pissed off shop manager
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From: Sanger, Tx
pissed off shop manager I spend alot of time doing my best to appease our customers, we alwainys go above and beyond for people;ie emails till the late hours, giving out personal cell numbers, and even wallking people through step by step build process.
I wake up to an *** chewing on my first day of vacation because apparently I have promised timelines. Let me make something very clear, I have only guaranteed 3 people a date in two years, and one bit me in the ***.
I remember most of my converstions with you alll pretty well, listen to the words that come out of my mouth very carefully. If you hear maybe, possibly and might, that does not guarantee you a date. We try to estimate due to the fact of we never know what will happen.
I appreciate your eagerness and undertsand you want your product, but we can only move so fast. So relax and breathe you will get it and be happy with it.
I wake up to an *** chewing on my first day of vacation because apparently I have promised timelines. Let me make something very clear, I have only guaranteed 3 people a date in two years, and one bit me in the ***.
I remember most of my converstions with you alll pretty well, listen to the words that come out of my mouth very carefully. If you hear maybe, possibly and might, that does not guarantee you a date. We try to estimate due to the fact of we never know what will happen.
I appreciate your eagerness and undertsand you want your product, but we can only move so fast. So relax and breathe you will get it and be happy with it.
Those things will happen in almost any customer service situation. Setting the expectation for the customer is very important to keep all parties calm and professional. I do this on a daily basis with my contract work my company does for the state and my personal business. Putting things in writing, while tedious at times, proves VERY helpful in these situations. Will you please everyone? Of course not, but it will cover your ***.
You will never please everyone. +1 for putting everything in writing. I had this issue all the time when I was store manager of a shop. My word against thiers and the customer is always right. You cant argue something you signed off on. But I always made sure that when they left my shop they were happy. Your customer will tell 5 people when they have had a good experience. They will get on social media and tell the whole world when you suck. Ive always found that just giving something back, no matter how small will usually appease. Unless you own the shop, let the phone go to voicemail and enjoy your VACA!
Those things will happen in almost any customer service situation. Setting the expectation for the customer is very important to keep all parties calm and professional. I do this on a daily basis with my contract work my company does for the state and my personal business. Putting things in writing, while tedious at times, proves VERY helpful in these situations. Will you please everyone? Of course not, but it will cover your ***.
I know Mike extremely well, and I'd put a pretty large bet down that he wasn't directing this at anyone in particular, it was probably more of a disclaimer.
The transmission industry can be a fun and rewarding career path, but it can also be extremely stressful and the source of premature gray hair or balding lol. I can remember once speaking to a builder who may or may not be a mod on this site and former sponsor on the phone once who has been doing transmissions for MANY years who told me that "some days I wake up and wonder why I'm still messing with this ****". I also remember asking Jake when I first started "What would you be doing now if you knew all that you knew about transmission when you were my age?" and he simply said "I probably wouldn't be screwing with them now". A high up staff member at Hughes once told me "I can't count how many times I've told myself getting into transmissions was the stupidest thing I've ever done" I've spoken to a few other builders, sponsors on Tech and non sponsors who have all said similar things. The funny thing is they all wake up every morning and many of them still love their jobs, so it's definitely a love-hate things. Kind of like a really really hot wife with a bitchy personality.
I can promise I'm not calling anybody out in particular when I say this in a moment, especially because none of the people who come to mind were even members of this site. Here's the thing that most companies don't want to tell a customer since it can seem unprofessional or indicate that a company doesn't have it's **** together. Frankly, it can be overwhelming when you have customers who ordered less than a week ago and are up your *** every day, every other day or even every three days wondering where their product is. It takes time. I can guarantee any company worth it's salt is not screwing around and purposely trying to make you wait. In a perfect world, things could go out the door the day a customer orders. However, this is very difficult to accomplish. Especially during the busy times, when there as much as ten orders in a single day. Here's a breakdown of how Jake's Performance works, and the entire process has been fine tuned as best as possible for maximum efficiency and speed without compromising quality. I posted this is a previous thread, but I'll bring it back for anyone who may not have seen it (this is my perspective)
I will say if you ordered recently, there's a decent chance you may still have to wait a bit. I wish everybody who ordered or thought about ordering could see the entire process that goes on in the shop and I guarantee it would all make sense. Here's how things basically go around the shop, in brief detail.
Jake is, of course, the owner and he spends the majority of his day on the phone with customers or potential customers who are feeling the waters. He also takes care of business on various forums and answers tech questions. When not doing that, he's helping out in the shop with either mechanical or transmission work and if any question arises, I have yet to see him not know the answer. He also runs parts around the entire DFW area and spends time designing parts, transbrakes, working with machine shops, working with people we sublet a lot of work with, and does all of the sandblasting we do in house since it's not as big of a deal if he's covered in sand since he builds the least frequently out of the builders. Simply no time for it anymore.
Mike is the shop manager and also spends a LOT of his day on the phone or on the computer dealing with other companies, managing the finances, supervising the mechanical side of the shop, supervising the building side, tearing transmissions down, cleaning, prepping, building and dynoing. He works with other companies who supply special parts for certain builds and various other things. He also does sales and customer service when Jake is not around or is on the other phone with another customer.
Chris, a guy who started almost a month after me back in 2011, is our primary 200-4R builder, but he is just as good with many other transmissions as well such as the 80es. He's an excellent mechanic, stupidly sharp, so he'll work down on that end of the shop when things get heavy down there, which would leave Mike and I as the only builders, but now just Mike for the most part. Chris also is the primary dyno operator, but it always requires two people the properly mount the transmissions onto the dyno. He is the guy in every shop that is tasked with doing odd things around the shop that no one else can't get to.
Ryan is the mechanic, he doesn't build much, but he turns out the majority of the mechanic work there and that keeps him pretty occupied. He also assists the transmission side when possible or needed, such as dynoing, prepping cases, tear down, clean, and occasionally building.
On a good day, if answering the phones is not an issue and I could spend the entire day just focusing on a 4L80E, I could tear it down, clean it, prep and machine parts, stack it, prep the case (sand blasting, hot tank, power washing, brake clean and compressed air) and then paint it. Then sand the bellhousing edges to remove oxidation. Then change the rear bushing, rollerize the rear, install the band and the case saver snap ring, and build the assembly in the case. Sand blast the pump cover, flat stone and resurface the pump faces, paint the cover, new bushing, seal, assemble pump and ensure gears are up to our standards. Then the valve body is carefully gone through as best as we can, valves are checked to ensure they're up to our standards, full functionality, nothing stuck etc.
If the stars align and everything is good, it can be built from start to finish in 10-ish hours, everything running smoothly. We often would and they still do stay after 6 PM to finish builds.
That's 1 per day with someone who doesn't have to worry about taking care of other things.
Then there are usually anywhere from 12-25+ other orders to catch up on, with people placing orders everyday, so it's VERY difficult to catch up on builds and be completely caught up. We've never done it as far as I know, at least not in the last few years.
Jake is, of course, the owner and he spends the majority of his day on the phone with customers or potential customers who are feeling the waters. He also takes care of business on various forums and answers tech questions. When not doing that, he's helping out in the shop with either mechanical or transmission work and if any question arises, I have yet to see him not know the answer. He also runs parts around the entire DFW area and spends time designing parts, transbrakes, working with machine shops, working with people we sublet a lot of work with, and does all of the sandblasting we do in house since it's not as big of a deal if he's covered in sand since he builds the least frequently out of the builders. Simply no time for it anymore.
Mike is the shop manager and also spends a LOT of his day on the phone or on the computer dealing with other companies, managing the finances, supervising the mechanical side of the shop, supervising the building side, tearing transmissions down, cleaning, prepping, building and dynoing. He works with other companies who supply special parts for certain builds and various other things. He also does sales and customer service when Jake is not around or is on the other phone with another customer.
Chris, a guy who started almost a month after me back in 2011, is our primary 200-4R builder, but he is just as good with many other transmissions as well such as the 80es. He's an excellent mechanic, stupidly sharp, so he'll work down on that end of the shop when things get heavy down there, which would leave Mike and I as the only builders, but now just Mike for the most part. Chris also is the primary dyno operator, but it always requires two people the properly mount the transmissions onto the dyno. He is the guy in every shop that is tasked with doing odd things around the shop that no one else can't get to.
Ryan is the mechanic, he doesn't build much, but he turns out the majority of the mechanic work there and that keeps him pretty occupied. He also assists the transmission side when possible or needed, such as dynoing, prepping cases, tear down, clean, and occasionally building.
On a good day, if answering the phones is not an issue and I could spend the entire day just focusing on a 4L80E, I could tear it down, clean it, prep and machine parts, stack it, prep the case (sand blasting, hot tank, power washing, brake clean and compressed air) and then paint it. Then sand the bellhousing edges to remove oxidation. Then change the rear bushing, rollerize the rear, install the band and the case saver snap ring, and build the assembly in the case. Sand blast the pump cover, flat stone and resurface the pump faces, paint the cover, new bushing, seal, assemble pump and ensure gears are up to our standards. Then the valve body is carefully gone through as best as we can, valves are checked to ensure they're up to our standards, full functionality, nothing stuck etc.
If the stars align and everything is good, it can be built from start to finish in 10-ish hours, everything running smoothly. We often would and they still do stay after 6 PM to finish builds.
That's 1 per day with someone who doesn't have to worry about taking care of other things.
Then there are usually anywhere from 12-25+ other orders to catch up on, with people placing orders everyday, so it's VERY difficult to catch up on builds and be completely caught up. We've never done it as far as I know, at least not in the last few years.
That's why I know Mike makes every effort to never promise time lines. You never EVER know when something could happen. There are those rare times when everything is fine and seems like it should be good, but you're chasing a pressure issue on the dyno that you cannot find, and the transmission has to be torn back down. It's frustrating not only because of the obvious fact you're delayed on getting to other builds, but because you really do want to get things out on time.
Then a customer is calling wanting to know where his product is, and you find yourself in a bind. A lot of reputable companies, including Jake's, will not lie and just be honest, but it's not usually what people want to hear. Often, when people inquire about the lead time on a build, they misinterpret the the words on possibly did not hear correctly when someone says "We should be able to" "We might be able to" "If all goes well we can", and many understand that off the bat, others may forget or not remember the same, but I guarantee Mike at least does not promise.
The incident he is referring to that bit him in the *** happened in mid August not long after the shop move. We had promised a customer who lived in Iceland we could get it out to him on a certain date. He worked for an airline that had a plane being repaired in Arizona. If we could have shipped it out to him to make it to the plane in AZ, it would have gone back to Iceland with him. We were actually right on point after encountering a ton of issues with sourcing parts, and some problems during the shop move, but we had it. It passed the dyno and the last test was to put in the shop test car to ensure the shift points were where we wanted them. However, during the test drive, the driveshaft u-joint, in short, failed, and caused a major driveline angle problems. The bellhousing broke PERFECTLY symmetrical on both sides and we were basically screwed to get it done, dynoed and fix the driveline angle issue in the car before the shipping truck came. We had to call the customer and tell him about it, but he was fine and we sorted it out and gave him a free billet shaft upgrade for his understanding on the matter, since we had PROMISED and GUARANTEED a time line. It was a had time for everyone regarding the situation, compounded by the blistering Texas heat that automatically increases irritability, the recent shop move and adjustment, on top of the fact that we had failed to meet a timeline and made ourselves look like jackasses. No one likes to fail, especially when your reputation is on the line, and Jake's name is literally on the door, so he especially feels the heat. Former airborne rangers tend to not like major **** ups, and we all played a part in that fiasco, so we all failed collectively.
We/They aren't the only shop that has had problems like that. Every single shop has. I would put anything I own on that bet. Obviously, most of them do not like to publish it, since as I said earlier, it doesn't exactly make someone look like they have their **** together, but we're all human and if most people stop and think about it, there are "**** happens" deals in situations where you really would have preferred them not to.
This is probably the longest post I have ever typed, but to finish this up, I'm just trying to give the original post some context. Mike's on vacation right now, so he can only type from his phone where he's at, so I'm just trying to provide some context and clarity to his post. If anyone managed to read to this point, try to keep these kind of things in mind, with ANY company you do business with, especially with products that are custom ordered. Engine builders probably share the same kind of experiences and feelings about it all the transmission builders do, but at the end of the day every shop is a collective of guys who are all probably pretty good friends due to a strong common interest despite their personalities who truly are striving to give people the best product out there they possibly can. Making money is a business is nice, and a business is a business because it needs to make money, but no one goes into the transmission industry expecting to make it rich. They do it because they love cars, and they love messing with transmissions and find the way they work and function fascinating and love to teach others about it and help people with less experience when they can. If it seems like the product is taking a long time, if anything that should show you the volume of work they have to deal with and how many people put their belief in the company to deliver a great product, no matter what the wait. Patience is a virtue, and delayed gratification can be a sweet thing, especially when the product arrives. Take my word for it, as I've been there and done that, it's hard to imagine the other side's perspective on the matter, especially after you've just dropped a fair sum of money with said people and are looking forward to getting your product.
PS: Lol this is the first time I've ever typed out a post so long I had to stretch it into two posts, at least on LS1Tech
We/They aren't the only shop that has had problems like that. Every single shop has. I would put anything I own on that bet. Obviously, most of them do not like to publish it, since as I said earlier, it doesn't exactly make someone look like they have their **** together, but we're all human and if most people stop and think about it, there are "**** happens" deals in situations where you really would have preferred them not to.
This is probably the longest post I have ever typed, but to finish this up, I'm just trying to give the original post some context. Mike's on vacation right now, so he can only type from his phone where he's at, so I'm just trying to provide some context and clarity to his post. If anyone managed to read to this point, try to keep these kind of things in mind, with ANY company you do business with, especially with products that are custom ordered. Engine builders probably share the same kind of experiences and feelings about it all the transmission builders do, but at the end of the day every shop is a collective of guys who are all probably pretty good friends due to a strong common interest despite their personalities who truly are striving to give people the best product out there they possibly can. Making money is a business is nice, and a business is a business because it needs to make money, but no one goes into the transmission industry expecting to make it rich. They do it because they love cars, and they love messing with transmissions and find the way they work and function fascinating and love to teach others about it and help people with less experience when they can. If it seems like the product is taking a long time, if anything that should show you the volume of work they have to deal with and how many people put their belief in the company to deliver a great product, no matter what the wait. Patience is a virtue, and delayed gratification can be a sweet thing, especially when the product arrives. Take my word for it, as I've been there and done that, it's hard to imagine the other side's perspective on the matter, especially after you've just dropped a fair sum of money with said people and are looking forward to getting your product.
PS: Lol this is the first time I've ever typed out a post so long I had to stretch it into two posts, at least on LS1Tech
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Crackin da whip 
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 6,216
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From: Wichita KS / Rancho San Diego
I fail to see the point of this thread. If you guys want to "talk shop" between yourselves, you can PM, e-mail, text, Facebook, use the Lounge, etc. Plenty of options. A tech forum isn't one of them.
