Hi Larry:
We got your email on Tuesday morning, when we opened for business. We sent out your quote on Thursday afternoon. You provided us part numbers for the tools but no part numbers for the seal kits. We had to involve our service department to provide the appropriate kit numbers and their work load delayed our quote an additional day. With all part numbers quote could have been emailed out on May 22nd and, with a confirming phone call, the order could have shipped out the same day or the next day.
Our statement of 5 to 7 weeks is typical delivery time by the factory on parts/tools IF neither Airworks, the factory, nor another Haskel distributor has the products in stock. We provide this to advise customers of the possibility of a long delay if parts are not immediately available. I'm sorry you took it to mean 5 to 7 weeks for your delivery time on your order. We will remove that statement on future quotes to end users.
"ARO" means After Receipt of Order and completion of payment details.
As I reviewed your quote, I saw that our sales associate didn't apply our previously mentioned discount to the parts and tools. I have corrected that and have sent a revised quote reflecting the better pricing. This is a new sales effort for Airworks and giving parts discounts to end users is a new policy that was overlooked on your quote.
We have an 800 number available, which you and other potential customers are encouraged to make use of, to follow up on requests, quotes or for technical assistance. Email is a wonderful tool but it has its limitations. Thanks for sharing your frustrations and best wishes with your booster overhaul. If you need technical assistance do keep us in mind.
Safe diving Larry! .......... Ray
800-523-7222 in WV
Email timing ..........Received on May 22, 00:01 AM Tuesday. We sent your quote out at 3:21 PM Thursday. At 5:52PM Thursday, after our business hours, you sent a second email questioning the 5 to 7 weeks factory delivery time mentioned in our quote. Without waiting for us to respond you posted comments to the ScubaBoard at 9:08 PM yesterday. We arrived this morning to see your comments posted to the ScubaBoard.
I apologize for any confusion Jim, and for making an assumption that 5-lead time meant a 5-7 week lead time on the parts I ordered.
I did call the 800 number to follow up on the quote Wednesday at 11:39am, and was advised they'd have the quote to my by the end of the day. That ended up being a case of over promising and under delivering as the quote did not arrive until 3:21pm Thursday afternoon - basically a day late.
I e-mailed my question regarding the quoted 5-7 week lead time (at 5:52 pm on Thursday), since it was after business hours. I would have called otherwise and ordered what I needed at that time.
While I appreciated your e-mail and the discount in the new quote sent at 12:15pm on Friday, it still did not specifically address the question of what, if any, parts are in stock and ready to ship - it just no longer contained the 5-7 week language. However, putting that together with your post here suggests the parts are in stock, it just wasn't 100% evident on the revised quote.
I could have and probably should have called again first thing Friday morning to follow up on my Thursday after close of business e-mail. However, at some point the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. To be honest, I assumed the quote language meant exactly what it said and that in fact the parts were not in stock. I will however own my part in not following up with a phone call first thing Friday morning to verify that. Had I done that, I suspect the parts probably would be in my mail box or door step on Tuesday.
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The missing part numbers were intentional as I specified the O2 kit(s) for the AG-30 in my request for a quote and the part numbers for the AG-30 on the Haskel website are non specific. I suspected different seal materials were used for O2 service for the gas section and I wanted to make sure there was no mistake on the parts or their intended end use for O2 boosting. Your sales associates are after all the experts. I did offer to supply the PNs I had from the Haskel website but the guy on the phone indicated the lady handling the quote had already found them. I would have then verbally verified that we were talking about O2 service kits.
It's very fortunate that I
did not provide the part numbers as comparing the O2 parts for the gas section kit in your quote to the parts on the AG-30 page on the Haskel site shows different part numbers (HK51548-30 for the O2 service kit and HK51544-30 for the non O2 kit), although the check valve seal kit part numbers are the same.
Something to consider here is that unless someone makes a complete parts list available, end users are not going to know what options are available and things such as the differences in parts kits noted above. Asking or expecting end users to provide (the correct) parts numbers is potentially going to result in some spectacular kaboom events if they ask for the wrong kit for a booster used for O2 service. You may want to ensure that your sales associates verify with end user customers that the parts are intended or are not intended for O2 use.
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That said, I'm very happy to hear that there is not a 5-7 week wait for the parts I need, and that you've removed the boiler plate language on your end user quotes to eliminate that as a source of concern or confusion with end use customers who are not stocking parts for future repair work on customer units, but in fact have an immediate need.
