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Great Plains Audio-Still in Business?

It has been posted on many forums WRT Great plains Audio.. Telephone,telephone,telephone... They are old school ! Bill doesn't use email much as has been noted it consumes too much time.. They had 3 employees and are now down to 2.. A longtime employee Steven Upchurch is no longer there...

I talked to Bill this morning and he said he was working on it at the moment..I received an email just a few moments ago from Todd White and saying the site is fixed. :thmbsp:

Great Plains Audio

Telephone # (405) 789-0221

FWIW If you call them Bill usually answers the phone within a few rings with:

Great Plains Audio Bill speaking how may I help you.. :yes: :D


Their Contact Us page was only down a day or two.. And when you go to that page you can plainly see a BIG telephone with a large font.The email links are smaller..


GPA by Altec Best, on Flickr
 
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Altec Best said:
It has been posted on many forums WRT Great plains Audio.. Telephone,telephone,telephone... They are old school ! Bill doesn't use email much as has been noted it consumes too much time.. They had 3 employees and are now down to 2.. A longtime employee Steven Upchurch is no longer there...

I talked to Bill this morning and he said he was working on it at the moment..I received an email just a few moments ago from Todd White and saying the site is fixed. :thmbsp:

Great Plains Audio

Telephone # (405) 789-0221

FWIW If you call them Bill usually answers the phone within a few rings with:

Great Plains Audio Bill speaking how may I help you.. :yes: :D


Their Contact Us page was only down a day or two.. And when you go to that page you can plainly see a BIG telephone with a large font.The email links are smaller..


GPA by Altec Best, on Flickr
Click to expand...

This is all well and good but it doesn't help the problem. If an email contact is provided on a web page it needs to be monitored and email queries must be responded to. To ignore emails is rude and a bad business practice pure and simple. I once ran a customer service dept. If one of my employees choose to ignore his emails I would have fired him. No matter how nice a guy he might have been.

cubdog
 
So many different angles here...
They PREFER to deal by phone....yet their phone number is extremely hard to find on their website yet their email addy is readily available?
The OP prefers to use email...he can email till the cows come home, won't matter if the seller prefers phone calls.
The seller might have the greatest product in the world, doesn't matter if buyers are unable to order and complete a transaction.
I can see where some comprimise on everyones part could make things run smoother...

Guess I should have read page 2 of posts before replying.
 
Best yet, e-mail and call. 100% guaranteed to get through, and get great service.

Bill owns the company outright, so he is not going to fire himself for not answering every email.

Or don't deal with him. You will still be getting 90% of new Altec parts from GPA, just with a surcharge tacked on from the third party.

WFYB.
 
I guess i must be lucky. I've been able to contact them by mail many times both for orders and general questions. Granted I may have had to wait a day to hear back from them at times but my experience with them has been wonderful.
 
Seems to me that after a bloody decade of their website being a total mess, they'd get it straightened out.
And they just need to bite the bullet and hire someone to man the phones and deal with the incoming e-mails.
They may be the best at what they do, but it doesn't excuse their lacksadasial attitude towards customers.
 
If I wanted to buy any of GPA products I'll tell you that I would take any road to get in touch with this great company. Altec (and JBL) are the companies that hit my ears (in a good fashion) and I feel I'm lucky to have GPA "salvage" the guenuine parts and they(on some components) bettered it!

Long life to GPA:yes:
 
sheltie dave said:
Best yet, e-mail and call. 100% guaranteed to get through, and get great service.

Bill owns the company outright, so he is not going to fire himself for not answering every email.

Or don't deal with him. You will still be getting 90% of new Altec parts from GPA, just with a surcharge tacked on from the third party.

WFYB.
Click to expand...

Nice attitude from someone who supports GPA. I have said nothing negative about this company, their owner, or employees. I have only suggested that there may be a flaw in their operating system. Dave, your support of a company you believe in is admirable but open your eyes to the complete picture. No one is saying GPA is a bad company. No one is saying their owners and employees are bad people. The facts remain the same. They have some website/customer service issues that need to be corrected. I'm sorry if you can't see that.

cubdog
 
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As a small business owner I get 100-200 e-mails per day and I don’t even have a web page, filtering through these for the 10-20, that are important, is a PITA. Plus I get 4 or 5 or so robot calls per day. I don’t know about others but it breaks my concentration. Do I want to update my Google profile? Do I want to sing or sign up for Paypal or Girlpay? (I’m being cute). Do I need another 100 junk emails per day? I only give out my cell phone to special clients and try to direct cold calls to my Fax. Oh by the way I get 3-5 junk Fax’s per day. So I guess you can tell me I don’t know how to run a business?

At least this business is offering to service classic audio equipment. They could be like Logitech and just announce they are terminating the SBT. Funny I’ve sent them 10- -20 e-mails protesting, complaining, and swearing that I will never buy one of their products again and have never gotten a reply. But I still get emails from them about exciting new products which I d not need or want. So I guess you can tell me( or Great Plains Audio) they don’t know how to run a business?

End of rant, back to my music…KPFK sounds wonderful tonight, a Prince parody. Puts a smile on my face.

Michael
 
Sorry guys, but I realize (and Bill also realizes) there are glaring deficiencies. I call it recognizable load shedding, ie Bill needs to clone multiples of himself to get caught up with all facets of his business. He can't afford to, he can't do it all, he does as much as he can without losing it, so there we stand. He loses business, and he knows it, but he is in the real world, and he is forced to make choices, even in a disadvantageous manner.

Most people recognize the product he delivers is the best in the industry, so they learn to handle HIS system to achieve results. Others do not, and move on. Still others run into products of lesser ability and quality, and then come back. Old school quality creates its own demand, even if it is inconvenient.

Again, this is not an "attitude" on my part, it is a recognition gained through years of experience in the military, civlant, commercial business and government. Please don't confuse my lack of verbosity with dishing - you'll get the same presentation in person, only with the other nonverbal communication that isn't porcupine quills.

I had a two page response, which timed out, that covered many more bases than this, but just like dealing with GPA, AK also has limitations. :yes: No one is perfect; you do the best you can and help where you can.

Hopefully MRL and the pissed on/off poster can detail their results.
 
Dave please understand anything I said was not meant to be personal. I have heard nothing but good things about the work and products provided by GPA. My observations, which I stand behind, are intended only as constructive criticism. Long time customers know how the GPA system works but new customers might be very unhappy by emails left unanswered. That's all I'm trying to say. I hope your having a great Birthday BTW.

cubdog
 
I just operate off the fact that this is a small business and from everyone I heard they do good work and sell a good product. With the knowledge that they are a small business and probably swamped with work and not enough people to do what they need to do I am OK with that. I am willing to be patient, some people are not, go somewhere else if you don't like it. Bill went above and beyond the call when my driver package got lost because of the post office losing my package and did a great job when I finally did get them sent to him.

If you want immediate gratification and service they might not be the people to deal with. If you are willing to be patient with the process I think you will be satisfied with the results.
 
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