Hi Guys,
I am having some "extreamely poor" customer service issues with PCGS at the moment. Would any of you have contact details for senior PCGS management ? I am thinking of writing them an email and send it directly to the top. Not sure if I would gain anything, however I think it would be good to let them know my frustration.
Please PM the details if you can help..:dodgy:
Cheers. ..
Haha good luck with that. Pcgs is a we don't care what you think you need us more than we need you type of company. Walk away from the issue you just won't win and you will only cause yourself heart ache.
Sounds like the attitude (not nesserealy the customer service side of things) some of the organisations had in the 90's and early 00's... We are the best, no one will come close to us... Ie Nokia vs Apple vs Samsung...
If they are not careful they will fail, all you need is another company to to come out that does grading well, have good customer service... It's like any business... "Customers are the ones keep them going" ... I would say what I have to say.. Let's what happens...
The ONLY time I have had a rapid response from PCGS is when I failed to sign my submission form.
NO signature NO payment and by Crikey they were on the ball with that issue:ok:
Every other email I have sent them has been ignorantly ignored , I feel your frustration Mate .
Hey Trout, I think people now take that as the norm. We pay money for their service and I expect to get what I pay for.... Also if they haven't done their job properly, they should fix it.. plain and simple... I will let you know how I go..
Quote from: 'ausproofs' pid='57040' dateline='1408009759'Hey Trout, I think people now take that as the norm. We pay money for their service and I expect to get what I pay for.... Also if they haven't done their job properly, they should fix it.. plain and simple... I will let you know how I go..
Good on Ya Mate give them heaps, It's not as if the service is cheap.
Jesus I wouldn't mind being paid to look at a coin for 1-2 seconds and pick up $20-$30 a pop per coin :angel:
Trout that is very simplistic. The grading of the coin is not all they do. They have to handle the coins correctly, store them in a quality holder, then guarantee their grade. They have overheads galore and have built up their reputation over time. They spend slot of money and time in public engagement at coin shows and on YouTube with informative videos
Which is why I was so surprised at their deficient customer service. You would get a better response from McDonalds and they are not selling a professional service!
What is the issue you are having? For standard inquiries, they tend to be quick to respond.
frustrating as it is, be polite and focus on the result and what you want to achieve, be like a business and don't make it personal, Good Luck!!
Quote from: 'drakesterling' pid='57061' dateline='1408022784'What is the issue you are having? For standard inquiries, they tend to be quick to respond.
Its being 9 business days since my email, no response.. issue is with coin details not updated in the system.
Quote from: 'Oldcoinchest' pid='57067' dateline='1408023504'frustrating as it is, be polite and focus on the result and what you want to achieve, be like a business and don't make it personal, Good Luck!!
Absolutely, all I want to do is to let the management know the issues I am having, what could be done better and how that could benefit both parties.... definitely not personal....
Quote from: 'trout' pid='57045' dateline='1408011020'Good on Ya Mate give them heaps, It's not as if the service is cheap.
Jesus I wouldn't mind being paid to look at a coin for 1-2 seconds and pick up $20-$30 a pop per coin :angel:
Very simplistic outlook. Your $30 is paying for tens of thousands of hours of grading experience and graders that look at hundreds and hundreds of coins a day. You may as well apply the same logic to plumbers, electricians, and anyone else who dares to earn more than the average hourly wage.
umm
I reckon 1-2 seconds is not really how they'd do it
an expert might make an overall assessment in just that time as I have watched my coin dealer simply glance at a coin and be able to make a face value assessment due to his experience
but a proper grading will take longer and again, my coin dealer will take much longer to fully assess a coin by viewing both sides, examine rims, scuffs, evidence of wear, surface integrity and so on
I was being pretty "Flippant" with the 1-2 seconds .
I would say any grader worth his salt would only spend 10-15 seconds deciding the grade , then there would be other parts to it like looking if it is a proof, Specimen etc.
each coin would go through probably a dozen different stages before it is finally packaged and shipped.
This doesn't alter the fact that if you are only a small time customer their responses to emails are crap in my experience :ok:
I have sent 3 detailed emails regarding my Proof set Selectively Gold plated Cu/Nickel 25mm $1 coin that they still insist on listing as being Made of Silver, Including the speccs supplied by RAM.
They haven't had the common curtsey of even replying to these questions.
What is to stop the next person that gets one of these graded from listing it on fleabay as a "RARE" struck on wrong planchet coin .
I know I am "Knit Picking" But I pay a professional to do a task and to be quite honest I expect a Professional result.
Unfortunately, once the company becomes a "standard setter" they can afford to be arrogant. A new entrant will not have the same acceptance and trust in the market. Imagine listing a coin on eBay graded from some unknown firm, it just won't fetch the same premium. Sellers unfortunately have to stick with the old mob even though their service sucks.
Quote from: 'kchan1111' pid='57153' dateline='1408102472'Unfortunately, once the company becomes a "standard setter" they can afford to be arrogant. A new entrant will not have the same acceptance and trust in the market. Imagine listing a coin on eBay graded from some unknown firm, it just won't fetch the same premium. Sellers unfortunately have to stick with the old mob even though their service sucks.
Do they? What happened to Kodak ? What happened to Microsoft in the marketplace? I am not saying they were arrogant, thinking " I am the best , no one can catch me" is the start
of the finish.. consumer are much more demanding and smarter than that...also smart competitors are looking for exact weakness.. that opens up a huge opportunity in the marketplace... Nokia was the market leader until Apple and Android came to the market... Now Nokia is doing catch up...
Quote from: 'ausproofs' pid='57156' dateline='1408104017'Quote from: 'kchan1111' pid='57153' dateline='1408102472'Unfortunately, once the company becomes a "standard setter" they can afford to be arrogant. A new entrant will not have the same acceptance and trust in the market. Imagine listing a coin on eBay graded from some unknown firm, it just won't fetch the same premium. Sellers unfortunately have to stick with the old mob even though their service sucks.
Do they? What happened to Kodak ? What happened to Microsoft in the marketplace? I am not saying they were arrogant, thinking " I am the best , no one can catch me" is the start
of the finish.. consumer are much more demanding and smarter than that...also smart competitors are looking for exact weakness.. that opens up a huge opportunity in the marketplace... Nokia was the market leader until Apple and Android came to the market... Now Nokia is doing catch up...
Microsoft is doing just fine... Windows OS and Office are both standards. Company generated $26-27 billion of free cash flow in 2013! If you go and buy a PC today you will be buying one with Windows. And Office well... if you want to exchange document with someone else you have to use Word. Google docs has made a small dent here and there but franchise is still strong.
Kodak was never a standard. Plenty of people who can make films and once digital camera took off they were dead. Fuji is fairing much better. Same story with Nokia - new devices from Apple meant old feature phones are dead and they were slow to adapt Symbian. Android is the new standard now outside of Apple. Just look how much money Microsoft is throwing into Windows Phone and failing to gain big market share. App developers knows if they write apps for Android they will have users and users know if they buy Android phone they get apps. That's a standard. Same as Windows for PC software.
If there is a new way to grade coins that is vastly superior to the current subjective system yes PCGS would be in trouble. Just as people would migrate to the new standard like they abandon old feature phones for smartphones. But just by providing better customer service they would be hard to dislodge as top dog. They know it and they can let it slip.
Not saying I like it when companies give bad service. But unfortunately that's life. :(
Quote from: 'kchan1111' pid='57160' dateline='1408106223'Quote from: 'ausproofs' pid='57156' dateline='1408104017'Quote from: 'kchan1111' pid='57153' dateline='1408102472'Unfortunately, once the company becomes a "standard setter" they can afford to be arrogant. A new entrant will not have the same acceptance and trust in the market. Imagine listing a coin on eBay graded from some unknown firm, it just won't fetch the same premium. Sellers unfortunately have to stick with the old mob even though their service sucks.
Do they? What happened to Kodak ? What happened to Microsoft in the marketplace? I am not saying they were arrogant, thinking " I am the best , no one can catch me" is the start
of the finish.. consumer are much more demanding and smarter than that...also smart competitors are looking for exact weakness.. that opens up a huge opportunity in the marketplace... Nokia was the market leader until Apple and Android came to the market... Now Nokia is doing catch up...
Microsoft is doing just fine... Windows OS and Office are both standards. Company generated $26-27 billion of free cash flow in 2013! If you go and buy a PC today you will be buying one with Windows. And Office well... if you want to exchange document with someone else you have to use Word. Google docs has made a small dent here and there but franchise is still strong.
Kodak was never a standard. Plenty of people who can make films and once digital camera took off they were dead. Fuji is fairing much better. Same story with Nokia - new devices from Apple meant old feature phones are dead and they were slow to adapt Symbian. Android is the new standard now outside of Apple. Just look how much money Microsoft is throwing into Windows Phone and failing to gain big market share. App developers knows if they write apps for Android they will have users and users know if they buy Android phone they get apps. That's a standard. Same as Windows for PC software.
If there is a new way to grade coins that is vastly superior to the current subjective system yes PCGS would be in trouble. Just as people would migrate to the new standard like they abandon old feature phones for smartphones. But just by providing better customer service they would be hard to dislodge as top dog. They know it and they can let it slip.
Not saying I like it when companies give bad service. But unfortunately that's life. :(
I am not going to go in to detail about Kodak... however the whole point was kodak thought they knew the market and ignored what consumers wanted/where world was heading.. hence gone from being the market leader to complete failure in no time....
Lets get back on to the topic. My issue is quality related and not just customer service. Its a problem when your quality of service is dropping and customer service is not there to fix it.... I bought 9 PCGS coins in the last 30 days or so... 6 of them were not updated in the the database.
One secure coin had a picture of the coin pedestal in place of the picture of the coin. So that shows me they have some QA issues .... I love PCGS coins... the reason I collect them is due to the perceived quality that i think i am paying for...if that is droping the brand name will eventually go down... I hope theh will pick up their act...
Quote from: 'markn' pid='57075' dateline='1408051058'Quote from: 'trout' pid='57045' dateline='1408011020'Good on Ya Mate give them heaps, It's not as if the service is cheap.
Jesus I wouldn't mind being paid to look at a coin for 1-2 seconds and pick up $20-$30 a pop per coin :angel:
Very simplistic outlook. Your $30 is paying for tens of thousands of hours of grading experience and graders that look at hundreds and hundreds of coins a day. You may as well apply the same logic to plumbers, electricians, and anyone else who dares to earn more than the average hourly wage.
Correctly speaking your $30 is only paying $10-$15 for the many thousands of hours of experience, the quality slabs, the images, image database, overheads, etc etc. The other $15-$20 is profit as their margins are around 62%.
They can afford to put a little bit of that margin towards keeping the service ticking along like an upmarket service and not a basement slabber.
Quote from: 'nealeffendi' pid='57169' dateline='1408123453'Correctly speaking your $30 is only paying $10-$15 for the many thousands of hours of experience, the quality slabs, the images, image database, overheads, etc etc. The other $15-$20 is profit as their margins are around 62%.
They can afford to put a little bit of that margin towards keeping the service ticking along like an upmarket service and not a basement slabber.
True. True. And True.