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Placed an order for switch machines and got no confirmation

Numerous  phone calls go unanswered - left messages  no response

After about a month left message saying I am canceling my order  Still no response

Had my cc company reverse the charges and I purchased switch machines from Ross

Got them in less than a week or

I done a fair amount of business with Trainz over the years. Generally favorable, but some very mixed results as well with the condition of what I've received. They take care of things, but it's frustrating when it happens.

My latest problem was something I got from them via Ebay about a month ago. They advertised it as new/mint, and it turned out to be a total disaster, with broken/damaged/missing parts, and some even more severe damage as well. None of this (including metal parts split apart) was due to shipping.

Whoever reviewed and graded this item must have been stoned, or did it as his idea of a joke - it was that bad. To say I was P.O.ed would be an understatement. Got a refund, of course, but noone compensates you for the time and hassle of repackaging and arranging for a return label and delivering it to back to the shipper (not to mention your transportation cost).

Nonetheless, I'd do business with them, but am aware there will be occasional problems. I don't know if they've got more on their plate than they can handle, or don't supervise properly, or what, but people working there aren't always paying attention.

Last edited by breezinup

Their customer service has always been pretty good, but I've had issues with them. Once I ordered an American Flyer brush bracket from them. The photo showed the 1948 version, which is what I needed. They sent a different one. So I contacted them, and they made it right by sending another one, while allowing me to keep the one I had received. Well... This second one was wrong, too. So, again I contacted them and again, they sent the wrong one. Eventually, I received the correct one, but I was annoyed. At least I got three extra brush brackets out of it.

I've also had an item damaged by their handling with a piece completely missing that was present in the photos. I don't remember what they did to set it right, but I never did get that missing part. This was an old kit-built car, so finding replacements is very difficult.

Last edited by Johnbeere
@Train Nut posted:

Please do let me know.  Going on 4 days now and several emails and voicemails....

If you dispute the transaction with PayPal or with your credit card company (whichever is applicable), it tends to get their attention a little quicker and garner a response. Don’t get me wrong, I have gotten some fantastic items from them and their customer service did a great job of fixing a damaged vision line challenger I got from them a while back. I think they have grown too quickly. Trainz has a number of people working for them who know very little about trains which has led to numerous listing errors, poorly described items, and poor packaging in the recent past.

Hello Everyone.

Let me address what I have read to set the record straight so you can have the truth and real answers, so you don't have to make stuff up.

Response time. Our internal goal is to respond back to all calls & tickets within 8 business hours 95% of the time. We are currently not answering phone calls, phone calls get automatically converted to text and are put in our ticket system. We typically then respond to these via email. If it is too complicated for that we will call you back. We measure our response time weekly as a key business metric. Currently in February we are at 73%. Not where I want it. We did just add a 7th person to our Customer Service team in December that we had been working on hiring since September. Now this month Jessica has been on vacation for 2 weeks. Last year we were in the 90-96% range from March-October and around 80% the other months, once our new person gets up to speed, we should hit the goal. We also just promoted Jessica to be the leader. But with that said, you should never be waiting days for a response. Email me directly at sgriggs@trainz.com if you don't hear from us and it is really important after 24 hours, please give my team a chance first.

During Covid in April and May our Customer Service staff all worked remote, we didn't have anyone not working. They were more or less back in the office in June. Most of the production team was out those two months. Thanks to PPP they all got full pay.

My apologies to breezinup about the issue with grading your item. That is pretty extreme. I believe you, but that is very abnormal. It was hardly a joke, we run a professional business and we don't want to screw around fixing issues and making customers upset as much as you don't want to receive them. We are constantly hiring and training new people, and yes most of them are new to trains. We do have a great core team of people that have been around 10 years or more that do most of the training and we have a review process that every item goes through by a supervisor, but that doesn't catch everything. We do have a quality measurement system in place where every customer service issue gets assigned back to the department that created it and the to the person. We use it for continual training, and disciplinary action is taken when necessary. Very sorry when these things happen, we are human and a lot of these things are fairly complicated, but we are on a path of continuous improvement, it is one of our core values.

We have 4 full time people working in our parts department now. I am the only person crazy enough to try to do this at the scale that we do it. It is by far the hardest part of our business. For some strange reason, I love parts, I guess it is because always have since I was a teenager and bought my first service station. I now have two Napa parts guys (they love parts too!), Ansley, who has been with me in parts for 5 years and Loni who is fairly new. I am proud of the fact that we now offer over 13,000 parts, with pictures, to help you all get the parts you need. I would love your help - when we mis-identify something, send us an email to customerservice@trainz.com and we will fix it and appreciate it!

Thank you, Scott, for your above post, and for your company being one of our Forum Sponsors.

I just want to take a moment to compliment you and your company, and thank you, for something your company did for me a little over 1 year ago.

I visited your company's website and made an inquiry, probably by email, for a product made by a company that I believe is no longer in business. The product was O Scale baseball figures by Kramer Products. Then, several months went by, and I got an email from your company stating that you had them for a reasonable price. I was thrilled.

Here they are on my layout playing under the lights at my Pospsicle Stick Pologrounds. LOL.

20200331_134015

I was very impressive that you/your company kept my inquiry in mind for at least several months, followed up and then let me know that you had found exactly what I wanted.

This is just another example of the outstanding service I have received every time I have purchased something from one of our Forum Sponsors.

Arnold

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@breezinup posted:

I done a fair amount of business with Trainz over the years. Generally favorable, but some very mixed results as well with the condition of what I've received. They take care of things, but it's frustrating when it happens.

My latest problem was something I got from them via Ebay about a month ago. They advertised it as new/mint, and it turned out to be a total disaster, with broken/damaged/missing parts, and some even more severe damage as well. None of this (including metal parts split apart) was due to shipping.

Whoever reviewed and graded this item must have been stoned, or did it as his idea of a joke - it was that bad. To say I was P.O.ed would be an understatement. Got a refund, of course, but noone compensates you for the time and hassle of repackaging and arranging for a return label and delivering it to back to the shipper (not to mention your transportation cost).

Nonetheless, I'd do business with them, but am aware there will be occasional problems. I don't know if they've got more on their plate than they can handle, or don't supervise properly, or what, but people working there aren't always paying attention.

I’ve never had an issue with customer service, they’re always great. Other than rolling stock and parts, I’ve made two purchases from Trainz recently and both went like the above. One was a switch described as like new and had broken guide rails. The other was a vision line CC2 described as like new and had pieces broken/missing, paint chips, and Legacy issues. It was clear it wasn’t test run or inspected. They were great about the returns, but that doesn’t make up for my time and effort. Trying to fix it before giving up, packing it back up, and taking to Fed Ex.

I was just looking at a TMCC engine on their site and asked if it had been tested. I was told no it wasn’t but it was listed as like new. How can something be like new but untested? Customer service is great, but my “issue” is with this business model of selling highly complex engines untested as “like new”. Creates a poor customer experience in my opinion, regardless of a money back guarantee.

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