated poorly on the phone by customer service. Perhaps it is because I don't start out by berating the person on the other end of the phone. People need to remember that the person answering the phone has likely spent the day talking to a**holes who treat him/her worse than they would treat a pet. Should the person get testy with jerk customers? Of course not, but even customer service reps are human, and can get curt with rude people.

Practice the Golden Rule when you talk to strangers on the phone, and you are likely to get far better results.
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I do not believe it is so much a case of emergency ordering, since in an emergency I'd spring for next day delivery. Mostly there is the expectation of good business practices, if the site says 1 day processing then they should attempt to be as close as possible to that. I've had 2 orders in the last month, 1 took 3 days to process but the 2nd took 5 days and when I called to get the status I was basically lied to(It shipped yesterday here is the track number, but when I finally get some tracking info it wasn't even electronically noted with UPS for another 2 days)

Don't get me wrong, I like the products but I will defintely notify them that I am imposing a time limit for delivery, if it doesn't hit my door in 2 weeks(without them notifying me of a reason) then I'll just process a charge back and consider the order cancelled.
 
I'm fairly new to this forum and have been reading through these posts the past couple of evenings. I have ordered from Penn State before without any problems and I just received my second order from Penn State Industries today. Shipping was on time and the packaging was good as well. Everything I ordered was in the box. I couldn't ask for better or faster service. I just wanted to point out that I am a happy customer and have not experienced any problems with them.

Tom
 
I did receive an email from Ed apologizing for any inconvenience regarding the processing and shipping time as well as the employee(s) attitudes. He also stated that he was going to meet with his manager(s) regarding this.

Thanks Ed for caring and Happy Holidays!
 
Tom,

I have ordered my fair share of stuff from PSI. They do seem to me a bit slower than usual lately with the web stuff ordering. We have combated that by placing orders on the phone. My take on it is that the office staff, as I understand it about 8 or so call takers, are most likely swamped at this time of year.

On the upside, when I have called them with an issue they have handled it. I figure anyone is allowed to screw up, it is how they deal with the screw up that counts. If one person in their operation does not do their job the whole company gets a black eye. My take is keep climbing the ladder till someone fixes the problem or you run out of ladder.
 
I bought my PSI Turncrafter Pro VS from Amazon.com ($246 + free shipping) and had the proverbial "dumb question". There seemed to be a piece left over that I didn't know what it was for. I called PSI and they were VERY kind in letting me know that it was the handle for the turn-wheel on the tail stock. I'm very pleased with this company and its' service staff!

Dan
 
jleiwig said:
Well if any of you have had any shipping experience, then you know with a larger corperation they don't ship out each package individually!

I used to work for Jeg's high peformance in Columbus. Our contract with UPS was for semi trailer loads. The packages would sit on our dock until the semi was full...and I mean not an ounce of space left full. Only then would UPS send a cabover to come pick up the trailer and take it to their sorting facility. We could not list the products in our system as shipped until they left our facility. Often times when someone called me on the tech support line I would go into the warehouse to double check and see if we actually had something on the racks because I knew even though it said we had 2 or 3 in the computer, they might be on the dock waiting for clearance to ship.

Chances are things are the same at PSI. The only problem may be that they aren't as large as CSUSA, so it takes them a bit longer to fill the semi trailer, and hence slows down the shipping charges.

That's just the way any corperation works that ships in large quanitities. I'm sure they could ship quicker, but it would cost you more as has been noted previously. The only way you can get away with the small shipping costs that PSI charges would be to have a value contract like I stated above.
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Justin,
You are correct in your assessment... I used to work for TWA many years back... we had a contract with UPS to fly their Speigle account into San Francisco. UPS picked up the cargo from Speigle in Chicago, took it to their facility and loaded it into aircraft containers... The Speigle freight would arrive in two or three 88x125 "igloos" .. they were not delivered to the airlines in Chicago until they were full... our contract was for only two days a week - say Tuesday and Thursday... we would unload the containers in the warehouse into a pile in one corner and then UPS would arrive the next day or two days later with a 40' trailer to pick up the load... if we didn't have the equivalent of a 40' on a particular day, they might wait a day ... the freight then went to their sort house which was in Oakland I think and redistributed to the bay area from there...

Logistics is a pretty complicated procedure if you are trying to do it economically... we as hobby sellers and the re-sellers generally ship in much smaller quantities and more in individual packages... even if you are a relatively large re-seller, likelihood is the number packages shipped on a daily basis will be relatively small compared to a large corporation... the most I've shipped at one time is about 6 or 8 myself.
 
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Good Experience

Just placed an order on Dec 13th and received everything on the 21st. I think that is pretty good service for this time of the year.
 
On Friday, December 18th, I placed three orders. One each from Woodturningz.com, Woodturnerscatalog.com, and Pennstateind.com. These orders were placed before noon. Believe it or not, Monday afternoon the orders from Woodturningz and Woodturnerscatalog showed up, UPS. Yesterday I got a notification that PSI has shipped my order USPS Priority. Should be here tomorrow. Won't be delivered on Friday as it's Christmas.

Not really complaining, just a comparison. Like I said, I usually have enough going on that I don't need it right away.
 
I just recently called in an order, late in the day for them, and the customer rep got it pulled and shipped out that day. I'm leaning toward the slowness being related to web orders...
 
Wow - I have read this thread and find it quite disturbing. I have always had good success with PSI - quality, service, and price. Sometimes they may take a little longer to get an order out. Probably due to volume of orders. Business people have to keep there people employed and working when the volume is high and when the volume is low. So I'm sure they staff for the norm - somewhere between the two. I know that when I need something by a certain time frame I always call in orders to whomever the vendor is and confirm they can meet my shipping needs. If I call in and they confirm they can meet my needs and they don't - that is when I have a problem with a vendor. Well just my 2 cents or maybe 5.
 
I just ordered three items from PSI via their internet site on Thursday morning about 9 AM. I finally got a shipping email on Monday. In the past it has always taken 7 days to reach South Texas from the day of shipping. So I should get it then the next Monday. That will be a full 12 days. Glad I am not in California, that is even further. I like PSI, but they have lost all of my normal orders due to this, and I only order specials and good deals from them now. Just my thoughts!

Steve
 
I ordered some things for special orders and ordered a couple extra kits just to have since I make a lot of them. In putting together orders I discovered that some the parts didn't fit correctly. Called this AM and spoke with customer service and they were quick to respond and are selling me two kits to replace the ones that didn't work. The customer service person said that I could save the parts for some other time or to make something else. I find Penn State very responsive, but I agree that phone orders work better then web orders.
 
I placed an order with Penn State for a collet chuck set Sunday evening. I then emailed them to ask if they could please ship it to me A.S.A.P. It was delivered to my doorstep Wednesday morning. I guess the email helped.... Merry Christmas!
 
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