••ü•• Umnitza Announcement - Per Administration Approval and Direction

[ekaz]

Let me get this straight...you have some very dissatisfied customers on this site who took the time to let everyone else know their story and prevent the same from happening to them. Now, months later, you come back and expect everyone to come flooding back because you had difficulties during a move? You don't want to explain your side of the story? Even if it means increased business, maybe a change from negative to at least neutral thoughts of your company? You're in charge of your workforce, it isn't the customers fault that you have high turnover, I mean transient workforce. You fired two employees, why? From the way you describe your workforce they would've been gone soon anyway. We have a top-end luxury cars and care a great deal about them and the parts we add, if it costs an extra $50-$100 to ensure a quality product in the expected timeframe, I'm sure none of us would have a problem with that. Also, the issues you were experiencing with staffing and what-not isn't new. A friend of mine that has an IS300 was going through the same thing with you last year. He has a show car and barely got his headlights back in time for a show that he was in. He also won't point anyone in your direction.
I'm not trying to dis-credit you or anything, but simply put..you f'd up, have a track record to prove you f'd up and all anyone is asking for is your side of the story to make the decision for themselves. You aren't even willing to do that unless we call you or e-mail you...all forms of communication that have been unsuccessful in the past.
If I were in business, I'd be doing whatever it took to keep them satisfied, no excuses....just an apology and swift correction.

[UncleTito]

Originally Posted by Curious Joel

Umnitza sucks, plain and simple.. We never did end up getting our money back for those lights I ordered.

Umitza, I hope you're reading this post. Well, take care of CJ first and make him happy. That would prove that you are sincere about what you're yapping here. If you can't do it, then you should ask the Admin to remove this thread.

[broknlgs24]

Originally Posted by UncleTito

Umitza, I hope you're reading this post. Well, take care of CJ first and make him happy. That would prove that you are sincere about what you're yapping here. If you can't do it, then you should ask the Admin to remove this thread.

to an extent. the only difference that i would make is - don't remove the thread, (lock it) and make it a sticky; so that, members can see 1st hand the situation.

[motordavid]

I am only an interested & curious reader of the litany of threads here and, on other BeamER boards, detailing less than satisfied resolves from Umnitza...

Imo, and experience, Crap happens in Any biz, but the burden remains on the manufacturer/distributor/dealer/seller to do whatever is reasonable and realistic to
correct or replace or Appease the customer. If not, then that p issed customer is
worse/more detremental to that co. than 10 crummy low margin sales.

Coy, vague and close-to-the-vest responses are seldom effective; Otoh, a defense by the U guy will be very difficult on this or, any forum.

Interesting to see what develops...it will take a huge leap of faith for a "new customer" to try them, imo, after reading threads here or, on other BMW boards,imo.

No dog in this fight...but, what the hell is an "Umnitza"?
My 2Cts.
Buyer Beware in lights or a house or a used car or...
BR,md

[kirkX5m]

LOL!!!!!!!!!

this thread is more drama than the last episode of the OC.

its hard to defend the case of the vendor, with repeated blow ups and confirmed tragic stories...if you do well to those who you do business with in the future, business will come back your way. you just have to learn from your mistakes and move forward. you mite never get business from some people that have been wronged in the past, but thats understandable, just keep it right from here on...

[umnitza]

Originally Posted by dkl

It shouldn't matter. The customer is ALWAYS right. Sometimes...you have to spend money to make money. In your case, you should have done whatever it took to make your customer happy (King in this case)...and in return, I'm sure he will post some very positive comments...which in my opinion, is a far more effective way of advertisements than you can do on your own. I'm sorry, but true customer satisfaction and comments DOES matter and I will NOT do any business with anyone that have less than a 99% customer rating.

You're absolutely right.

Along your line - we have over 5000 customers - many of whom are repeat customers.

That means, one must endure 50 or so negative situations. Indeed, we probably have that many unhappy customers. We don't wish to have that many, but sometimes through no fault of anyone's a situation arises that just doesn't work out.

I've done some research on Joel (Curious Joel). My response is coming up next.

[Kewl X5]

Just to let everyone know, I have no ties with Unnitza. In the past, I did get DDEs from Umnitza for my M3 and it was delivered on time. There was a problem with one of the rings and he immediately shipped me another set and I didn't even need to return the damaged one (prolly damaged during shipment).

I know SANGuru has ordered the GEN V DDEs on his previous M3 and even had Unnitza help install the kit.

Everyone's experience has been different. My limited experience with Umnitza has otherwise been fine.

It is unfortunate that there has been some problems in the past with Umnitza with various members in the X5World community.

So, knowing what everyone knows, you can either use them or not.

Anyhow, everyone take a deep breath and see what Matt has to say. I agree action speaks louder than words.

[haigha]

Originally Posted by umnitza

Along your line - we have over 5000 customers - many of whom are repeat customers.

That means, one must endure 50 or so negative situations. Indeed, we probably have that many unhappy customers. We don't wish to have that many, but sometimes through no fault of anyone's a situation arises that just doesn't work out.

I've done some research on Joel ******. My response is coming up next.

So far in this thread you have five customers: Jeff, Arvi, Josh, Dr. Kewl-o and CJ. Two are very unhappy. Another got a damaged shipment which you corrected. You're batting at most 60% here not 99%.


Why did you publish CJ's last name in this thread?

[umnitza]

Originally Posted by kirkX5m

LOL!!!!!!!!!

this thread is more drama than the last episode of the OC.

its hard to defend the case of the vendor, with repeated blow ups and confirmed tragic stories...if you do well to those who you do business with in the future, business will come back your way. you just have to learn from your mistakes and move forward. you mite never get business from some people that have been wronged in the past, but thats understandable, just keep it right from here on...

I think this is the right attitude, but I also think it's incumbent upon us to set the record straight with Joel (Curious Joel) and his mother without pointing fingers in any way.

During our move, Joel (CJ) placed an order with us in April with his mother's credit card.

April 17th the address on the billing address was significantly different than where the item was to be shipped.

We did not catch this, it was our mistake. During our move, we simply were too hurried and too scattered (as often happens during moves) to handle this issue in a timely manner.

We caught it about 2 weeks later when we were readying the shipment. Since this was a custom order, we got started on it and we contacted the customer once again.

I personally spent 3 hours on the phone with CJ's mom- a very nice and kind mom - who assured me that her Amex card had the updated information. Alas, when we called back 1 week later to confirm (as we were ready to ship the product) we were told that it had not been changed.

We spent another hour on the phone with Joel AND CJ's mom and this time it seemed that it was squared away. We made many mistakes due to the custom nature of the product and the dismissal of one employee - the one that could do this for the customer.

We agreed to overnight the product to Joel to make him and his mother happy. His mom said something about a Sweet Sixteen birthday present and we were and I am extremely apologetic to this day that it took so long. But mistakes have happened and I cannot go back in time to fix them at this time.

Additionally, there was miscommunication based on the email receipt that was sent to Joel and the information on the web site regarding this product.

The product is non-refundable. It's a custom product. Our language on our policy page says so.

Now, I'm no expert, but I do know that if you do not have the expertise to install something that is largely plug and play, then perhaps it's best to have a qualified professional look at it. We've all been there when an installation was really easy only AFTER seeing a professional do it 1 time.

This is the case with the Projector46 install.

Joel had difficulty installing it himself. This was one of our responses - taken completely word for word from our email:

Originally Posted by Matt's email to Joel

After all the work we put into it.
Amazing.

Please take a look at the site the product is non-returnable once shipped. It's a custom product designed specifically for your car.

We would be more than happy to walk you through it AND provide you the same instructions as on the site with a PDF if you need.
But we cannot have you return a custom product like this.
We are sorry.
üm•nitza inc.
---------------
matt grintsaig

We had spent literally hours to make this transaction work out smoothly or at least to the happiness of Joel. In the end, we aren't sure if he even returned the product, but we ARE sure there was a charge back issued and the customer did get their money back.

We chose not to contest it and let it slide. This forum is the first we heard of this situation being publicly discussed.

I'm not trying to put a "positive" spin on this situation. There was a lot of culpability on our part which led to Joel's unhappiness to which an apology is probably insufficient, but the fact remains, this was a singular event in which the customer was probably not 100% aware of what they were buying and we should have made it more clear.

-----
On to King's situation. I think we made a blunder with King. The situation could and should have been handled better, and we learned from that situation. There is more to be said but it's already been said.
-----

I will be the first to admit that the stress of moving to a new shop (not having phones for 3 weeks, internet for 4 weeks, or the fact that I had to drive 15 miles each way between locations which was extremely stressful) had a HUGE role in our transgressions in not only King's but also in at least 15-20 other customers during that time period. We made many screw ups. Employee turnover was a key contributor to our very very rough period, but also we cut ties with our long time partner and it wasn't pretty and caused a lot of rancor and finger pointing.

Since May, we've supported/sent over 2000 orders out.

On this forum alone, we have at least 12 customers that I looked through that haven't voiced anything about us, and 2 more (on this thread) that posted somewhat positive reviews.

That means, we're doing not great. However, in summary, when you walk away from this:

1) Custom orders need to be discussed in much more detail (both of these were indeed custom or specific products).
2) Umnitza does strive to offer the best resolution and did have some issues that were remedied and will not happen again.
3) Non-Custom products have no issues at all.

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Also, A <-- If you're reading this, we finally did get your H11 5000K into stock today, the factory had a hard time finding the H11 bases - since we bought them out last month, and will be sending your unit to you by the end of this week.

[SILENTx5]

Originally Posted by kirkX5m

LOL!!!!!!!!!

this thread is more drama than the last episode of the OC.

its hard to defend the case of the vendor, with repeated blow ups and confirmed tragic stories...if you do well to those who you do business with in the future, business will come back your way. you just have to learn from your mistakes and move forward. you mite never get business from some people that have been wronged in the past, but thats understandable, just keep it right from here on...

that's the cost of doing business. You live and learn. You learn from your mistakes and you move forward making sure things like the past won't happen again. If he's willing to make sure nothing goes wrong anymore, I don't see why we can't give him another chance. People make mistakes. Learn to forgive and forget. that's my opinion.